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Making Every Day Better
FORM Magazine, April 1993
How the quality process affects corporate culture
BY MINDA MORGAN
The receptionist at Yankee Systems, a Reading, Mass., distributorship, once got frustrated every day at work. Employees at the firm rarely used the in/out board, so she seldom knew whether employees were out of the office or when they would return. This made her mad and kept her from providing customers with the kind of service she wanted to give.
Today, thanks in part to the quality process, all that has changed. Employees not only tell the receptionist when they leave, they also tell her where they are going, how they can be reached and when they will return. Now she can tell clients when they can expect a call to be returned. "This change helps us provide our clients with better service, and it makes the receptionist's job easier," says Jean Clark, office manager.
This is only one small change the firm has made as a result of the quality process. The firm also has made major changes. In fact, Frank Burgess, president, restructured the firm, eliminating many middle managers. "Our quality program has made a major difference in how our company operates," says Burgess, a member of NBFA's Board of Directors. "Our entire company has changed completely."
At other firms, implementing the quality process is not as drastic. The Forms Factory, an Albuquerque, N.M., manufacturer, didn't need to make many changes to implement a quality program. The firm does not have constant quality circle group meetings that traditional quality management programs call for. Instead, employees work together using several techniques to solve problems. Then, if a solution isn't found easily, the firm creates a quality group to solve it.
Whether implementing the quality process requires a major overhaul or not, it is certain to change the company's culture, say quality practitioners. One common change is that many specific job-related tasks are made everyone's responsibility. "If the phone is ringing, the person closest answers it," says Clark. "If coffee needs to be made, someone makes it. If you see something that needs to be fixed, you fix it." This can be a major change for many highly-structured firms, she says.
"In quality, people take ownership for their work and become empowered to solve problems."
-Jerry WilkinsonThe quality process also demands employers empower employees to solve problems, a significant change at many firms where only managers solve problems. "Empowering employees and giving them the tools to solve problems improves trust and communication," says Jerry Wilkinson, operations manager for The Forms Factory. "It changes the business and makes any firm a more pleasant place to work."
How Much Change?
When Burgess began the quality process five years ago, he hired quality consultants to come to his firm, teach employees about quality and recommend changes. At the time, the firm was divided into five profit centers, each headed by a manager. "It was a traditional business hierarchy," says Burgess. The consultant pointed out that middle-level managers can be obstacles to success and efficiency, says Burgess. So he eliminated the positions.Traditional total quality management recommends that the firm retrain, rather than lay off, employees. However, at Yankee Systems, many former middle managers decided to leave the firm rather than be retrained. Instead of hurting company morale, the change had a positive effect, says Clark. "Everyone realized that they had the opportunity to talk about their ideas for solving problems," she says.
At the same time, Yankee Systems instituted its weekly, hour-long quality meetings. The meetings have no agenda, a big change from the past, says Burgess. Instead, the purpose is to solve problems. At first, many employees viewed the meetings as a waste of time. Today, many view the meetings as part of their jobs, says Clark.
The firm also has corrective action teams run by volunteers that study problems and recommend solutions. Burgess says he has never had to ask anyone to volunteer for a team. "It is something they want to do because it makes their jobs easier," he says.
The teams also ensure that processes in the firm change constantly. "Quality is evolutionary and a defining process," says Burgess. "It is always changing." The quality process tends to be much more revolutionary for distributors than manufacturers, he says. "Manufacturers are already process-oriented, so changes are less dramatic," says Burgess. "Distributors often must create processes."
Instituting the quality process for manufacturers usually requires training employees, setting up mechanisms to solve problems, developing measurement techniques and refining processes, says Wilkinson. "In quality, people take ownership for their work and become empowered to solve problems," he says. "We just have to give them the means to make that happen."
At Wise Business Forms, quality training teaches employees to regard the person in the next step of the manufacturing process as a customer, says David Wise, CFC, president of Wise, a Butler, Pa.-based manufacturer. Employees are taught that if they question anything, even for one second, it's not right. "They are taught to do it over again and make it right instead of just saying, 'it's good enough,'" says Wise.
Wise also installed suggestion boxes in plants. One suggestion led Wise to capture the distilled water that comes from the plants' air conditioners for use in the firm's presses. The water has a constant 7 pH level, and the firm's presses only use distilled water. Other suggestions led Wise to add a reference library and to sponsor CFC study classes. The suggestion box and employee empowerment promote easy conversation and good human relations, both of which are important to solving problems and improving quality, says Wise.
Although the amount of change a quality program brings varies from firm to firm, participants agree that it is a major component of the quality process. "Quality is a journey," says Wise. "It is never-ending as long as everyone participates."
Employee Reactions
But do employees want to participate? "No one wants to do a bad job," says Wise. "People will jump at the chance to improve their job and their working conditions."At first, however, quality participants say employees were skeptical. Most employees at Yankee Systems thought the process was a phase and that "this too shall pass," says Clark. Wilkinson says his employees had a similar response. "Then rerun rates started to drop and sales per employee began to increase, and everyone got excited," he says.
In the beginning of the quality process, employees are excited because there is so much to do and results are immediately visible, says Burgess. As a company gets further into the process, it's harder to stay excited because the changes are more subtle, he says. To help keep employees motivated, Yankee Systems creates visual aids showing how the company is improving.
David Wise is constantly inventing new ways to involve employees in the quality process. For example, all Wise employees have mission cards detailing goals of the quality process. If an employee has the card when Wise asks for it, the employee receives $5. Employees receive $50 if they can recite the mission statement when asked. The firm also sponsors contests to find examples of top service. The winning department gets a lunchtime pizza party. Top quality employees win Wise's parking space. "We constantly must inspire employees to participate," says Wise. "Mistakes come from boredom. We can't let the quality process become boring or we lose quality."
Hard times also can cause a company to lose its focus on quality. Burgess admits that his company's commitment lagged occasionally during the recession. However, problems eventually developed that helped employees refocus on quality. "Whenever someone gets aggravated because they have to redo something, we have a new problem to solve," says Clark. "The process is ongoing."
From the Top
But the process does not get started by itself. The impetus to get it started and keep it going must come from the top managers, say practitioners. "Quality must come from the top down," says Wise. "The process must be led not managed. Employees will follow the leader's example. Without a firm commitment, quality cannot succeed."Part of leading the process is recognizing that it is important to excuse employees from daily tasks to sit on quality teams, says Wise. The principal must take the time to talk to employees, learn about their problems and encourage them to solve them. "The best thing about quality is that I know more about what goes on in my company than ever before," says Burgess.
Despite all the changes quality process participants have made, they know there are more changes to make. "We still have a long way to go," says Clark. For example, Yankee Systems employees still struggle to point out problems without hurting others' feelings. Although the quality process teaches mistakes are the fault of the process, not the person, this can be hard to accept in a small firm where only one employee is in charge of an area, she says.
"There are always ways to improve," says Wise. "Quality is about breaking the old mold, not doing everything the same old way. As soon as a new way becomes the old way, you find a new way to improve. There are countless opportunities if you look for them."
Minda Morgan is assistant editor of FORM magazine.