Introduction
Work place improvement is the responsibility of every employer. However, employers must play an instrumental role in ensuring that they create a friendly environment for work. Improving work process requires that a company create a culture of continuous progression and modifications to meet the new demands of the market. Creating this culture includes a process that embraces technology, teamwork, competency among others. After setting up these foundations, the company can then realize a reduction in cycle times, defects, and errors as well as witness a huge transformation in customer satisfaction. This report documents ways in which a company can improve its work process by identifying bottlenecks, errors and finding better ways to get work done (Gale, 2010).
This report describes the mechanisms that companies can use to improve the work process. It highlights how some companies employed combined mechanisms of human resource management, technology, and ingenuity to improve performance and production. The report employs the use of surveys and interviews as primary resources.
Limitations
This report is limited by inadequate details because of limited finances. For the most part, the report relies on the previous work done by other scholars to validate the observations. Still, this report presents a case that cannot be taken lightly especially in the light of the nature of the research.
Data Collection
The limited finances complicated the task because there is limited application of different research methodologies. Companies are discrete on their approaches and are unwilling to provide information for researches of this kind. From this situation, the primary research methodology will be observation and surveys.
Observation
Observation was applied in areas where the researcher needs coordinative information. This is where other data collection methodologies are not applicable. However, this data collection methodology is highly discouraged, because it is easily biased. We avoid prejudgment to enhance the reliability of the research.
Questionnaire
Questionnaires targeted resourceful individuals in the research field. This is because questionnaires require awareness for one to give reliable information.
Background Information and Problem
Improving a work process is a task that embodies changing the manager’s mentality to ensure that they deviate from the traditional model of management to a more hybrid system that facilities work and creates teamwork. Yet many companies fail to realize improvement in the work process because of delays caused by wrong human management strategies and lack of proper organization. It is only through changing the manager’s mentality that a company can improve the speed of production, quality and deliverance.
Improving a work process is not limited to developing a team unit. Breuinig, Bradford & Liang (2003) reported that to be unbeaten in business, there is a need for a firm to be constantly assessing itself to provide an opportunity for improving all the dimensions of the business. Standardization of performance thus becomes an important aspect of measuring how a firm is doing in respect to improving its performance. Metrics becomes the cornerstone of measuring the level of progress. A company needs to identify its needs in order to provide a clear and well-developed strategy to be able to measure performance. Standardization of performance bases on three objects that include strategic goals, objectives, and metrics. Setting up goals is the first step in measuring performance. The company can then measure how far it has made progress depending on the number of goals achieved. Objectives refer to the purposes of the goals or what the goals are intended for.
Another model that a company can use to improve its performance is the popular Porter’s five forces model. Porter fronted an argument that a nation has the ability of creating new factors for making stable industries. Such factors include skilled labor, technological base, support from government and cultural values among others. Porter’s five forces are a threat of new competition, threat of substitute products and services, the bargaining power of clients, and suppliers’ bargaining power. Several resources need to be transferred in a company for the functionality of this model. Labor, both skilled and unskilled, need to be uniformly distributed well in all the plants. In addition, the company uses avenues of advertisement to increase its sales. Such strategies may include using social networks for advertising. However, before venturing into new markets, the company should first strengthen the already existing markets. This will enhance the already existing client base and such base will be of encouragement for venturing in new markets.
This report found out that staffing plays an instrumental role in binding a company. In order for staffing to be effective, there will be need to have staff members that have the required requisite for tasks that they perform. There will also a great deal of flexibility that creates room for staff members to help one another when there is need. This means that the team must be diverse to cover for all aspects such as gender, race, body shape and experience in different fields. Sustaining growth also depends on the level of competency in the firm. Competency refers to the behaviors that individuals possesses or must possess to perform work. Competency, therefore, focuses on the individual’s input and the outcome thereof. Measuring competency requires what is usually defined as competency structure. The competency structure is a framework that defines the company’s expectations.
Laske (2001) wrote about learning and growth development. According to them, the growth and development is a framework for quantitatively assessing employee satisfaction, productivity, and relation in the framework of scorecard balance. The learning and growth method emphasizes measures not only as employee’s behaviors but also in developmental terms at work. One way of smart accounting is using technology such as CRM. CRMs are over the edge because they are designed to help a business identify, capture, and retain customers and potential customers. Managing CRM requires keeping data, useful information, and recording details of the prospective customer. The CRM system has made it easy for companies to manage the complexity of managing individual customer relationships across multiple channels while steering across volumes of data. The CRM is a highly targeted and event triggered marketing campaign that makes it possible for companies to identify significant changes in customer behavior that are pointers to income change. The advantage of this system is that it facilitates timely service to customers.
Recommendation and Conclusion
The company has to work as a team, disintegrated into smaller teams. Each team is challenged to identify bottlenecks and to generate improvements in their area of operations. A measurement procedure is then established that provides feedback on the improvements in the entire company. If there is a general improvement in the work speed, a reward system that includes an exciting celebration is organized to recognize the workers for their achievements.
In order for our team to work efficiently and to develop competency, we sought the advice Dyer (2010). According to the two, for a team to be successful, it must do the following:
1. The team must articulate the goals and the methods of achieving the goals.
2. Ensuring that each individual in the team understands their assignment and knows how their work contributes to the team
3. Every member makes effective decisions
4. That there is effective communication that includes receiving and getting feedback
5. Disputes are resolved peacefully
High performing teams have not developed by accident. Instead, they have developed by the ability to change by having stable and consistent team building processes that assist in evaluating the team context, team composition, and team competencies. A company must aspire to create high performance by following the above-mentioned guidelines.
According to Schein (2009), corporate culture refers to shared beliefs, values, and behaviors that a firm subscribes. This beliefs, values, and expected behavior provide a foundation upon which a firm is managed. The organizations executives articulate cultural statements to the workers. Usually, firms with a strong corporate culture outperform those without a strong corporate culture. Because culture is relative, organizations have the power to create culture that fits organizations objectives. Corporate culture plays out in various ways. Company’s culture can be distinct in ways such as the way they handle communication, feedback, project coordination, or customer relations (Kotter, 1992). In some cases, corporate culture is visible in the way an organization is structured. Some companies emphasize servant leadership while others focus on teamwork; others promote basing on appraisals while others promote basing on future objectives. In many cases, culture is also defined by the nature of the competition and by the desire of the company to be like the rest or to form a unique identity (Schein, 2009).
Schein (2009) argues that the articulation of a corporation’s culture would be meaningless if a strong leadership is missing. Leaders of a corporation must be aware of the required culture in a corporation and determine ways in which the culture is understood by all sections for the firm. Leaders must also play the role models by exhibiting behaviors that are demonstrable of the organization’s goals.
Customer Value
Weinstein& Johnson (1999) write that successful companies do not satisfy customers, they work hard to please them. Superior customer values means continually creating a business experience that exceed the ordinary expectations (p.4). In their view, value is the strategic driver that most multinational corporations utilize to differentiate themselves from the rest in the view of customers. In the abstract form, values means the excellence usually based on desirability or usefulness (Weinstein & Johnson, 1999, p.5). Gale (2010) reports that a value driven marketing strategy help organizations in several areas including but not limited to:
Conclusion
This report has analyzed methods that a company can use to improve performance and increase the work process. The conclusion has been that most companies will do well if there functional team spirit, efficient technology, and a good human resource culture.
References
Dyer, W., & Dyer, J. (2010). Team Building: Proven Strategies for Improving Team Performance. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Gale, B. (2010). Managing Customer Value: Creating Quality and Service That Customers Can Se. Los Angeles, CA: Simon and Schuster.
Laske, O. (2001). A Learning-and-Growth Metric for Strategy-Focused Organizations. Personnel Development Consultation, Vol. 40(1), p 230-283.
Schein, E. (2009). The Corporate Culture Survival Guide. Chicago: John Wiley & Sons.
Weinstein, A., & Johnson, W. (1999). Designing and Delivering Superior Customer Value: Concepts, Cases, and Applications. Miami, FL: CRC Press.
