Do front-line staff understand how they impact bottom line? Do their leaders?

It’s amazing how many company leaders continue to make major strategic decisions at the top levels without first getting input from front-line staff. Who else deals with customers day in and day out – hearing the good, bad and the ugly? Who else sees first-hand the impediments to providing excellent customer service?

Not only is it a recipe for failure from the customer perspective, it will also impact employee morale (read: declining productivity). So a lose-lose all around.

We’ve all worked someplace where decisions came down from “on high” – decisions that made no sense whatsoever and were difficult, if not impossible, to implement from a practical perspective. Not only were we not educated on the “whys” of the changes, we knew that the “whats” wouldn’t work. It’s too bad leadership didn’t ask for our perspective up front before spending time, money and other resources on a bad decision.

The use of Lean philosophy is most known for its success in the manufacturing industry, but it is gaining traction in health care as well. Lean has taken off as the industry grapples to address health care reform and skyrocketing costs. Lean emphasizes removing waste from organizations and processes while focusing on and delivering more value to customers. Former hospital CEO Paul Levy explains that Lean is:

“a long-term philosophy of corporate leadership and organization that is based, above all, on respect shown to front-line staff.  There are two essential aspects, training front-line workers to be empowered and encouraged to call out problems on the “factory floor,” and training managers to understand that their job is to serve those front-line workers by knowing what is going on on the front lines and responding in real time (when problems are fresh) to the call-outs.”

And hospitals are seeing results. According to a study by the American Society for Quality, Lean process improvement programs have positively impacted hospital operations in significant ways:

Clinical success (“somewhat” or “highly” successful)

• Operating rooms (95 percent of hospitals) and emergency rooms (86 percent)

Ancillary/support services success (“somewhat” or “highly” successful)

• Admissions and discharge (94 percent) and sterilizing/reprocessing (89 percent) and radiology/imaging (87 percent)

Non-clinical/support success (“somewhat” or “highly” successful)

• Information systems (89 percent) and administration (87 percent)

But an organization doesn’t need to implement a program like Lean to reap the benefits of working closely with front-line staff to ensure that changes in processes, services and products support what the customer needs, first and foremost.

And those who do so won’t just see improvements in customer satisfaction, efficiencies and morale; they’ll see additional benefits including:

~ Preparation of the next generation of management;

~ Advocates to ensure buy-in companywide;

~ Managers who have time to think more strategically instead of being mired in operational issues;

~ Empowered staff who can solve general, common issues on the spot.

It seems to me that any business could benefit from this philosophy, both in terms of improved employee engagement and customer satisfaction, which ultimately positively impacts the bottom line.

Leadership