Our items for employee motivation - 6.2.2.4 Employee Motivation

Just looking for some opinions here on what we have in place that I will be using for 6.2.2.4 Employee Motivation

Perfect Attendance Awards:employees recieve a certificate/gift card/days off
based upon 3 levels of achievement with invite to
awards banquet
Service Awards:days off and certificates for every 5 years of service with invite
to awards banquet
CIP program: Cost Improvement ideas are submitted. Any accepted ideas
recieve 5% of total annual savings.
Performance Reviews: based on productivity, quality, cooperativeness
Discipline: Disciplinary measures in place for quality issues
Annual Employee Meetings: Top Management discusses buisness outlook
Profit Sharing: Company makes a profit employees get a share

HR measures employee turnover

Is this enough??

Looks nice Pete. I have seen companies with a lot less. I see you have annual meetings - do you do anything on a shop level like weekly or monthly quality meetings? Some companies have a newsletter that discusses current projects, anniversaries, achievements etc.

You don't need to cover them all but what you have looks good to me. Anyone else?

Dave

I'd like to comment on a few of your items

ISOPete said:

Just looking for some opinions here on what we have in place that I will be using for 6.2.2.4 Employee Motivation

Perfect Attendance Awards:employees recieve a certificate/gift card/days off based upon 3 levels of achievement with invite to awards banquet
Service Awards:days off and certificates for every 5 years of service with invite to awards banquet

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none of these would motivate me, but maybe they are better than a sharp stick in the eye.

CIP program: Cost Improvement ideas are submitted. Any accepted ideas
recieve 5% of total annual savings.

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This can be real touchy and fraught with legal complications. My experience and opinion says that best programs are completely transparent. This means a regular list of suggestions is published (names of contributors can be withheld from public.) The action (none, held for consideration, actual action) is communicated on each suggestion. Bookkeeping for each accepted suggestion is also open. If names are withheld, a unique tracking number is assigned to each suggestion. It is important to have a good education program in place on what makes a good, usable suggestion "add air conditioning to improve working conditions on hot days. Savings will be realized in fewer sick days and increased productivity because employees are not exhausted from heating" versus a throwaway line like "It's too hot!"

Performance Reviews: based on productivity, quality, cooperativeness

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I'm against these on general principles. So was Dr. Deming. I've never seen a program that wasn't corrupted by personal bias for or against individual employees.

Discipline: Disciplinary measures in place for quality issues

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Absolutely not! Re-education, not discipline. No economic or social penaties attached.

Annual Employee Meetings: Top Management discusses buisness outlook

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The word "discuss" implies a two-way dialog. My experience is the "suits" talk, the others listen. Save time and money. Forget the meeting. Print all that in the periodic newsletter. Include a Q&A column in every letter where questions can be asked by employees and answered by top execs.

Profit Sharing: Company makes a profit employees get a share

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Great! Make sure this includes transparency as well. Include a well-publicized formula to assure employees everyone gets a fair share. This means company has to open books. Too often companies keep multiple sets of books - one for tax man, one for investors, 3rd one for employees. Try to avoid the Enron symptom of tying up all profit sharing and 401k money in company stock, no matter how good it may look today.

HR measures employee turnover

Is this enough??

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It's not enough to measure employee turnover - it has to be evaluated and courses of actions proposed to reduce turnover.

Wes,
As an update to a few of your concerns. The CIP program is based upon actual money saving ideas....not A/C issues. i recently turned in a $27,000 CIP on skidding. Saved the company 27,000 per year and I got 5 % of 1 years total.
As far as dicipline I need to clarify that retraining is performed. It is a stepped process and only penalizes repeat offenders.

ISOPete said:

Wes,
As an update to a few of your concerns. The CIP program is based upon actual money saving ideas....not A/C issues. i recently turned in a $27,000 CIP on skidding. Saved the company 27,000 per year and I got 5 % of 1 years total.
As far as dicipline I need to clarify that retraining is performed. It is a stepped process and only penalizes repeat offenders.

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How do you make a distinction among

1. incompetence of worker
2. incompetence of training curriculum
3. incompetence of trainer
4. flawed work process
5. willful disobedience (sabotage)

What penalty? Only one (#5) deserves penalty. Who decides it is #5 versus #1 or #4?

6.2.2.4 Employee Motivation

This came up with some folks I spoke with yesterday - So, I'm interested as well... These folks got a writeup. What type of 'charting' was the main issue.

Okay heres an example. An operator runs 50 scrap parts undersize OD. A CAR is opened and as part of that he will recieve a note to file documenting that he recieved additional training. 1 month later he runs 30 more parts OD undersize. this time he recieves a written warning. 2 months later he runs 60 more more he now gets 3 days off no pay. 5 months later he runs another 30 scrap...he is dismissed. This system is designed for repeat offenders. Obviously this was a fictional worst case scenario!

ISOPete said:

Okay heres an example. An operator runs 50 scrap parts undersize OD. A CAR is opened and as part of that he will recieve a note to file documenting that he recieved additional training. 1 month later he runs 30 more parts OD undersize. this time he recieves a written warning. 2 months later he runs 60 more more he now gets 3 days off no pay. 5 months later he runs another 30 scrap...he is dismissed. This system is designed for repeat offenders. Obviously this was a fictional worst case scenario!

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Even at being fictional, this does not contain sufficient information to show worker was at fault. Please review Deming's Red Bead Experiment. I would be absolutely appalled to find this treatment of a worker without proof he created bad parts as intentional sabotage!

Okay Wes. So how long is an employee allowed to waste company money??????? How much constant reinstruction would you find sufficient. Not only is time being wasted in his production, but you have lost product and additional time training them for the umteenthmillionth time.

Also lets theoretically say corrective action was instuted to prevent the undersize OD problem but this fella keeps running scrap.

Now in lew of sounding utterly ingorant who is Deming and where may I find more info.

Simply Google
"red bead" +deming
Use quotes around red bead

Come back after you've done a little background. You should really make it a point to make yourself knowledgeable about W. Edwards Deming, the person whom the Deming Award, Japan's highest Quality honor, is named after.

A major point of ISO Standards is to involve management in understanding its responsibility in ensuring employees are competent and that training is adequate - See ISO 9001:2000 Section 5 Management Responsibility, especially the part 5.3 about Internal Communication.

Most importantly, see Section 6 resource management. In my mind, the method you propose for Discipline is in absolute violation of 6.4 Work environment by creating an adversarial work environment for employees subject to such discipline.