How to improve the efficiency of an enterprise? Main directions for improving working conditions Improvement of employee qualifications

"Company number one" or ideal company If the company is part of a community, a country, if the company has high ethical standards, financial strength, attractive locations, progressive working conditions in the long term - this will be my ideal company. Also, if the company has flexible working conditions, a clear path to advancement, competitive compensation, international career opportunities and a career followed by a secure financial base with a full-time job is the most important to me. To be an ideal company, it must have a clear vision of the mission and ideas for managing the company to carve out its place in this big world.

There are many benefits of a good company culture. Some of these benefits include productivity, employee morale and motivation, increased communication and collaboration, employee turnover and company profits. Companies must work to achieve a “good” corporate culture, but a potential employee can be matched by culture fairly quickly during an interview. Ask yourself the following questions to help determine company culture:

• Will I be involved in decisions that affect me?
• Do company employees focus on getting jobs rather than politics?
• Will I be personally responsible for my work?
• Will I look forward to coming to work for this company?

If you can answer “yes” to these questions, you can be absolutely confident in your bet that this company is close to ideal. What do I need to do?

Improving organizational culture

Training your employees in the right direction is an important step towards improving the organization's work culture. When your employees know how to do things correctly and what the company expects of them, conflicts and mistakes can be greatly reduced.

Discuss with team members issues related to the current culture of the organization. Make changes that you find warranted. Maintain healthy communication with your team. Educate the team about the organization's leadership and the strategies adopted to create a more engaging culture within the company. Conflict is an integral part of any organization and has a direct bearing on the health of its culture. Therefore, when conflicts arise, management must resolve them quickly and amicably.

Creation of an objective, transparent and fair conflict resolution system.

A positive company culture can do wonders for your business, turning ordinary employees into super workers who go above and beyond your competitors.

Provide easy access to information

Give employees quick access to information so they can make independent decisions with the information they need. Failure to do so can result in lost opportunities and income.

Increasing employee engagement

Without frequent interactions between employees, good ideas and opportunities are missed. The result: valuable workers frustrated by their insignificance, which can become disheartening as a result of poor cooperation. And yet, how to develop employee engagement when many are working remotely? An IP network with integrated voice, video and wireless communications enables interactive web video conferencing, IP telephony, and other tools that facilitate collaboration.

Improve the quality of customer service for your company

In a tough economy, improving customer service may be the key to survival. A company's reputation depends on the quality of customer service. Be kind to your clients, and your client base will increase due to their relatives and neighbors, who will be recommended to them by satisfied clients working with you. But if one is unhappy, it can also cause word of mouth. “The experiences people have with your company, and then what they hear from friends and family members, influence their perception and likelihood of doing business with the company. Understand what is important to customers. Speed ​​and availability of services are universal truths. Improving customer service starts with your employees. The most important person in the customer service scheme is the manager, since employee turnover is directly controlled by the manager. Other important qualities are empathy, consistency and patience. Experience is vital, but it can be a double-edged sword: too much, and the representative may seem pedantic or condescending; too little, and the representative won't know how to handle sensitive situations. Improving Customer Experience: Use Online Tools to Personalize Help Your website is typically the first introduction customers have to your company, so your home page should be user-friendly.

Every new day gives you the opportunity to move forward. You can improve your business on several fronts: by increasing profits, reducing losses, getting more customers, expanding markets.

1. Determine your core values What is your mission? What gives your business the most value?

2. The right people Assess the potential of the people you hire and their compatibility with the company's core values ​​and culture. Ask specific interview questions that focus on loyalty, passion for your work, ability to communicate and work with others. These traits can have a significant impact on the productivity and coherence of your employees.

3. Build a system of trust and accountability Your employees need to know that you respect them and trust their abilities. Let's start by empowering qualified employees to have a share in decisions affecting the company. A little extra responsibility shows your confidence. If your employees make a mistake, hold them accountable—not by punishing them for failure, but by examining the mistakes. Be clear about what went wrong, how to fix it, and how to make sure it never happens again. Trust and responsibility extend beyond employee interactions; customer relationships are also very important. If your business isn't honest with its customers, it can damage employee-customer relationships. Learn from mistakes and keep your promises.

5. Reward People usually respond well to well-deserved praise and become motivated to continue doing good work that supports your company's core values. The best way for you is to use this fact to create performance incentives that reward employees when they reach a goal. The reward doesn't have to be monetary—you can alternatively offer small, unique perks, such as a better parking spot or an honorary title (such as "Employee of the Month"). The strength and vitality of your company culture comes down to your employees doing work that furthers your core values. This positive attitude will carry over to everything - improving relationships with customers, winning new business, and improving your brand as perceived by people outside of your company.

How to Improve Company Morale Without Spending Money

Company morale is a key indicator of employee satisfaction. Tax incentives are critical when attracting talented workers. However, non-monetary rewards remain the critical resource that has a direct impact on improving company morale.

1. Determine what motivates employees through a survey in areas relevant to career development: leadership, praise, recognition, status, improvement goals, and leading others.

2. Connect the company's vision and its mission by connecting the individual goals of employees. Create an environment that expresses genuine concern for your employees. Ask employees to bring photos, short stories, and memorabilia. Employee life and overall well-being fits into the larger goals, mission and vision of the company.

3. Instill a sense of confidence in the company's ability to provide resources for employees to succeed.

4. Highlight employee accomplishments and success stories by displaying them prominently.

5. Lead by example. The behavior patterns you are looking for in your employees.

6. Promote open communication towards achieving your goals.

7. Increase your level of responsibility. Set clear goals to achieve. Be prepared to explain to your employees how to achieve the goal. Be available to employees. Help them identify problems by working together to overcome obstacles and explain how to achieve personal success. Encourage employees to take initiative to solve problems and welcome their input.

Be creative in creating a productive and fun work environment. Print posters with inspirational sayings and place them in prominent places.

1. Make sure your employees understand what you expect from them. Employees who understand what is expected of them are much more satisfied and productive than employees who must guess what is needed to complete their job successfully.

2. Smiles. Smiles are contagious; if you smile, your employees will smile too. The opposite is also true. If you go through your day with a grimace on your face, your employees will take on your sour mood.

3. Provide positive recognition. Employees need to hear that they are doing a good job in order to continue doing good work.

Surveys show that many employees are more motivated and valued for their work through recognition than through salary increases or additional incentives.

4. Allow your employees to leave early on occasion if they finish their work early. Some employees don't want to go home, and that's okay.

5. Make the work environment fun. For example, competitions are a great way to improve your mood and, as a result, your work productivity. Sooner or later people will stop being afraid of work. You can increase motivation and loyalty to the company by introducing a less rigid schedule, tying work time to results. An employee may feel responsible for using their time productively.

Determine what your company can offer to improve the work environment. Financial incentives, additional training and other benefits increase labor productivity.

1. Find out what motivates your employees. Give them the opportunity to do a self-assessment to see what is hindering productivity in the workplace. Perhaps the working conditions need to be improved (Internet speed, presence or absence of devices important for work, etc.).

2. Making effective changes in the shortest possible time can increase productivity without incurring any other costs. Adding new resources, flexible time, and educating people are also important components of motivation and productivity.

3. Remove ineffective resources. This could be equipment or people. Sometimes bad equipment or a bad employee can create less than desirable results from an activity. Update tools that are essential to the production process, or replace an employee who refuses to meet the standards set by management. By improving your environment, you can change the end result in your favor.

Employers can increase productivity among workers by improving working conditions and removing barriers that prevent workers from performing at their best. Management must provide workers with the tools necessary to perform their duties.

Team building

Events such as office parties or outings will improve employee morale and allow employees to get to know each other better outside the office. Relationships built outside the company can improve team spirit at work. Events and activities also improve employee satisfaction, which can lead to increased productivity.

Connection

To encourage employees, management must communicate its goals to employees. Regular meetings will help maintain a clear vision of employees' goals. Workers without a clear understanding of the company's goals are less likely to work toward meeting them.

Employee recognition

Managers and supervisors can motivate employees by encouraging and challenging them to achieve goals. Praising employees for a job well done will help inspire employees to do their best. This employee can also inspire other employees to achieve goals productively. Monetary and other incentives are also a good way to increase productivity.

Environment

The work environment can play a large role in productivity among workers. The office layout should be efficient and allow workers to complete their work without obstruction or disruption. Additionally, by providing workers with an office space such as a personal desk, it encourages a sense of belonging, which can improve employee morale and satisfaction. Improved morale and job satisfaction lead to increased productivity.

Limiting your socializing time, both among co-workers and online, can improve your productivity. It's difficult to be productive in today's world, where distracting details and situations go from television to the Internet to the home computer and smartphone. Add in the traditional distractions of family, children, friends and co-workers, and it's amazing that we can get anything done in no time. Luckily, there are steps you can take to quell distractions and improve productivity. Get rid of time thieves. Turn off the TV, log out of your email, log out of social networks and other sites such as Twitter and Facebook, stop mindlessly surfing websites and blogs. The Internet can be seen as a wealth of useful information or a major time waster, depending on how you use it. If you can completely disconnect from the Internet, do so. If your job, on the other hand, requires you to use the Internet to respond to emails or research, limit your use of social media and non-work-related reading of literature and newspapers. Find a quiet place to do your work. Noise and movement can be distracting. Without distractions, a quieter place might be possible, such as a public library or your own home office.

Communication in the workplace

Chatting with coworkers during a coffee break is good, but constant distractions from personal email, text messages, instant messages, or visitors can be detrimental to your productivity. Tell your employees not to disturb you during certain hours when you need to be more productive. Tell your friends and family about this.

Organization

Organize your desk to rid it of clutter that can make you distracted. Make sure to remember where everything is, down to the paper clip, pen, and notebook. A clutter-free workplace will help make you more productive. Don't forget to organize your time too. Marking important meetings and project deadlines on your calendar will improve your productivity and allow you to see specific goals.

Incentives

Create a system of rewarding yourself for achievements. For example, if you have a 10-page document due within two weeks and you want it done on time, create incentives to write at least one page per day. The stimulus could be time spent on a favorite website after finishing writing that day's page, or it could be a movie or meeting with friends. Rewarding yourself for your hard work will increase your chances of being productive.

What questions will you find answers to in this article:

• Why should the CEO listen to workers?
• How to encourage staff to improve their work?
• What practical tools are there to improve production efficiency?

You will also read:

• How did the working group solve the problem with defects at the VSMPO-Avisma corporation?
• Why has the total production cycle time at the Kaluga Automotive Electrical Equipment Plant decreased?
• Expert advice: how to implement kaizen in five days (commentary by Michael Vader)?

Before assembling the engine, the engine armature is balanced to eliminate vibrations - pieces of paste are attached, which are broken off from the whole piece, like plasticine.

Periodic work is an activity that is not included in each cycle of manufacturing or processing a part: control, changing tools, oil, receiving parts, materials in storerooms, cleaning the workplace, etc.

For production to operate efficiently, it is not enough to purchase equipment and establish production technology. The main part of the production process is the work of personnel. If you can not only teach people to perform their daily routine work efficiently, but also interest them in constantly improving their performance results, then your production will work smoothly and efficiently. It is important to choose the right control technology.

Western management methods recommend standardizing processes, describing them in regulations and communicating them strictly “from top to bottom” to staff. But such methods almost exclude feedback from the manager to the people. As a result, the General Director does not often visit production and does not consider it necessary to listen to the opinions of workers or technical personnel. As a result, many production processes are inefficient, and it does not occur to a worker or specialist that he has the power to change the situation. For example, the machine button is located under the worker’s right hand and in order to perform the operation, he has to turn around, spending about a minute on the whole process. On the scale of an entire enterprise, this is a significant time investment. If you move the button under your left hand, the procedure will take no more than 15 seconds. The problem is that such issues, as a rule, do not reach the level of top management.

A worker who feels like a stakeholder in the process would tell the manager how to speed up production operations. And the time savings would be obvious.

How can the General Director interest staff?

Personnel will treat the improvement of production processes at their site as everyday and necessary work if you create an atmosphere in the team of constantly looking for ways to develop. How to do it? Try to convey the following thoughts to your subordinates:

• I am interested in the opinion of all employees of the company.
• Everyone is responsible for their own workflow and can suggest improvements. Everyone will be heard.
• The decision to change production processes will be discussed in working groups and made collectively.
• Initiative workers will be encouraged.

When employees see that you support the changes, that the entire enterprise management system is focused on them, they will actively look for ways to improve their own work. It is equally important that employees are confident in the future. It is impossible to be responsible for and improve the work process if the threat of dismissal is in the air. For example, in our company, I promised people that while I was in charge of production, none of them would be fired. We are talking about a team of like-minded people that I formed over several years. For a company participating in the alcohol market, where personnel rotation occurs frequently, such guarantees are very relevant.

Another incentive for development is the opportunity to gain professional skills at the plant. When production opened, there were few specialists. We hired university graduates as technologists and trained them from scratch. I spent up to 70–80% of my time in the shops, talking with managers and workers, advising on how to solve systemic problems. This is what we do to this day. In addition, we support employees in their pursuit of career growth. All this allows our people to believe that increasing production efficiency (improving quality, productivity, reducing time costs) depends on each of them.

How a working group reduced production defects

At the VSMPO-Avisma corporation, there were a lot of defects in one of the workshops. To cope with the problem, we created a working group.

1. What was done:

• collected and analyzed data on the causes of non-conforming products;
• the main “problem” products are highlighted (forged rods
• and rolling rings) and “problem” stages of production (forging and stripping of rods, making blanks for rings);
• a questionnaire survey of workers associated with the production of these products was conducted;
• an action plan has been created to reduce the number of defects;
• amendments were made to existing technological documents to clarify some important production points;
• recommendations have been written for loading furnaces, allowing for high-quality forging and obtaining quality products;
• the forging procedure on the press is detailed and described;
• “forging maps” have been created, which indicate the sequence of transitions and the time allotted for each transition;
• instructions have been written explaining how to improve the quality of metal forging by optimizing the stripping process;
• The motivation system for forging site workers has been changed: now defects are analyzed at team meetings, this information is taken into account when making decisions on bonuses;
• Operators, blacksmiths, craftsmen were trained to new work standards, and certification was organized;
• foremen were trained in the lean production system, which contributed to a change in views on production and a desire among employees to propose improvements.

2. Summary. During the year, the number of defective products decreased by 46%. We did not arrive at this result right away. At first, due to misunderstandings on the part of the workshop workers, difficulties arose with the implementation of the project. But then, in the process of teamwork and training, the need and possibility of change became obvious, and then the work proceeded quickly and amicably.

Based on materials provided by Antonina Sokolova, business coach at CentrOrgProm

Expert opinion

Michael Vader
President and Lead Trainer of Leadership Excellence International Inc, Colorado Springs, USA; certified expert in lean manufacturing implementation

People should not be afraid to suggest improvements; on the contrary, they should be reassured that their efforts will be rewarded. In order for employees to be interested in looking for optimization methods over a long period, it is necessary to gradually include material motivation. For example, pay bonuses at the end of the quarter (year) based on the results of savings due to transformations. It is important that all employees receive equal percentage bonuses and know about it. If a top manager receives, for example, an incentive bonus at the end of the year - 15% of the salary, then the worker should also receive at least 15%.

Leadership Excellence International was founded in 1995. Provides consulting services on optimization of production and business processes, elimination of hidden losses in production and service organizations. It has branches in India, Malaysia, Singapore, and is active in the Russian market.

How to implement lean manufacturing

The main task of the General Director is to be the initiator of the implementation of the lean production method and its active supporter. In practice, you can entrust implementation to the production director.

There are management tools that encourage staff to be interested in the work process, as well as to constantly improve their performance. All of them are aimed at introducing lean thinking into the enterprise. This means that each participant in the process should strive to do their work faster, better and with the least effort. We use five tools in our factory:

1. Creation of an autonomous working group to solve problems.

2. Visual management.

3. Rational use of the production site.

4. Change of types of personnel activities.

5. Maintenance of equipment (workplace).

1. Creation of an autonomous working group to solve problems

As a rule, information from a worker comes to the General Director through the following chain: worker - foreman - foreman - process engineer - department head - workshop manager - production director - General Director. As a result, information may be distorted or delayed.

To speed up the exchange of information, I created working groups at the enterprise. They consist of representatives from all production departments. Groups meet approximately once a week. Employees are given daily, weekly, and monthly tasks. Each group solves the issue at its own level, regulates it and then comes to me with a solution. Let me give you an example. Preparing activated carbon before loading it into carbon columns was a labor-intensive and messy process. At the initiative of the employees, an installation was developed and constructed that allows this operation to be carried out with less labor costs and with better quality. Now coal preparation technology is the know-how of our company

What gives. As a result of this practice, in recent years, our losses of raw materials and auxiliary materials have decreased several times.

General Director speaks

Alexey Baranov


In one Russian car assembly company, work is structured as follows. At a weekly meeting, the assembly team reviews suggestions from operators to improve the process. A decision is then made to implement one or more proposals. What would happen next in most companies? Multi-week approval of improvement proposals, visas in many offices. What's going on here? The team's decision is binding on management. And the workshop manager is given one month to implement it. If you don't meet the deadline, you have yourself to blame. The team will meet again in a month and demand a report.

TsentrOrgProm LLC is a Russian provider of services for the development of Lean systems (lean manufacturing, kaizen, Toyota Production System). Clients: Rusal, KamAZ, VSMPO-Avisma, AvtoVAZ, Uralmashzavod, 1 May confectionery factory, Uralsvyazinform and other companies in Russia and neighboring countries.

2. Visual management

Visual management tools may vary depending on the specifics of production. Quality department employees are usually responsible for the development and application of visual management tools in production. At our factory, bar graphs hang in front of the workshops, and all employees can familiarize themselves with the operating status of the production line by shift. Indicators below the norm are marked in red. Next comes the downtime analysis, all performers identify its causes. They can be organizational, supply-related, functional, etc. Quality department employees document the work of the bottling line per shift, the operation of the machines, and analyze the reasons for stoppages. All this is noted on the primary accounting sheets, compiled and then analyzed at meetings with the workshop manager. Another useful tool for visual management in production is the distinctive color of the work clothes of quality control department employees. At our production, the specialists of this department are dressed in bright clothes, so that each employee can quickly seek advice if a problem or question arises.

What gives. Saving time and labor costs.

General Director speaks

Alexey Baranov
General Director of TsentrOrgProm LLC, Yekaterinburg

Along with histograms, you can use the andon board system - a device for visual monitoring of the production process. It can be a board that shows what is happening at the enterprise, or several light bulbs that light up, notifying about certain processes. For example, a red light indicates that for some reason the equipment has stopped; a light of a different color is lit if the equipment requires loading, that is, it has run out of materials or requires worker intervention.

3. Rational use of the production site

Rationally organized workplaces meet the following requirements: free space around the worker, absence of obstacles (nothing should interfere with his movements), passages between machines and workshops are designed so that workers do not have to spend a lot of time moving.

What gives. Increasing the utilization rate of equipment, saving time and labor costs, freeing up production space, reducing losses during transportation and movement.

A practitioner tells

Marina Antyufeeva
Director for Development, Production Optimization and Quality Management System of the Automotive Components Division of Avtokom OJSC, Kaluga

In 2005, at the Kaluga Automotive Electrical Equipment Plant (KZAE), I headed the production development center. We started introducing improvements from the assembly areas, since there was equipment that was easy to move and operations were short in duration. There is now a shortage of personnel at all factories in Russia; there was a shortage of balancers in the assembly areas of this enterprise. When observing the operator’s work, it turned out that the balancer receives paste at the workshop warehouse four to five times per shift (which is 1.66 seconds per part). If the balancing paste is delivered to the workplace, this will reduce periodic work by 35 hours.

Another example. Analyzing the work of the assembly section, it was revealed that the equipment was placed not according to the technological chain, but according to the principle “where there was free space.” We made a new layout, arranged the equipment sequentially - in accordance with the technological process. Now the part moved from machine to machine and was passed from hand to hand. There is no longer a need for a large amount of containers and a supply of parts, 90 sq. m. has been freed up. m of area, the total production cycle time decreased from 420.11 sec. up to 331.86 sec. This increased the site's throughput by 20%. And most importantly, the operators, mostly women, stopped carrying heavy loads from one workplace to another.

OJSC "Avtokom"- one of the suppliers of AvtoVAZ, manages the Kaluga Auto Electronics Plant, the Avtopribor plant (Kaluga), the Kozelsky Mechanical Plant (Kaluga region), the Lyskovsky Electrical Engineering Plant (Nizhny Novgorod region), the Serpukhov Automobile Plant, owns a 50 percent share of the Kinelagroplast plant (Samara Region). The company was founded in 2000. Number of employees - 16.5 thousand. Annual turnover - 300 million US dollars.

4. Change of activities (rotation of personnel)

After you have explained to people that improvements can and should be proposed, it is necessary that this be done not from time to time, but systematically. It is important that employees understand what depends on the results of work on their production site, so that they become familiar with related processes. If a worker produces a low-quality product and it ends up in the next workshop, the workers of this workshop will have no time to think about whether to improve the process - they will have to eliminate the defects. You can solve this problem by rotating staff. Recommend that the production director move specialists from one workshop to another several times a year.

At our plant, specialists from one workshop periodically move to another and work there for some time. For example, technologists from the blending shop move to the bottling shop, where more issues are related to the organization of labor and assembly. For now, this practice is common only in production, but over time, I hope it will be applied throughout the company.

What gives. Employees become familiar with related processes, communicate, work together to solve cross-functional problems, and then standardize procedures to prevent the problems from recurring in the future. In addition, this approach disciplines the staff, makes it possible to understand what exactly is slowing down the work at the enterprise, which specialists duplicate or redo each other’s work.

5. Maintenance of equipment (workplace)

Working at an enterprise should be convenient. To do this, it is necessary that the condition of the equipment is impeccable, everything necessary (tools, workpieces) is at hand, and everything unnecessary is removed from the work table. Our company has an equipment care system that requires the participation of not only technical department employees, but also machine operators at their workplaces. It includes carrying out scheduled preventive maintenance and preventive inspections.

What gives. Changeover time is reduced, the risks of equipment emergency stops are reduced, and production safety is increased. The result of careful treatment of equipment in our company was that using domestic equipment we achieved the maximum utilization rate of bottling lines - 0.88–0.90 (while normally it is 0.80–0.85). Some companies cannot achieve this with advanced German and Italian equipment.

Boeing Visual Guidance System

The visual production management system at the Boeing Moscow Design Center is structured as follows. The designers are located in a large hall, each with their own workplace, which is separated from the others by small partitions. Each person works at his own computer and is not distracted by anything, but if he gets up, he can see the whole hall. The manager's workplace is at some elevation, and he sees the entire hall. The center has adopted the following visual system: if the designer has completed the task, he raises a green flag. The manager sees that the employee is free and can perform the next task. If the performer has problems that do not require immediate intervention, then he raises a yellow flag. And the manager knows that when he has free time, he must approach this person. If the problem is serious (the designer cannot complete even half of his task), the employee raises a red flag - this is already a signal not only for the manager, but also for the entire team of employees appointed in advance. Team members see a red flag and immediately go to the colleague in need of help, figure out what happened, and work together to fix the problem.

Based on materials provided by TsentrOrgProm LLC

General Director speaks

Alexey Baranov
General Director of TsentrOrgProm LLC, Yekaterinburg

At one of the light industry enterprises located on the Volga, a team of mechanics had the following situation: each mechanic on duty had his own box, which contained all the tools, fixtures, and components, including absolutely unnecessary ones. It took quite a lot of time to find the tool needed for the job - more than five minutes. When the company began to organize workplaces, the working group, together with the adjusters, analyzed the contents of their drawers. We removed everything rarely used and unnecessary and came to the conclusion that instead of boxes for each adjuster, we could have one for the whole team. So instead of twelve tool boxes there were only four. Since the number of tools and devices has been reduced, less time is now spent searching for the necessary tool - literally a few seconds.

How to implement kaizen in five days

Michael Vader
President and Lead Trainer of Leadership Excellence International Inc, Colorado Springs, USA; certified expert in lean manufacturing implementation.

You can start implementing kaizen in an enterprise with a five-day breakthrough assault. The General Director can participate in the process personally, entrust control over the process to the production director (if we are talking about a manufacturing enterprise) or involve an external consultant.

1st day. The CEO should set a specific goal for employees to achieve after the five-day period (eliminate waste by so many percent, increase productivity by so many percent, reduce cycle time, etc.). It is especially important to show that you will listen to the opinion of not only the top manager, but also the worker.

The next stage is the creation of a working group. It should include no more than six to eight people. Each member of the group has one vote, everyone has the right to express their own opinion. Approximate group composition:

• two operators (performing mechanical work);
• engineer or supervisor (manager responsible for a specific area where improvements are required);
• quality service manager (if we are talking about processes on which quality depends) or repairman (if these are production processes);
• two people from other departments (accounting, purchasing or shipping department, representative of the supplier or customer); these people, not privy to the process, will ask questions that may be stupid from the point of view of specialists, but necessary for the emergence of new, breakthrough ideas.

The team goes to the shop floor and collects data on the performance of current operations as of one day (production volume, defect rate, quality issues, hidden losses due to movement around the warehouse, machine downtime, etc.). Then the problems that arise in the process of achieving the goal set by the General Director are described. The task of the first day of the group is to understand the goal and collect data about the process.

2nd day. The person in charge (CEO, production director, external consultant) should lead the team's study of the list of problems that need to be solved on the way to the goal. All participants are involved in the discussion. Combine similar ideas and try to focus on two or three possible solutions. Proposed improvements must be measurable.

3rd day. The working group is discussing the possibility of implementing ideas. Let the team agree that small trial improvements will be implemented in which all employees can participate. Someone on the team should start documenting the new procedures. It should be taken into account that the group submits a report on the transformations to the General Director no later than the fifth day.

4th day. The group continues to implement changes and begins work on measuring the effectiveness of the new process. To tell management how much improvement the team has made, they will need to compare performance before and after the change.

5th day. The group completes documentation of the new operating procedures and reports to the CEO (if he was not involved in the brainstorming) what improvements were made.

Any organization sooner or later faces the problem of increasing production efficiency. And we are not always talking about the economic component.

What methods to prefer when organizing such work is decided by the management of the enterprise. Based on knowledge of the internal and external environment, the characteristics of production processes, it is possible to develop a plan that will lead to the achievement of the intended goal.

What is meant by operational efficiency?

Enterprise efficiency is an economic category. This concept refers to the company’s performance, which can be expressed in:

• growth in production rates;
• reducing costs and tax burden;
• reducing the amount of emissions into the environment;
• increasing labor productivity, etc.

There are also scientific works that define organizational effectiveness as the effectiveness of an operation or project in which the resulting product or new action brings in more money than was spent. Or these manipulations save a certain amount of resources, which also exceeds the costs of work associated with their implementation.

Effectiveness conditions

In most cases, in an effort to improve the efficiency of an organization, management expects to obtain a certain financial result. But this does not always reflect the strategic future of production. Therefore, it is believed that it is more correct to achieve growth rates. We can say that we have achieved economic efficiency in production if:

• the financial result obtained is higher than that of competitors;
• the organization allocates sufficient resources to carry out production or management changes;
• the growth rate of financial indicators will be higher in the near future than that of competitors.

This approach constantly motivates the search for solutions that increase the competitiveness of production. This is important in order to carry out work aimed at strategic development.

It is also important that each structural unit of the organization is concerned with finding ways to increase its economic efficiency. After all, if one of them works poorly, the organization will not be able to improve its performance as a whole.

Tools for increasing efficiency

The ways to improve the efficiency of an enterprise are very diverse. The main ways to increase the profit of an organization are as follows:

• cost reduction, which can be achieved by reducing price conditions for purchases, optimizing production, reducing personnel or wage levels;
• modernization of processes or entire production, which makes it possible to achieve increased labor productivity, reduce the volume of processed raw materials, waste, and automate most operations;
• changes in the organizational system that may affect the management structure, principles of customer service, communications, etc.;
• strengthening marketing communications when the goal is to maximize sales volumes of goods, change attitudes towards the organization, and find new opportunities for production.

Each of these areas can be detailed and has its own methods of work. The entire management system in the company must be configured so that at any level employees take initiatives that lead to increased economic efficiency.

Often, a set of measures that should improve work efficiency affects all blocks of activity at once. This systematic approach allows for a synergistic effect.

Factors influencing efficiency

If enterprise management is interested in achieving improved results, it must analyze information about the state of the external and internal environment. Then it will be clear which of the existing factors need to be used for the benefit of future strategic development. These include:

• Minimal use of resources. The less technology, equipment, and personnel are used while maintaining production volumes, the more efficient the organization.
• Increasing staff efficiency by optimizing the structure, improving qualifications and training, finding more competent personnel, and changing the motivation system.
• Increasing the efficiency of personnel by improving their health and improving working conditions. Measures aimed at solving these problems lead to a reduction in the number of sick days (saving money for the employer), increasing productivity and employee loyalty.
• Strengthening socio-psychological factors. The use of decentralization tools in management can be a good impetus for development.
• Application of the results of scientific and technological progress. Ignoring modern technologies or making excuses from their implementation due to the need for investment leads to a decrease in competitiveness and possible liquidation later. Fearing an unfavorable economic situation in the current period, companies often close the way for future development.
• Using diversification, cooperation and other strategies to apply existing resources to different projects.
• Attracting investment capital and other third-party financing mechanisms. Even privatization can open up ways to improve the efficiency of an enterprise.

All these factors lead not only to an increase in economic but also managerial efficiency. To monitor the effectiveness of the work being carried out, control periods and indicators that will be checked should be outlined.

Let us separately focus on the factor of employee health, for the reason that few employers yet pay due attention to this. Meanwhile, caring for the team directly affects the company’s profits. For example, according to a study conducted as part of the HR Lab. – HR Innovation Laboratory”, a smoking employee spends 330 working (!) hours a year on smoke breaks. If his salary is 50,000 rubles per month, then it turns out that over the course of a year the company loses up to 100,000 rubles in labor costs, plus about 40,000 rubles in taxes and social contributions; plus the cost of sick leave, which smokers, according to statistics, take more often. And if the employee’s salary is higher, then the expenses are even higher. What if there are dozens or hundreds of such employees in the company?

In order to eliminate this unnecessary expense item and increase the efficiency of smoking employees, we can advise companies. (Follow the link to find a calculator that will help you calculate how much your company will save if employees quit smoking.)

Where should you start?

To understand what work needs to be done to improve production efficiency, a thorough analysis should be carried out. The head of the company must have a justification for future management decisions, therefore the following is required:

• collect statistics for previous years on product output, sales, number of employees, wage fund, profitability, etc.;
• find out industry averages or competitors’ indicators;
• compare the economic performance of the enterprise and other market participants;
• depending on which indicator lags more, analyze the factors that led to this result;
• identify those responsible for developing activities that should change the situation, and the deadlines for achieving new indicators.

It is possible that management will have to make many decisions regarding themselves. For example, transform the functions and style of management, distribution of responsibilities, the amount of delegated authority, methods of working with personnel and transferring information within the company.

What might be preventing you from improving your efficiency?

Even if management sees sense in changes that should lead to increased company efficiency, the results may not be forthcoming. Oddly enough, the problems lie in the psychological perception of management changes, as well as in their legal support.

For example, the introduction of new technologies and installation of equipment almost always leads to a reduction in personnel. Naturally, the company's employees will not want to be left without work. Their task is to delay such changes as much as possible. They may also resort to economic arguments, saying that reinstalling equipment will require stopping work for some time.

From a legal point of view, the process of dismissing employees is strictly regulated. If procedures are violated, the enterprise is doomed to incur additional costs, which reduces economic performance.

In order to overcome all these resistances, you need to think through a system for notifying employees about changes, demonstrating the positive aspects of implementing changes.

Additional difficulties may arise from:

• with a lack of funding or inability to access investment sources;
• with a lack of competencies among the company’s employees, which does not allow the implementation of planned plans;
• with the lack of a strategic planning system in the organization and analytics for previous years of work.

To achieve economic efficiency, systematic and large-scale work will be required. We cannot exclude the need to involve third-party specialists who can save time on implementing changes.

In general, with a competent approach and the use of reasonable measures, it is possible to increase the efficiency of each enterprise, regardless of the situation and stage of its development it is in.

In engineering psychology, the main subject of labor is the “operator” - a person interacting with complex equipment through information processes.

The Great Steppe of Eurasia" as a special form of civilization in the works of L.N. Gumilyov

Great importance is attached to the second group of areas of work on health and safety – improving working conditions and reducing the harmful effects of unfavorable factors in the external production environment on the performance and health of workers.

Exist three directions for improving working conditions:

1) minimizing the impact of certain factors, such as noise, vibration, gas contamination, dust, ionizing radiation, the risk of mechanical injury;

2) maximizing factors such as ergonomic, aesthetic and organizational comfort in the workplace, moral and psychological climate in the team, labor safety, household amenities in production;

3) optimization of factors such as lighting, microclimate, demographic and social structure of personnel, material working conditions.

Specific measures to improve working conditions must be considered for each of the factors affecting them. The classification of such factors is shown in Fig. 5.7.

Main measures to reduce the physical burden of work will be the following:

1) increasing the level of mechanization and automation of labor-intensive production processes, the use of modern high-performance equipment for processing materials;

2) improving the organization of workplaces;

3) rationalization of techniques and methods of work;

4) optimization of work and rest schedules;

5) improvement of transport services for workplaces associated with heavy objects of labor.

Reducing neuropsychic tension The following measures can help:

1) establishing standards for equipment maintenance and time standards for its maintenance;

2) alternation of work requiring the participation of different analyzers (hearing, vision, touch, etc.);

3) alternating work of varying complexity and intensity, as well as those requiring mainly mental stress, with physical work;

4) preventing and reducing the monotony of work by increasing the content of work;

5) labor rhythmization (work according to a schedule with a 10–15% reduced load in the first and last hours of the work shift);

6) computerization of computational and analytical work, widespread use of personal computers in production management practice, organization of computer data banks on various aspects of production activity.

To sanitary and hygienic conditions include: temperature, humidity, pressure, dust, pollution, ultrasound, vibration, radiation, contact of body parts with water, oil, toxic substances. When designing, it is necessary to take into account and comply with the compliance of all factors with acceptable sanitary standards. The ambient air temperature in the room should be such that work can be carried out in light clothing that does not restrict movement; the presence of drafts that cause colds in workers is unacceptable. In sawmills, where drafts have a large proportion, it is necessary to carefully close all openings and openings, and install heated vestibules in front of the doors. The most favorable and practically achievable temperature in the production premises of woodworking enterprises is as follows:

In procurement and assembly shops 16–18°C;

In sawmills 15–17°C;

In the veneer sections 20–25°C.

Relative air speed 0.5 m/s, relative air humidity not less than 60%.

Supply and exhaust ventilation must function normally in all workshops. High-frequency noise in workshops, which significantly exceeds permissible noise levels, has a very harmful effect on workers.

The fight against noise is carried out in three directions:

Reducing noise at sources of formation (i.e. timely repairs, adjustments, special designs of cutting tools);

Installation of anti-noise and sound-absorbing devices;

Use of personal protective equipment (helmets, headphones).

Towards aesthetic conditions include: shape, color, nature of the location in space of objects surrounding a person. It is well known that these factors create mood and increase work efficiency.

Physiologists recommend painting equipment and structures in soothing light blue and light green tones. It is better to paint the walls in light yellow, beige, pink. Where monotonous work is performed, it is better to choose brighter colors for painting walls and equipment. Dangerous places and starting devices should also be painted in a brighter color. US health authorities published the results of two years of observation of the use of functional color environment, according to which labor productivity increased in different enterprises from 5.5 to 37% due to the use of recommended coloring.

Improving occupational safety is achieved, first of all, by improving equipment and production technology:

A well-thought-out system of information about danger in the form of posters, signs, signs, light displays on machines, mechanisms, in buildings, in workplaces, on the territory of the enterprise;

Fencing areas hazardous to human health and life;

Special safety briefings, classes on these issues, especially with young workers.

One of the important forms of work to create favorable working conditions at an enterprise is the design of labor organization and regulation of work and rest. With a constant work schedule, a person in the process of work makes less effort to perform the same work than in the absence of such constancy. Rest breaks are established based on a study of working capacity and labor productivity during the working day. Studies of various labor processes show that, despite the variety of particular characteristics, there is a general pattern of changes in labor productivity and performance throughout the shift.

The development of work and rest regimes covers various periods of people’s working activity (annual, weekly, daily). The alternation of periods of work and rest has its own patterns during a work shift (working day), during a week, month, year. In this regard, intra-shift, multi-shift, weekly and annual work and rest regimes are distinguished.

Intra-shift mode is established taking into account the phase changes in a person’s performance during the working day. A typical curve for such performance is shown in Fig. 5.8.

	Opening hours

Rice. 5.8. Typical performance curve during a working day

In Fig. 5.8 indicates three phases of working capacity: a – working in, increasing working capacity; b – stable high performance; c – decreased performance, fatigue. After the lunch break, these phases are repeated, but they vary in duration and magnitude. The working-in phase is shorter, the phase of stable performance does not reach the pre-lunch level, the fatigue phase occurs earlier and lasts longer than before the lunch break.

The task of establishing a rational regime of work and rest is to ensure that people can work quickly, maximize the period of sustained high performance and reduce the fatigue phase. This is achieved by taking measures to reduce periods of work-in and fatigue, including regulated breaks for short-term rest in the working day, and intensifying rest periods.

Daily and weekly multi-shift work and rest schedules used in enterprises working in several shifts: during the day, in the evening, and sometimes at night. The general pattern of changes in performance during the working week is shown in Fig. 5.9, based on which it is clear that after a long rest it is very difficult to immediately achieve high performance. In the middle of the week, performance is at its highest, and by the end of the week it decreases noticeably.

Rice. 5.9. Typical weekly performance curve

The normal daily cycle of a person is such that his greatest performance occurs in the morning and afternoon hours. At this time, all vital functions of the body are activated: body temperature, muscle activity, activity of the nervous system and heart, and the excitability of visual and auditory analyzers increase.

In the evening and especially at night, performance decreases sharply. All this should be taken into account when determining the start and end times of work shifts, the time of breaks for rest and personal needs.

Annual mode work and rest determines the alternation of working periods with periods of long rest associated with regular vacations.

The law regulates the duration of vacation for different categories of workers with different lengths of working day and week.

At enterprises, work to establish a work and rest schedule comes down to creating schedules for alternating shifts in which the worker is employed.

Accurately comply with the shift duration established by the enterprise;

Comply with the production process mode (discontinuous, continuous), production features, planned equipment operation;

Assign equipment to certain workers (teams) for a long time;

Ensure normal shift handover;

Ensure regular and correct alternation of work and rest;

Create conditions for the most appropriate use of working time;

Limit the number of hours you work at night.

When drawing up schedules, you should also take into account that:

Work should not begin earlier than 6 a.m. and end later than 24 a.m.;

The duration of a work shift for full-time workers should, as a rule, not be less than 4 hours or more than 12 hours;

It is advisable to set the duration of the lunch break within 30–60 minutes;

The duration of daily rest (between shifts) must be at least twice the length of work time preceding the rest (in exceptional cases less, but not less than 8 hours).

Every manager dreams of his subordinates working effectively. To improve the quality and efficiency of work, a lot of methods are used, from motivation to an individual approach to the employee. Often, to increase productivity, there is no need to look for a needle in a haystack. It is enough to pay attention to a few points. Yuri Smagin, creator of the Shopokop service, shares his secrets of improving staff performance.

Improving working conditions

Create comfortable working conditions: organize comfortable workplaces and a pleasant surrounding atmosphere. For example, in the companyGoogle gets creative when it comes to office design. The concept of the new office in Moscow is based on the cultural heritage of our country. On its territory you can find a meeting room created based on the work “The Twelve Chairs”, or a play area in the form of a hut.

Psychological comfort is also important. The absence of conflicts and intrigues allows employees to focus solely on work, without being distracted by infighting and bad mood. A well-knit team is an emotionally stable team. Carefully monitor the mood within him, apply techniques for assessing mood in relation to colleagues and management. Conduct trainings and corporate events aimed at uniting employees, organize interest groups.

It is also important to remember about an individual approach to employees. Perhaps a flexible schedule is preferable for some. If your employees are creative and dynamic people, and the nature of the work does not depend on the time of day, try to create working conditions that are acceptable to everyone.

Motivation

Motivate your employees financially. Create a bonus system by dividing your salary into a fixed and bonus part. Hoping for greater income, employees will perform the tasks assigned to them better. Set feasible conditions and increase bonuses.

Organize competitions among employees. This will boost their performance.

For example, a companyFreshBooks introduced virtual badges for employees, which were issued not only for solving important problems, but also for such merits as: coming to work early (“early bird”), creating an article for the corporate blog (“Hemingway”). At the end of the month, the results were summed up and the winners received prizes.

Confirm significance. If an employee has lost interest in work, find out why. Remind him that the tasks assigned to him are an integral part of the overall result. Show him how important he is to the company as a whole.

Encourage development. Moving forward is a common desire for most of us. When work only helps personal growth, this is a good thing for both the company and the employee. Create a professional library and let people read books. Send employees to specialized seminars, trainings and conferences. Organize events within the company where employees can share knowledge and experience.

Improvement of employee qualifications

One of the serious problems that entrepreneurs regularly face is the lack of qualified employees. There are two ways to get out of this situation: buy employees from competitors or educate and train them yourself. Training and “cultivating” employees will create professionals who are loyal to the company. Improve the skills of your employees. New knowledge will help generate new ideas and keep up with progress. One of the methods is the system of continuous education.

For example, in the companyEvery year SPLAT conducts more and more trainings aimed not only at useful skills for work, but also focused on the personal growth of employees.

Work on mistakes

Work on mistakes at meetings and planning sessions. This will help teach employees to solve problems that arise during work, analyze their actions, assess the consequences and eliminate errors in a timely manner. In addition, the most common mistakes can be included in the content of internal trainings, thereby preventing their repetition by different employees.

Monitoring the work of employees

Trust but check. Monitor the work of employees. Assess the completeness of the work being performed, and you will be able to identify at the early stages a decrease in motivation among the team. This is especially important when employees directly interact with customers, providing them with services or selling goods.

The quality of employee work can be checked by the company, but such checks are not always objective. In recent years, it has become popular to evaluate staff performance using the “secret shopper” method. Hired people come to buy a product or service according to a pre-prepared scenario, after which they provide a report on the quality of the service. The method allows you to determine the extent to which company employees comply with corporate service standards, what needs to be trained for staff, and identify weaknesses in the methodology for attracting customers.

Secret checks are ordered from marketing agencies or they hire secret shoppers themselves. Another possibility is to use web technologies to search for mystery shoppers. Full automation of the mystery shopping method makes the system simpler and more transparent. You can contact performers directly, choosing them based on their ratings. This eliminates the middleman, which leads to more efficient interaction.

Let's sum it up

Improving employee performance is not an easy task, but it can be done. By paying attention to motivation, employee development and control, you can take your business to a new level, increase profits and unite your dream team.