How Applying the Brakes Can Help You Move Faster

Excessive downtime may be costing you an incredible amount of time and money. As your company grows, there are more demands on your management and employees to keep up with that growth. Some processes may end up overlooked and new hires might not be made aware of the process in their entirety.

A manufacturing company using massive industrial drying machines (machines the size of a small house) discovered how much time and money was lost in downtime during the sanitization of the dryers. The dryers took nearly an hour to come to a complete stop on their own.

When asked about shortening the time and stopping the dryers more quickly, the operators indicated that would require using the brakes. Using the brakes… What a statement! Can you imagine the puzzled looks that received? If you need to come to a fast stop in your car, why wouldn’t you use the brakes?

Are there people in your company not using the brakes? When is the last time you investigated that? In this case, the brakes had not been used for 10 years and were no longer operational, costing the company millions of dollars in downtime. One industrial dryer didn’t have any brake pads, and one was leaking brake fluid due to the lines being dry-rotted.

Business leaders are often not aware of what is happening in their processes as the company grows. They rely on everyone else to follow the processes that had been put in place prior to the growth. Engagement and problem-solving skills start to become stretched thin. Communication starts to become hindered with people starting to fear perceived repercussions when addressing issues and concerns.

Growth Can Stretch Processes and People Thin

As a company grows, business leaders get involved in other aspects of the company because the company itself becomes more complex with more moving parts. More people are hired to keep up with demands. Business leaders tend to assume that the processes will not be affected and that everyone will be properly and thoroughly trained.

What happens when employees feel the pressure of growth and keep up with the demands of customers and clients? Training times tend to become shortened to get people working more quickly.

Managers and employees may start feeling the pressure and set aside certain process steps, believing it will get the same result in a shorter amount of time. Engagement and communication become stretched thin. Eventually, these factors impact problem-solving and decision-making.

Empower People and Analyze Processes

Effective Performance Strategies ?help organizations see where the processes are breaking down. Sometimes, it really does come down to stepping back and assessing the bigger picture with an outside perspective.

EPS can help your company enhance engagement with workshops that show how important every person is in the processes of your company. People become more engaged when it is realized that they all play a vital role in your company's processes.

Engaging employees and opening communication empower them to solve problems and make decisions that will enhance the processes to create greater success during growth.

Maintain the Brakes

If the brakes had been maintained on the industrial dryers, the manufacturing company would not have seen that engagement and communication were starting to feel the effects of growth. When people stop seeing their importance in the overall process, they can become discouraged, disconnected, and disengaged.

Those factors will negatively impact communication, which is vital to success and should be free of consequences. Downtime, in this case how long it took for the industrial dryer to come to a full stop on its own, costs every company time and money.

It helps people to understand their roles throughout the entire process of the company, and the sequence of steps for success. This empowers and enables people to communicate more effectively about problems with the process as they happen and become better problem-solvers. Sometimes, we need to step back and really assess the big picture to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.

Let the experts help!

Contact?Effective Performance Strategies ?today to get you on your way to a more effective and efficient company during your company’s growth by minimizing downtime.