What is your organization type and problem solving style?
Manufacturing
Method
Machine
Materials
Man
Service or Merchandising
Process
Process
Process
People
Regardless of business type, all require some form of troubleshooting, process enhancements, or continuous improvement.
Being mindful of the order in which you approach troubleshooting can have a very dramatic effect on the outcome. Employee engagement in the troubleshooting effort shows that the voice of the operators of a process participate in ownership.
This is beneficial for many reasons.
PROs
- Fosters a sense of pride in the outcome.
- Creates buy in for the eventual solution.
- Opens lines of communication via teamwork.
- Can help cascade organization goals down through the business.
- Eases the transition to a value stream management structure.
CONs
- Immediate employees MAY be too close to the point of failure to see the issues.
- If the end result is an employee problem, personal relationships may hinder improvements.
In order to create better employee engagement, always try to approach troubleshooting from a process perspective first. Publicly announce this intention and follow through. If you repeatedly apply the "method before man" path, employee morale, productivity, and pride in ownership will follow.
Employees are the ones performing the work. Making it so that the concept of “Employees are our greatest asset” is a true working mechanism will engage the employees to own the process and create much more value for your customer.
