Transforming employees from doers into problems solvers
“To Err is Human.” That statement is known and appreciated by quality, production and safety managers. That we all make mistakes is certainly nothing new. Operational failures occur across all industries but the impact of errors can vary greatly between industries and companies. The healthcare industry has perhaps the best known impact of errors. Medical errors resulting in patient injury or death are quite costly. The Institute of Medicine published are report back in 2000 (To Err is Human) that stated these errors cost the industry between $9-$15 billion a year. No doubt those costs have increased since then.
The obvious question companies need to ask themselves when it comes to these human errors is how to prevent it. The less obvious question that should go along with it is how to companies get their employees to be the problem solvers. After incidents occur it is common for companies to launch a campaign to highlight the incident and get employees’ attention. Campaigns can be as general such as “Safety First” or “No Defective Parts Are Shipped Out” to more detailed, “Always Remember Bed Alarms” (for hospitals/long term care).
At first these campaigns are great for getting employees to increase their focus and engagement on the problem. But one must remember that not only do human factors contribute to errors but also to people “shutting off” from such campaigns. Employers must be cognizant not to overuse campaigns, whether for the United Way or for preventing errors/injuries due to the fact that employees will tune out frequent campaigns or just as easily a single prolonged campaigned.
Effective Use of Incident Reporting Systems
Incident reporting systems are commonplace throughout all industries. The purpose is to not only report what happened but to gather details that lead to the incident in order to learn from the mistakes and lead to improved quality and safety results. In other words, the incident reporting system is an essential component of process improvement. The effectiveness of any incident reporting system relies on the information provided by employees. Read that sentence again. Did you catch the two things this implies? The first is participation by employees, i.e. “speaking up” when they encounter problems. The second is the information given by them. If it isn’t accurate or complete, i.e. “Garbage In”, then the result will be ineffective process improvement, i.e. “Garbage Out”. Employers receive greater value when employees speak up constructively by not only reporting the problem but also offering suggestions that facilitate process improvement.
What Employers Can Do To Encourage Employees
Employers need to have managers who are skilled at engaging and encouraging employees to speak up about problems and offer ideas on solutions. Harvard released a white paper, “Speaking Up Constructively: Managerial Practices that Elicit Solutions from Front-Line Employees” which addressed this very issue. The researchers analyzed data on close to 7,500 incidents from a single hospital to determine whether two types of managerial actions increase the frequency with which employees speak up by reporting incidents and by including constructive solutions in their incident reports.
First, the results of patient-safety information campaigns: Such campaigns increased the frequency of frontline workers’ speaking up following an incident by 5 percent, the researchers learned. However, when it comes to sharing a solution to the problem, the campaigns had a much larger effect, nearly tripling the frequency with which frontline workers suggested a solution to the problem. Second, the units in which managers “practiced what they preached” by actively engaging in problem solving saw substantial increases in the frequency with which staff reported solutions when they filed incident reports. According to the report, when managers were more proactive in responding to incident reports, there was a greater likelihood that staff would share their suggestions and actions were taken to resolve the underlying problem.
So, what can we take away from this report? In my opinion the key to getting employees to be problem solvers, i.e. process improvement initiators, is to have a company culture and frontline managers who are transparent in all processes and ask for, give serious consideration to and act on employee suggestions. By doing this frontline employees turn from “doers” to problem solvers.