You Can’t Make Suds Without Water

When was the last time your company reviewed its processes? Do you know if time and money are wasted on processes that have changed with the times? Is there conflict and frustration among employees that are being told to take ownership of the process, yet their improvement ideas are rejected?

Ignoring new perspectives and ideas can cost your company excessive time and money and cause conflict and frustration for employees. This lowers morale and engagement among employees, possibly causing the company to lose amazing talent. Sometimes companies get stuck in the ‘this is how it’s always been done mentality, opting for the status quo over change.

Rubbing dry soap on your hands does not clean your hands. When you add a new ingredient, in this case, water, you can create the suds needed to clean your hands properly. Sometimes, all that is needed is that new perspective to generate improvement ideas.

Following the Same Old Routine

An international company that boasted about sustainability in its mission was constantly updating manuals and processes to create its sustainable products. The old manuals would be emailed to a branch for reorganizing and dissemination. This branch had a set process for this that required a large amount of space:

• Receive publications via fax, mail, and/or email
• Print out all documents
• Sort documents on a large conference table
• Reorganize and create a new document
• Fax, scan, mail, and/or email new documents out

The documentation branch was required to have a room large enough to fit a large conference table, an industrial all-in-one printer/fax/scanner machine, and the employees that were doing the sorting. The branch also had to keep a large stock of paper and printer ink.

The amount of time that was spent printing and sorting was excessive, but this is the way it had always been done. Sounds like a process from the 1990s, right? Wrong. This is a recent case study.

The branch hired some new people that were told they needed to own the process and cut down the amount of time spent printing, sorting, and creating the new manuals. One new employee asked why they didn’t just do it on their computers, which would save a lot of time and money. Initially, the idea was thrown out for the status quo.

Undeterred, the new employee decided to go forward with his idea to provide an example. All he needed was PDF Pro to sort and organize all the documents on his computer. The employee had all the old documents emailed to him and proceeded to sort and reorganize everything.

It was discovered that in the amount of time it took to print everything out, he had created a whole new manual. What manual processes are you doing in your company that might need to be updated?

Save Money or Save Status Quo?

There comes a point for every company where doing what has always been done starts wasting time and money. Tapping into new perspectives, truly allowing employees to take ownership of the processes, not only improves the effectiveness of processes it also improves engagement.

What is more valuable to the bottom line? Saving time and money or sticking with how something has always been done? How will you create suds without adding liquid? New employees bring a fresh lens to view the old processes, suggesting improvements and new ideas. All that is required is actively listening to the valuing the input.

Rejecting new ideas right off the bat can create frustration and conflict among employees. Engagement starts to suffer, and those employees could move on to some other place that will value their ideas. Now more time and money is spent to replace those employees and your company can end up left behind the competition.

Build Engagement Through Ownership

Truly allowing people to take ownership of the processes can create change that saves your company time and money. People become more engaged in the processes, and more invested in their work. Do you know what areas of your processes can be improved? Do you ask for ideas only to constantly shoot them down?

Let the experts help!

Effective Performance Strategies (EPS) can assess the situation for you to show you where you may be spending more than needed on outdated processes. New perspectives create improvement ideas that save time and money and increase engagement.

Adding that touch of water creates a new product that cleans better.

Contact Effective Performance Strategies?today to get you on your way to a more effective and efficient company by ensuring your processes are saving you time and money.