Nonconformances and Defects - Operator Error, System Error, or both?

[Sam]

Lack of compassion leads to fear in the workplace. I believe Deming and Juran have a lot to say about that topic.
And without compassion you cannot have success with principles 2 & 3.
I'm sure everyone has read it before, but, for a refresher see the detailed discussion of management and operator errors in Juran's QC handbook, chap. 17 & 18.

[Mike S.]

Martin,

Glad to see you weren't calling ole Joe an idiot. I understand where you were coming from better now. Peace.

[Claes Gefvenberg]

energy said:
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Personally, I have not recommended hiring a lot of people. About 10 employees in my long working life. There were 2 that I would have liked to do over. After a few months, just long enough to make it past the "temporary" status, the real person begins to emerge. Errors, attitude and 180 deg turn from what I thought I saw during the interview. That's a 20% error factor for me!
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Only 20%? Energy, that's probably better than average. Well done.

/Claes

[Mike S.]

Agreed, Claes. In my current and former companies I was known as one who did longer, more thorough interviews (sometimes with tests) and background/reference checks than anyone else. I even sought input from the receptionist who greeted the interviewee and/or may have met the person first when they dropped-off their resume or application - I wanted to see how the candidate treated them and acted when only the receptionist was around. Still, I can only claim a 70-80% success rate as defined by "would I hire this person again, a year later, if I had it to do over again". As Energy, I have occasionally seen a transformation after a hire passed the probationary period. I doubt that "world class" in hiring success (as defined my way) is much better than 90% because we're dealing with humans who can be deceptive.

[Michael T]

This whole tangent on hiring personnel makes me wonder...

How many people have competency tests or other type of screening devices they administer to perspective employees to "weed out" those individuals who might not be able to read, write or cypher good without taking off their shoes... (mathmatics... ) ?

If you do have these tests, what kind of turnover do you have for employees with... oh, let's say... under one year? (Just pulling a number out of the air).

Just curious.

Cheers!!!

Mike

[Mike S.]

Most of the candidates I did testing on for a few years were technician-level folks with at least some college, tech school, or military school. It was amazing what I would find out, on occasion, in a short 10 question test covering the very basics of the applicant's (supposed) area of expertise (they were given calculators, scrap paper, a very fair amount of time - 3X what should be needed - and left alone to take the test)! However, eventually HR got to sniffing around and said that my tests might be someday construed as biased in some way against some minority group and I should not give a test if it has not been vetted by a professional testing organization as being unbiased. What **** that is, but I stopped. The test was just one tool out of many I used to select people -- another data point. I think it helped me and the company choose more wisely in some cases.

When the next company began giving "professionally done" tests for general knowledge they stopped after less than a year so I cannot comment on turnover then.

Mike S. said:

However, eventually HR got to sniffing around and said that my tests might be someday construed as biased in some way against some minority group and I should not give a test if it has not been vetted by a professional testing organization as being unbiased. What **** that is, but I stopped.
When the next company began giving "professionally done" tests for general knowledge they stopped after less than a year so I cannot comment on turnover then.

And you know perfectly well, why. Short of asking "Who was buried in Grant's tomb?", the results were the same. Sorry Folks, but men may have all been created equal, they just didn't stay that way! More do gooders dictates from those who have no concern for the organization's bottom line. Just as long as it isn't theirs. Wait, this isn't the political thread. Disregard all after "Sorry Folks....."

[db]

But what about us ‘experts’? Is it possible for us to make mistakes? I know I made a mistake once. I only have 6 more years of child support left. (Yes, it was work related, but I shant go into details) But seriously, if I forget to pack my standard in my case when I go visit a client, is it my fault, or the system's fault? How can I error proof the 65 mile drive to ensure I don’t have any delays on the trip?