How do you support team members feeling overwhelmed by changes in manufacturing processes?

It’s common for organizations, especially long-standing ones, to face over-scoped projects. Often operating from a crisis mindset, they rarely have the chance to pause and strategize around competitive funding. This leads to over-scoping, understaffing, and eventual burnout. Leaders must prioritize evaluation to understand the situation, foster transparency to build trust, and model accountability, particularly when overhead dysfunction trickles down. Recognizing when employees are overwhelmed is crucial; leaders must provide support, craft action plans, and ensure everyone sees a clear path forward. Unity and visible action are key—everyone needs to know we’re in this together.

Este aspecto es sin duda, imprescindible, sin embargo no solo será la escucha activa, la participación de los trabajadores de producción es altamente necesaria en diferentes escenarios, por ejemplo: crear grupos donde puedan también reinventar y ser aporte a las ideas en producción es parte de Desing Thinking e innovación en la producción ?? ??

Employee development and training cannot stop, it must be a priority that is continually observed. Employees at all levels should be involved, especially those closest to the process, who have the most value-added perspective. Creating training for a process that is not fully understood by the training team is a recipe for disaster, it often can leave out important aspects and considerations.

Changes will come with resistance and it's there with humanity is what I believe, and this "myth" is always proved wrong with the right interventions at the right time to the right people. Preparing a dynamic team or workforce towards the objective or to the "Strategic Indent" is very important in the phases of introducing changes. These preparations include inspiring through innovative solutions which support operatives, promoting creativity at the workplace through development of visual controls, non stop communications for the change, collaborative workspace, supporting Kaizen development, etc. It's not just making them understand the purpose of change that is introduced, but preparing them for adaptation is what matters.

Not everyone is happy about change; this is often a hindrance for some workers. Creating an environment that is adaptive and supportive of change and how it affects everyone can provide a higher likelihood of success. Ongoing development of employees is key to supporting this mindset. Having employees who have overcome this challenge mentor other employees, creates a path for buy-in and support for future changes and challenges.

A supportive environment can drive a stronger culture from the top down; this will show employees that you care and are vested in their success. Trying to drive support and change from the bottom up will never lead to substantial changes; it creates more of a demand for change rather than a show of top-down support and a strong example of leadership commitment and support.

This is a key element in any change management - manufacturing or otherwise. In my current role at Citibank, I have come to appreciate importance of clear and timely communication at a heighted level. It's a global bank and work gets defined and distributed through many levels. When communication is good, the synchronization and harmony is energizing, when not, it takes a toll on all involved, specially for those at the bottom of the totem pole. Clear communication is needed before the change process starts to state what and why, during the change process to orchestrate it and after to provide support. People need to know exactly where to go when they have a question or need information at any stage.

The communication package must include how the changes will affect them, what might be difficult or uncomfortable and how long we expect these difficulties to be pronounced or quite noticeable. This sends a strong message that we thought through the implementation and empathize with those who will be affected.

It's important to keep in mind that change takes time. It's helpful to give employees a transition period to learn and adapt to new processes without feeling the pressure to perform at a high level right away. Additionally, it's a good idea to introduce changes in smaller, more manageable steps rather than all at once. This can help reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed and make the transition smoother for everyone involved.