No pay, no way

Barry is the toast of the company after leading a successful CI programme with his shopfloor team, Kevin, Julia, Andy and Steve. In the past six months the team has delivered a £300,000 saving after carrying out a visual mapping exercise and implementing 5S on the product X line. Kevin, Julia, Andy and Steve were instrumental in the transition. The team threw the kitchen sink at improving the line, coming in on weekends without being paid to perform some of their line analysis. Barry had a great rapport with the trio as he himself had worked on the Product X line before being promoted to ops manager last year. After his success, Barry's bosses were keen for him to take his magic touch to Product X's sister line, Product C. Barry pulled the shopfloor operators together and gave the same debrief that had fired up the Product X line to walk through walls. As he concluded, Barry asked the operators if they had any questions? A hand shot up from the back and Ray, the line supervisor, said: "If you want us to do these extra things on top of hitting our production targets then you're going to have to pay us extra for it. There's no way any of us can afford to spend time doing this in our already busy weekly schedules and if you want us to stay late or come in on weekends then we're not slave labour. We deserve a bit of extra pay?" How would you respond to Ray? What are the benefits of trying to keep Ray on side and how could this be achieved? CI Solution - Dennis McCarthy of DAK Consulting gives the expert view There are lots of good learning points here. Why did Barry not discuss this with Ray before presenting it to the Product C team? How much better it would have been received if he had worked with Ray to agree the advantages for Ray's team and maybe get Ray to introduce the idea to his team. I have often witnessed extraordinary examples of people getting engaged with improvement activities and putting in their own time (and those of their family) without pay. This was not because they were expected to do it, but because they wanted to. You can't assume that, because an idea is logical and works in one area, it will be adopted by others. It takes time to build rapport and trust with a new work group. Another point to consider is that reactions like Ray's are often an emotional response to stimulus based on previous experience. It could indicate that there is some cultural baggage which needs to be dealt with. In this case, daylight is the best disinfectant. It could be that Barry needs more support to be able to operate at this level of management or it could be that he felt the best way to open up the conversation was to present Ray and his team with a clear challenge. It's an important right of passage for a new manager to set out the ground rules. I remember how one senior manager made it clear to his team leaders what he expected from them by asking if they felt there were things in their area which could be improved. When they all confirmed that improvement is always possible, he asked why they hadn't done it yet. When the conversation was over, the team leaders were left in no doubt of what was expected from them. Ray is right though – you have to make time to save time so there is no doubt that additional time should be allocated at the start. Once in place, mapping makes waste visible and 5S makes the job easier so the chances are the team would benefit in many ways. The point that isn't raised by the conversation, but needs to be covered, is why shouldn't the benefits of improvement be shared directly with those who deliver them? This is a slippery slope. It can be very difficult to share gains fairly. In addition, where sums are large, research shows that scheme participants engage in game playing to maximise their personal benefits. In organisations that make significant year-on-year progress, improvement is part of everyone's day job. Those that are good at it can command a premium in the job market, as Barry's promotion shows.