human capital management

From a leadership perspective we, at Ledet Enterprises, think it is important to provide proper rewards and recognition to succeed at improving organizational performance. However, we think different rewards are important in the different domains. Strangely enough, it appears that the Reactive domain has the rewards built into the work itself. When equipment breaks or won't do the job, there is a lot of satisfaction derived from the act of restoring the functionality of the equipment. There is overtime for the hourly employees who are needed to take the equipment down, restore the functionality, and get it running again. These are the typical "overtime heroes" who wrestle with the equipment and get "pats on the back" from everyone because they were able to repair the equipment and get it running again. There is innate value in restoring equipment to serve the purpose it was intended to serve. The problem with this mode of behavior is that it has many hazards associated with it. The most obvious ones being the risk of hurting people and the environment because of the chaotic way things happen in the reactive mode. While this chaos is stimulating and creates some excitement in life, it can easily become overwhelming for employees. This basic mode of operation is a fight between the equipment and people to see who will win or lose with the equipment taking the initiative.

What is the weakest, most unreliable, least dependable part of any system or process? If you said the human that is operating it or maintaining it, you would be correct. Human Factors is a buzz word in industry these days, but it has been around in the airline world for a long while now. We have special classes on Human Factors - how to recognize them, and how to defend against them. It is something that we take quite seriously, and perhaps you should also.

In the thirteen years we have offered The Manufacturing Game to over 32,000 participants, I have always marveled at the accomplishments of small cross functional teams and wondered what determines the great results they achieve. I have often sat with teams as they attempted to come up with a plan to eliminate a defect they identified as their target. From the rational point of view of an engineer, it appears that they will never arrive at a solution. Then someone comes up with an insight that immediately resolves the problem; the plan to eliminate that defect is then completed via some simple action or actions. Where did that come from? This is the phenomenon that we recognize as the magic in cross functional teams. But how does it come about?

Many times, maintenance professionals have been involved in changes to processes or systems where they have relied on seat of the pants knowledge to determine whether or not they were successful. More often than not, the initiative flounders once their attention has been turned to other endeavors.

Someone once told me to avoid problems in life you had to have a friend who was a lawyer, a friend who was an accountant, and a friend who was a doctor. This would help keep you out of jail, out of debt, and out of the grave. As I moved into a maintenance manager's position these same basic principles applied. To have a successful maintenance program, you need to cultivate friendships with a human relations (HR) manager, an accountant, and a maintenance engineer.

Excerpted from Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A User's Guide by Stephen J. Thomas (Courtesy of Industrial Press) 

Several years ago, I was part of a program to introduce the concept of "quality" into our plant. For a very large fee, we hired a consultant to work with us and make our "quality process" a success. Site management imposed ground rules on the project team, most of which (in retrospect) set us up for failure. The program had a kick-off date less than three months from the time it was introduced to management. With such a tight timeframe, there was inadequate time to prepare for the meetings that were an integral part of the process. To make matters worse, the meetings were to be mandatory for everyone. The official message was, "meetings are mandatory, participation is voluntary."