Framework for bringing synergy among people in small, emerging organization

When we complete 12 months transformation intervention with small, emerging organization, the foremost question asked by the business head is " How can we sustain the improvements going forward?

The answer lies in establishing the daily management process in the organization at each level viz CEO& Senior leadership level, Middle-level management team, and operating level. Once if we implemented the system across all levels and executed on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, it creates an opportunity to build the organization as agile and vibrant.

also, it improves the engagement level of people with the organizational objectives, and this creates an opportunity for each individual to bring out the potential.

Target / Agenda / KPI's

In any level, what we measure, that gets focussed and get improved. We need performance metrics for individual/functions and the overall business as such. Measurement drives people behavior.

Right People / Cross functional Team

We need to identify the right people and place them in the right position. That itself solves most of the organizational problem. sometimes to solve the business challenges, we need a cross-functional team

Review forum / Communication 

We need to establish review forums to discuss the challenges. Status and facilitate the team towards the solution. Meeting or review forum is an excellent place to facilitate the solutions.

also, we need to establish different communication process like Management information system/groups for sharing and updating the live information.

when the organization sets the above process and does the cycle more frequently and effectively, the concerns on sustainability, people engagement, speed of response can be addressed.

Importance of Manpower Planning during Growth phase

Like any other planning is being done in functions like marketing, sales, finance, and material, equal importance has to be given on MANPOWER PLANNING  particularly during the growth phase. Else, it would affect the organization growth badly. Having Right people in Right place at Right Time is critical for accelerating the growth.

The execution calls for detailed planning of manpower on the following aspects.

1. No of people required
2. Level of people required regarding skill and positions 
3. Compensation and Budgeting 
4. Recruitment methodology either dependence on the internal source or external support
5. Org structure, the communication process 
6. Infrastructure and facilities for increased manpower 


The typical problem with manpower  in small and medium-sized organizations are

1. Non-availability of right people 
2. Mismatch of manpower requirement vs. availability
3. High attrition rate 
4. Engagement of people towards organizational objectives

Typical mistakes the business head is doing in manpower planning during the GROWTH  stage 

1. Lack of forwarding thinking on manpower planning process:

it means the lack of thought process on the quantitive projection of manpower requirement, qualification, skill level, and how they would be positioned in the existing organizational structure and engagement plan.

2. Adhoc recruitment 

It means either compromising on the talent or fitting the people to the position rather than need. sometimes organizations recruit the people based on some reference either from relatives or friends or association, and they may not be fit into job requirements

3. Non-checking on the cultural fit :

Not verifying during selection  about the candidate's suitability to the organizational culture and values


. So when we are not planning the manpower properly in advance, the organization will lead to chaos or cost overrun on manpower budgeting. 

When Manpower planning has to be done for the organization?

Manpower planning is immensely required during the following scenario

1. Plant expansion
2. Drastic Increase in volume and variety 
3. New product  / new business lines getting added 

Benefits of manpower planning 

to plan budget/manpower cost in each category
to determine the job description/type of talent, you look for
to recruitment timely and induct
to focus more on external priorities than managing internal manpower problems.

So the point is manpower planning is one of the essential tactical activities of the organization, and  it is a continuous activity to ensure operational effectiveness and growth.

Importance of daily routine management towards sustainable performance

One of the common phrases we use to hear in most of the discussion in the organization is daily routine management.

Let us understand the meaning of the term and its significance on sustainable performance in the organization, especially in small, emerging organization.

Some of the myths of daily routine management:

"It is all about roles and responsibility as described in the job description."

Even though daily routine management is a responsibility of all individual in the organization, it goes beyond as mentioned in the job description. From my experience with small, emerging organization, the job description is written with the mix of activities and accountability.

However , Daily routine management is nothing but how you are consistently managing your daily routines so that you ensure your organizational performance is on track against the target. 

The context is if you are not active on a daily basis, you cannot be successful in your weekly results. If you are not effective in your weekly commitments, you cannot be successful in your monthly results and so on quarterly, half-yearly and annually.

"It is required only for shopfloor people and not for management level"

Daily routine management is a management practice, and it is required for all the levels.

For instance, if you are a shop floor manager, you suppose to do some of the activities on a daily basis irrespective of your other priorities. For example, the activities like reviewing your previous day production against the target, quality issues, customer complaints, communicating with other functions through MIS or meeting forums at a fixed time are the daily routines.

If you miss it for one day or do it in ad-hoc frequency, you may have the consequences regarding losing targets. For example, if you do not review your production status on a daily basis and ensure you are matching with asking and running rate, you may have relatively less response time to catch up or to take timely counteractions.

If you do not monitor the progress on a daily basis, you don't know the reality and cannot take timely corrective action.

In fact, daily routine management is based on the P-D-C-A cycle.

Similarly as a business head, if your daily routine activities are maintaining relationship with customers and employees, reviewing the financial aspects, reviewing the strategy implementation aspects and so on and if you are consistently doing those activities on a fixed, short intervals, you may face the consequence on the performance failure in any of those critical areas.

Benefits of daily routine management across all levels

1.Improves certainty and communication among team members

2. More response time available to take corrective action in case performance slips

3. It drives organization towards performance-based culture and engagement

4. More importantly, it improves personal efficiency and effectiveness

As any habit formation, initially it would be challenging to follow disciplined, structured daily routine management, but once it is formed, the organization is capable of handling any changes from external as well as internal environment.

In my opinion, more than management processes, daily routine management is culture building towards performance!

How to select the right candidate for your organization?

One of the challenges for most of the small, emerging organization is selecting the right candidate for the job and retaining in the organization. There could be many factors contributing to retaining the people, and we discuss in another forum. However, one of the typical scenario we are witnessing in most of the organization is that within a short time, say 1-3 months time, the business head and the incumbent conclude either person is not fit for the job, or the organization is not fit for the new incumbent. This scenario is more common in senior level recruitment.

A strange fact is that the business head had personally involved in shortlisting, interviewed the candidate and inducted for employment. If either one of them concludes " this is not fit for me," we can arrive a logical conclusion that " selection process needs to be improved".

Typical mistakes the business head do during the selection process?

1. On an ad-hoc basis, decide the requirement for manpower 
2. No job description or role clarity/ responsibility/accountability defined before shortlisting the candidate even though there is macro level articulation on the need.
3. Conducting the interview process  with the intent of understanding more about the  candidate's previous experience and not on verifying or calibrating his caliber is matching with the organization's prevailing business practices or the culture
4. No structured questioning to check the attitude/perspective of the candidate to solve the existing organizational challenges or issues
5. Sometimes, selecting the candidate based on the reference from a known circle or filling the position with " somewhat" fit candidates.

Impact of the poor selection process:

1. Attrition rate becomes high, and it affects the stability of the organization.

2. Business head spends his time in routine work which affects his productivity and other aspects of profitability and growth
3. Cost of recruitment keeps increasing with no return benefits.

4. The organization which has grown with old, loyal employees, the high attrition rate signals different communication among employee. Eventually lead to complacent mentality, arrogance, know it all attitude which affects speed and flexibility towards change 

5. Sustaining organization development and gearing up for next level growth with a professional mix of people will become a major challenge for the organization.

Solutions approach to improving the selection process:

As a business head, before filling and selecting the candidate, you need to be clear on the job description as follows

• Position description
• Age, Experience, and qualification
• what level of competency(Job Knowledge and Skills) you are looking for 
• what is your organizational culture and how would you like to check during the interview
• your affordable pay and structure
• Likely growth path to the incumbent and likely changes in the existing organization structure

Once you are clear on your expectation, circulate the job description to professional recruiters and get the potential candidates.

Scan through the potential people and shortlist a  few who fit into the above requirements.

During Interviewing the candidate:

Look for the attitude which is required for the position or title. Attitude can be tested by asking the following question and look at the response from the candidate.

1. Experience in handling people dynamics and his style of managing the challenges 

2. State some of your organizational scenario or challenges and ask how he would respond in those scenarios.

The quick or momentary response, to some extent, will reflect the person's natural attitude towards work and people as this help you to gauge the suitability of the person to your organization.

Also, You need to note that you are recruiting senior level people to bring a change and sustain the business growth. Hence be balance in your approach to select the person with a track record of change management and fit into your culture.

Since we are dealing with human dynamics, it is challenging to gauge people's capability and attitude in the interview time. However, having a systematic process and improving your interviewing skill will improve the probability of choosing a right people for the organization as it helps both you and the others!

Relevance of Target setting & Review forums on accelerating business performance

One of the management process to control the business performance is to set the business target and review those targets.

when the organization grows from small to large, complexity also gets grow faster than business growth thanks to more customers, more products, more people and so on. Communication also gets complicated among all the stakeholders.
To overcome the complexity and bring accountability, setting the target and review those targets becomes important.

The targets could be Business targets, Functional Targets, and Individual Targets. The targets can be termed as Key Performance Indicators (KPI's)

Depending on the size of the organization and bandwidth to administer the performance management system, the business head can set the target in the following hierarcy

1. Business Key performance indicators 
2. Functional Key performance indicators
3. People Key performance indicators

From our experience, it would be a right approach, to begin with, Business Key performance indicators covering all functional deliverables in terms of the following categories

• Productivity
• Quality
• Cost 
• Delivery
• People engagement

The business head can set the annual target on the above categories as it covers all functions.

for example, "Manufacturing cost per component" is one of the key performance indicators under the category of "Cost".To achieve this KPI target, all functions have to contribute, by the way, business level KPI target setting covers all functions.

Once the organiztion becomes familiar with target setting at a business level and acquires competency, it can go to the next level of target setting at a functional level and individual level.

The business level KPI's can be set for annual basis which can be tracked every month , every week and every day.

Benefits of Setting Business Targets (KPI's)

1. Business heads and the team get clarity what they want to achieve on business profitability and growth
2. Targets set the direction to the team
3. Brings the people together
4. Improves the focus of the team
5. Improves the communication among team

Review forums :

once the business KPI's are in place, it is the responsibility of the business head to create a review forums to review/discuss the target status along with cross-functional team members and take a counteraction if it is required.

The review forum is nothing but a meeting of a relevant cross-functional team with fixed agenda.

The review forum could be monthly KPI review meeting, weekly reviews or daily performance review.

Benefits of Review forums:

1. Review forum is excellent process to review the target status and take counteractions
2. when the review happens along with cross-functional team members, it brings accountability to all
3. Review forums brings the problem to surface and can be solved along with the team quickly rather than individual review
4. Since each cross functional team member involving and contributing to different KPI's in different roles either as lead or team member, the review forum helps the team to know each other's problem . It helps to bring the bond among the members
5.Review forums if conducted properly with a real problem-solving approach, it enhances the personal productivity of each individual.

When the targets are clear and the teams are facilitated for achieving the targets through review forums, eventually organization sets for performance management culture and it would accelerate the business performance!

How does Project Management apply to New Product development?

As discussed in Typical problems in new product development in a manufacturing environment, we have observed some patterns of challenges. Project management is all about the application of different management knowledge, skill, tools, and techniques in each phase of the projects.

Hence, the following principles of project management can be applied in new product development also.

Some of the principles are given below

1. Starting the project with END GOAL in mind
2. Involving all stakeholders at an early stage
3. Define project scope with a set of key performance indicators
4. Tracking Key Performance Indicators throughout the project phase
5. Defining the phases or steps in the project 
6. Proactive risk assessment and mitigation plan
7. Review and communication process
8. Active Change Management Practices
9. Engaging people with team/leader structure

Those principles can be applied in new product development as well.

Factors affecting people productivity in workplace

One of the concerned area in a workplace to improve the manpower productivity. Given the situation, automation or use of robotics is limited, how to improve the workplace ergonomics, thereby improving the manpower productivity?.

The following factors contribute to fatigue to the people. By optimizing either one or all of the factors will improve the productivity.

1.Person and his/ her posture
2.Type of work being done 
3.Tool being used by the person to do the work
4.Work Environment in which the work is being done

Importance of Visual Management System in improving Workplace Effectiveness

As discussed in the change-environment-and-trigger-positive behaviour   Visual Management  System is one of the enablers to improve the workplace effectiveness and positive culture in the organization.

let us understand, what does it mean visual management and its components, application, and examples

What is visual management System?

Visual management is a concept of making the workplace more effective by making the condition or reality of workplace more obvious at a glance.

It exposes the waste or abnormality in the system so that waste or abnormality can be corrected or reduced instantly. 

It is not merely putting posters as a one-time effort, and it is a dynamic activity 

Components of visual management system:

It consists of 

1.Visual Displays
2.Visual Metrics
3.Visual Control

Visual displays :

Basically, it consists of labels, identification, instruction posters, displaying information.

It creates awareness or for educating the user about the place/ equipment/ process/facilities 

It can be in TEXT or in COLOURS to indicate relevant information to the user

Examples

Visual  Metrics :


Visual Metrics is one of the visual management systems in which emphasis would be more on to give information about Standard  Vs. Actual.

The purpose is to show 

the variance  or gap between standard vs. reality at a glance


This visual metrics brings down the subjectivity of the people on the information and also trigger the people to take action if there is variance between standard and actual.

Examples

Visual  Control :

Visual control is meant for creating error proof environment by adhering to the right way of doing the things

Examples

How to apply Visual Management System in the workplace?

As visual management system is a creative process and there is no end for improvements ideas. The more you bring your workplace with the visual management system, more transparent, higher the clarity among the team. It increases the engagement of the people.

However, we bring focus on the implementing visual management  effort  through the following steps

1. Identify the area where you would like to improve the visual management system
2. understand the problem in the selected area and decide what you would like to solve 
3. understand your audience or people background in the area and accordingly decide what components of visual management is required. Like visual display. Visual metrics or visual control.
4. Implement and make it dynamic in a sense, it needs to be updated periodically.
5. It would be more engaged, if the people involved in the work area, update the visual management.


As mentioned, Visual Management system is one of the simple, powerful, creative concepts that make people engaged towards continuous waste elimination or reduction in the workplace!

Build an Environment and Process for Employee Engagement

One of the most fundamental reasons for a consistent growth organization is people and how they are engaging themselves toward the organizational goal. Developing people and bringing them together is the primary responsibility of the CEO or head of the organization.

Bringing the “emotional connection within” is a challenging task, but is possible with two factors. One is creating a positive environment in the organization and the second is establishing a structured, consistent process.

The environmental factor consists of providing basic amenities to the employees, visual management, and housekeeping through daily management. A positive environment triggers a positive behavior, action, and results among the employees.

The structured, consistent process includes identifying the engagement methodology for different levels of peoples, defining the administration of engagement initiatives, rewards, recognition plan, etc.

Given in the following text is the framework of employee engagement initiatives for different levels.

How to develop employee engagement culture in SME organizations?

Employee engagement culture can be understood by the way all the employees involve themselves on an organizational day to day processes, interaction with each other, to customers and other stakeholders, continuously improving the technical, functional, managerial process and continuously contributing to the organizational objectives like profitability, growth. In an engaged culture, the focus of the organization would be on "solutions" rather than on the problems, fixing people, complaining and firefighting mode of working.

Bringing the people together towards a single goal and working together is a real challenge in most of the small, emerging medium size organizations and it requires the sustained commitment and hard work from the head of the organization as well as from the team.

In some organization, as long as they are small, engagement is positive under the close supervision or interaction of the business head. When the organization grows big, the employee engagement becomes complex as increased size of people, the quantum of interaction and communication, different priorities make the engagement as a challenge.

Even then the employee engagement challenge can be managed with a long-term focus, driven by top management, well-defined process, and consistency in execution.This execution must be visible in day to day management, in the quality of interaction between all the stakeholders.

To bring the employee engagement, business head or leadership team must inculcate the fundamental principles in place as follows

1.Respect the individual and accept the diversity
2. Treating people as ASSETS rather than COMMODITY
3.Differentiate performer and non-performer
4.Learning and development as lifelong process


Factors facilitate the employee engagement

There are many factors affecting the engagement irrespective of product lines, business nature; those factors can be categorized into two factors namely

1.Physical Environment inside the organization

2.Structured Management Process & Consistency in Execution

The importance of physical environment on employee engagement 

Environment triggers the positive or negative behavior in people and in- turn as action.When the environment is conducive, it will trigger positive, learning behavior whereas if the environment is not conducive, it triggers only negative, low-level activity among the people.

For example, when we visit a temple or library, our behaviors to silent are different than when we visit a local vegetable market.The environment triggers our behavior, in turn, our actions.

Similarly, some of the physical environmental factors inside the organization drive positive behavior and actions like

1.Uniform that promotes equality among employees

2. Basic amenities like washrooms, drinking water facilities

3. Good ventilation and lightings

3. Facilities for eating foods

5.Good housekeeping and safety layouts

6.Visuals promoting positive thinking and teamwork

The list looks like soft issues or infrastructure and those are all considered as expenses.However, their presence makes an invisible impact on the behavior and actions of the people as we have witnessed in many organizations.

The importance of structured management process & consistency in execution:

In some organizations, we are witnessing that employee engagement programmes are initiated with great enthusiasm by having inauguration event, motivational lectures, and celebrations, etc. However, over a period, the momentum fades. The reason could be the process of administrating the engagement process, engagement framework, assigning responsibility, consistent recognition methods and events are not being thought out and articulated.

Some of the management process that enables employee engagement in a consistent manner

1. Setting the targets for the organization/ functions/ cells

2. Clear Communication to the team

3. Expectation set and articulated

4. Periodic review forums to see the progress

5. Recognizing the talent and visibility of the improvements 

6. Standard operating procedure with details on communication, engagement process, rewarding and recognizing methodology and people responsibility.

Since the organization consists of people from different educational / work experience and different motivational needs, different engagement programmes must be created to cater to different levels and needs.

The general framework for employee engagement programmes/initiatives for different levels of people inside the organization is given below




As said, Engaging the people towards organizational objectives and working towards solutions and growth requires a long time focus and commitment from senior leadership team and all employees. This is a difficult process, but once you establish and sustain the positive engagement culture, your organization will survive any external challenges.The positive, winning mindset culture will become a competitive edge and can not be copied by anyone.Are you ready to invest your time, energy on the long-term asset building?