Use Business Disruption Lulls to Develop Unused Worker Capacity: Build Organizational Value and Off-set Unexpected Costs
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
For those of us who remember the shear terror of recent disruptive events, we remember the deep sense of doom they instilled in employers, workers and their families, and government leaders. We knew that these were not the “business cycles” of college textbooks, these were man-made catastrophes that spared no-one in the disruption…though sometimes enriching the architects. Nevertheless, they came and went – varying only in severity and duration.
Recent horrific business disruptions like the Savings & Loan Crash of 1986, the Black Monday Stock Market Crash of 1987, the Dot.com Crash of 2000, the Crash of 2008 (with scandals like the Penny Stock Market, SBA and HUD and recessions woven in between), made lives harder and transformed businesses for better or worse. If seemed that if a business survived these types of disruptors, it was often because they focused on using the downward part of the cycle to adjust and perfect their operations, build capacity and sharpen focus in preparation of the upward part of the cycle to come. Maintaining as much forward momentum through adversity as possible is critical in determining the quality of the survival, especially when the time between disruptions continues to grow shorter. Lead times, whether for new product introduction, entering a new market or just resuming normal operations is incredibly important if one considers the next disruption as a “backstop.”
click here to expandThe current Covid-19 virus pandemic and the economic disruption that it is causing will, once again, test a company’s strategy, planning, focus, infrastructure and sense of clarity. Did the company plan for disruption? Was there a plan in place to constructively make use of this disruption (that spares no company) to emerge, at a minimum, ready to adapt, resume growth and be competitive again? Or did the company succumb to the disruption through erosion or by whittling away at what worked – giving little time or thought to “what is next when this passes” and “how best to prepare for the new normal?”
One important business asset is often overlooked in this adaptation and preparation. Read More
Put Yourself in a Trainee’s Shoes
by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.
It is fun to watch a popular TV show on CBS called “Undercover Boss, – reruns and all.” Watching a CEO or executive of a major corporation slip into disguise and enter the world of their workers is interesting and entertaining. Sometimes they find the organization needs a little “tweaking,” and sometimes it needs major rethinking.
The entertainment value, I suppose, comes from watching these individuals being tossed into a job classification – alien to most of them – and, while cameras are rolling, receiving a crash coarse in performing various job tasks. Some tasks are performed close to the customer. Not only do leaders get a rare look at what it is like at the lower rungs of the organization, in some cases they get a look at the sub-par performance most of their customers experience and how tenuous the corporation’s existence is – sustained only by the initiative a few loyal, but mostly self-interested, employees. These employees to make up for the corporation’s short-comings as if their job and future depend on it…which they do. If the company fails, they lose their job, plain and simple. Some put up with the company’s shortcomings in pursuit of the next opportunity.
click here to expandIt is interesting to see CEO’s marvel at how difficult it is to learn the job tasks that they previously thought were inconsequential and not worthy of attention. Previously known only as a word on a report, the fact that how the tasks are performed by these neglected employees are the reason the corporation exists goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Some episodes look like the popular television shows of the 50’s and 60’s, “I Love Lucy.”
A typical Undercover Boss episode might reveal: Read More
How Start-Ups and Joint Ventures Can Benefit From Structured On-The-Job Training
by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.
An article in a previous issue of the Proactive Technologies Report entitled “Enterprise Expansion/Contraction and Worker Development Standardization ” explained the process of standardizing training for expanding, contracting, merging and acquiring enterprises. It discussed how to take inventory of incumbents and new-hires in training, and how to standardize multiple worker development strategies. But what about standardizing tasks that are in design, have just been designed or are evolving in their design? Or the importance of this component in creating an enterprise to perform the tasks meant to lead to profit from an innovation? If the goal is the repeatable high-quality performance of tasks once they have been formalized, then standardizing and documenting the procedural steps is necessary, though often an afterthought.
Entrepreneurs and engineers that design and fine-tune a production process or service strategy are immersed in it until they feel confident it is ready for scaling. Whether through “expert bias” – the overconfidence that results with satisfaction in discovery leading to the opinion that everyone should understand their innovation – or through mere oversight, a brilliant idea can fail in proliferation during efforts to transfer the processes and techniques without a formal structure.
click here to expandThe solution is simple. It takes an understanding that a structure to transfer the standardized task from the expert to the task performer is vital to ensuring that all aspects of the innovation are maintained and repeatability of the highest quality of performance is certain.
When standardizing best practices, the process Proactive Technologies follows to establish any task-based, structured on-the-job training program is the same for existing, evolving and newly released production or service processes. Read More
How Much Would “Full Worker Capacity” Through Full Job Mastery Be Worth to Your Firm?
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
According to Ed Timmons, CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, “our labor costs in the U.S. are still 20% too high.” If he means that employers may be paying too much for unused or unusable worker capacity, and they should seek methods to develop it, I can agree with that. If he means employers should focus on spending enormous amounts on finding alternatives to labor, or randomly cutting workers, or asking workers to work for less wages and less benefits, I would say “hold on a minute.”
Given the growing fear and discontent by workers who still haven’t recovered from the Crash of 2008, now knocked down with the Covid-19 pandemic, workers may want a seat at the discussion. These workers will be trying for some time to, once again, regain value in their 401K and other impacted assets and to rise to the wage level they once had for the talents they possess. Many have the perception, wrongly or rightly, that their employer and their shareholders built great profits while workers slid backward. Many families, today, are challenged by rising prices of nearly everything.against eroding wages. This preoccupation with driving down labor costs, while reporting to Wall Street record quarterly profits, may benefit shareholders in the short-run, but it is surely illusionary and self-destructive in the long-run as the Crash of 2008 should have demonstrated, but the Covid-19 pandemic might remind.
click here to expandAs recently reported in Industry Week, a group of CEOs from major U.S. corporations, The Business Roundtable, released a statement saying that shareholder value is no longer its primary focus – shifting their practices to line up with their new definition of the “purpose of a corporation.” The new vision emphasizes investing in employees, supporting communities, dealing ethically with suppliers and providing customers with value. “The group signed the Business Roundtable’s new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation. It’s a sea change that moves companies away from the age-old philosophy that companies’ main goal is to look after shareholders.” Read More
Read the full April, 2020 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.
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