employee engagement

The good ‘ol “Suggestion” Box—hang it on the wall with slips of paper and let employees give ideas.  How well has that worked out—for the company?

Lean and Ergonomics Systems are approaches to management and leadership that engages the ideas brought by all employees to help organizations optimize their work systems, learn faster and create more value. We can describe each in terms of a mindset and a set of practices.  Both mindsets view employees as valuable learners and contributors with emphasis on taking ownership and leadership by teaching and continuous problem solving. 

In a word, YES!  Involving shop floor employees is very important to the success of your ergonomics process.  It is well known that if employees are given the opportunity to participate in making decisions that affect their job, they become more actively involved in the work that they do.  Getting employees engaged in their job provides four main benefits:

In part 1, I started to answer the question received about what can be done to convince employees that the new safety program is truly valued at a company.  In part 2, I will share suggestions on what you need to do in order for you to lead safety.

Everyone is talking about benefits of employee engagement and having employees participate in their jobs and how the work gets done.  Well run and successful ergonomics, lean, process improvement and wellness programs have a firm foundation in engaged employees.  But don’t you think employee engagement is over-rated?  Why on earth would companies want their employees to be engaged?

In part 1 we looked at current business disciplines, their associated strengths and weaknesses and the reason for why a new strategy and approach is need for proactively and reactively solving productivity, efficiency and safety issues.  In part 2 we are going to explore the power of L.E.S.S. ™

 The Power of L.E.S.S. ™

The last two blogs have focused on why employees, despite knowing policies and processes and even paying attention to them most of the time still consciously choose to take risks.  The next question that should be considered looks at the flip side, “Why companies/CEOs/directors/managers, even if there’s great evidence that safety solutions are cost effective, will lead to more productivity and profitability, consciously decide to ignore those solutions and continue to permit risky situations?”

“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 in

Productivity and efficiency—two buzz words that are talked about and heard continually from large to small businesses.  Why?  The productivity and efficiency of people and operations can make or break a business.  Unfortunately we can’t snap our fingers and make high productivity happen all by itself.  However, significant improvements are common when you apply the right principles, guidelines and tools to your business systems and processes.