Posted by pvadmin on / 0 Comments
My career was well under way before we had the level of sophistication available today with formal rewards and recognition (here’s a nice article about that) programs, incentives, performance programs and fancy smancy HCM tools.
Back in the days when we had to walk “all the way up the hill” to school and “all the way up the hill again” to go home, we had to use good old fashioned creativity and innovate as we went along. Same is true today, it just looks different.
I recall supervising a packaging and shipping warehouse and I’m glad I did. Because, I always look back to see what might work today. Then, we called it “people.” Today it’s Human Capital.
My team had about 30 people, mostly teens, who were in charge of packaging and preparing shipments for the delivery crew.
I didn’t see teens. I simply saw them as people. It didn’t occur to me to determine if they were generation x, generation y or generation y-not.
I said,
Hey, lets do this thing better than anyone else!
I didn’t know how to write a vision/mission or values statement, I just knew it would be cool if we were a rocking team.
Then I confided in them.
Hey, look. I just got here. I barely know what you guys are doing. I know we have a couple of people in the freezer on a forklift, some packagers, some builders, inventory folks. I know we have orders to fill and customers and drivers to make happy. That’s about it.
Then I let them know that I knew who they were. I said:
I don’t know a lot, but I know that you do. So let’s make a deal. If you figure out how to triple productivity, I promise I’ll listen to you and we’ll give it a try. If it works, I’ll tag 5 more minutes on your break. And of 15 and you know those cookies we make that sometimes break in the process and we can’t use them for customers anyway? Well you can have them.
Simple deal: You fix this, I’ll support you and if it works, I’ll reward you.
The entire team was energized by this challenge. They knew they were going to have to show up for work anyway, why not do things better than anyone else. People like things to be interesting. So, they met and discussed each part of their operation and how they interact with each other, the other departments and the customer.
And about two days later, they came back to me with a proposition:
We have a few changes we want to make,
I said:
Let’s hear it
They said:
We made a deal with the order department and they have agreed to send us the order file and the driver schedules the night before.
One of us is willing to change their shift, come in early and restructure the order file in a very specific way. This will allow us to print the components of the orders by pallet, bottom to top, driver, route and location on the truck.
We will then be able to assemble the packages in such a way, that the driver can place the final delivery in the back on the truck and work towards the front with the first order.
We’ve set up a system (today might be called quality control) to be able to quickly audit orders to ensure they are correct. One of the biggest complaints of the drivers is that they would have to keep coming back and forth because orders would be missing a small component here and there.
We are each going to be in charge of a certain aspect, for example, it’s my job to make sure the ancillary kit gets on every order.
They made other suggestions as well. I approved every one of them. They also asked me to change the way I did one thing and I agreed to that as well.
It took a couple of days to put all the changes in place. The big day was here. Everyone was excited but nervous. These were the team’s ideas and at the time, no one else had ever done them before. Would they even work?
Of course they worked. They knew their jobs better than any. They also knew what barriers existed and what the frustrations were. And even though they were a bunch of “teens” they knew exactly what to do to deliver superb customer service. It wasn’t about cookies and time clocks. But that did help.
Fast forward a couple of weeks later. The drivers and stopping by my office to ask me how I could be such a genius! Orders are smoother than ever, they don’t even want to use the other packing groups. The other packing groups’ supervisors are asking me “How I could possibly get a bunch of teens to even pay any attention to me at all.” The leadership of the company offered me a promotion and asked that I show everyone else what I did. I told them all the truth, I really didn’t do anything, the team did it!
But, looking back, there were five things that I did do:
- I trusted the team
- I respected the team
- I believed the team was better at their job than I
- I valued and supported their ideas
- I rewarded them.
A quick note on rewards. The rewards cost very little. The financial rewards included cookies we were going to throw away anyhow and a five minute extension of the break. Don’t forget, they tripled productivity.
I can tell you they actually liked the 3rd reward the best, the one they gave to themselves: Pride. They would come back and tell me how much fun it was to have bragging rights as the best of the best. When break was over for most people, peers would ask them if they were going back to work. They’d reply:
No, I’m gonna hang here for 5 more minutes.
Them:
Won’t your supervisor yell at you?”
Us:
No, this is our reward for doing an awesome job!
Them:
Where did you get those cookies?
Us:
Oh these, we came up with a way to triple productivity, while improving efficiency. The cookies come with that.
Finally we took care of future staffing needs as well. How? These same “teens” told everyone around them: If you want to be valued, have a good time and enjoy your job, then you need to be on our team. There is none better! Employee referrals! What more could you want! Click here to see what your employees are saying about you. Recruiting challenges? Heck fire son! I didn’t even have to pay for recruiting, there was a waiting list to get on the team!
It was a lot of fun working with that team.
And there’s the story of how we did things back in the day. Sure we had to walk in the snow to school, uphill, both ways! But it wasn’t half bad. And the truth is, with a little trust, respect and creativity, and the benefit of a lot of great new tools, it’s still pretty good – if you want it to be.
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