Whenever things go wrong within a company it seems there’s always someone or group of individuals who can’t wait to assign the blame. As a consultant I hear from company leaders (owners, operations/HR/safety directors, etc.) of problems that have occurred and who was to blame for the problem. Likewise, I’ve read articles that focus on a problem and point the finger at a person or specific industry group for causing the issue. The question that immediately comes to my mind is “Are you sure you correctly assigned that blame?” Let me share with you a couple examples where the assigned blame wasn’t correct—as least in my opinion.
Who’s To Blame? – Careless Workers, Employer, or Insurance Carrier or? (Workers’ Comp Point of View)
This first example involves the article published recently by ProPublica and NPR called the “The Demolition of Workers’ Compensation”. I read the article with great interest because of my experience and background in helping companies with injury issues. This report really created a brouhaha from nearly group involved in workers’ compensation and lawmakers across the country. The article placed the blame for the reduction in compensation to injured workers on the insurance carriers, pro-industry lobby groups and lawmakers. To me, the article completely missed the root cause of the issue. The authors’ issue was with less money going to injured workers. If they did a proper root cause analysis they would have either ended up with what I typically see as the true root cause of employee injuries—it’s a process and management issue. The injured workers who were profiled in the article suffered serious, life-long injuries—that never should have happened had proper work processes been in place and followed.
Companies that have huge work problems are ones that for the most part of ignorant about assessing risk and designing the work process to prevent injuries. They pay for work comp insurance and then get mad when employees get hurt and their costs go up because of they have done nothing internally to manage risk and injuries. Not only don’t they try to be proactive, they also don’t do anything reactively. They leave the claim to the insurance carrier and their broker and complain when the costs go up. Getting to the root of the problem, finding the risk and cost drivers, and fixing the issues are what they need to do. (This is true of any process, not only workers’ compensation!).
Who’s To Blame? – Lazy Workers, Lackadaisical Supervisors or Senior Leaders or? (Too Much Wasted Time Point of View)
This second example involves a conversation I had at a business function in which a manufacturing plant president was explaining and complaining about the needless and excessive time his plant production workers were spending discussing and planning out how to do a job with the engineering department instead of just going ahead with the job as the engineers designed it. He stated he was doing all he could do to beak the “bad habits” in which the production workers would review and modify the engineering plans with the engineers. This added additional, non-value added time to every job. A couple months back he introduced new policies and procedures that should’ve/would’ve streamline the production process and therefore increase capacity by having the production workers do the plan and not ask questions. Unfortunately, the production workers weren’t following the new policy and he was blaming them for their “unwillingness to work”.
After he was done telling his story I asked if prior to making those new policies and procedures if he got input from the production workers on what issues they were routinely talking to the engineers about, after all, if the engineers plans are always being modified there must be some disconnect between how the engineers think the work should get done and the way the production workers actually execute the work. In addition, I asked if assigned someone to manage and monitor the new policies/procedures to address things that were missed or need to be improved. Unfortunately, the answers to both questions were basically no. Minimal input was asked and included from the production workers, neither group was asked what modifications were typically made to the engineering plans and no one was assigned to monitor, evaluate and improve the “new, efficient” process. So, who’s really to blame? The production workers for not working as prescribed or the process that had several holes and gaps?
3 Lessons to be Learned
1. Both examples show clearly that assigning blame is easy, assigning blame correctly is hard and often points at a direction one doesn’t want to admit.
2. Getting to the root of the problem, finding the risk and cost drivers, and fixing the issues are necessary to resolve the issue. Assigning blame is pointless, doesn’t resolve the situation and helps no one.
3. If you don’t manage and monitor the process, it will not work well. This true of any issues related to processes that produce outcomes, i.e. everything!
This first step is to assess the problem in your company. Don’t look at your industry in general or compare to another company. Get a mirror out and take a very close look. Most likely you will find yourself looking at the problem.
Need a set of fresh eyes to look at and assess the problems facing your company? Give us a call, 612.454.1432 or email, info@kelbyergodesign.com
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