The article "Why Your Training Is So Ineffective?" from the Quality Insider Newsletter caught our attention because it raises a crucial issue in corporate training and new employee orientation, namely Return On Training Investment. Here's the key question the article raises:
"We’ve all done it: You need to learn something so you sign up for training. You attend a class. You go back to work. Does anything from the training class stay with you a week later? How about a month or six months later? Usually you feel good after training. You remember some of the content. You have some new ideas. But as time passes, the experience fades and you are back where you started. Is this a good return on your time and investment?"
No matter how engaging or informative a "live" training course might be in the moment, what happens when the people trained go back to their offices? Do they remember what they learned? Can they apply it correctly? Can you measure training return through improved results? fewer errors?
This challenge is the reason why having written standardized procedures and work instructions available to employees 24/7 is such an important aspect of leveraging training expenses and maximizing return.
A clear, easy to understand operations manual provides an essential reference and training tool. Employees can read and review key policies and procedures both before and after face-to-face orientation and training. When they get back to the job, they don't have to rely on their memories or whatever notes they jotted down. What makes so many corporate training programs ineffective has nothing to do with what happened in class and everything to do with whether or not there is a knowledge support system available after the fact!
COMPROSE Zavanta software makes it easy for your organization to have essential operations policies and procedures securely available 24/7 to your staff from any location--even home!
Many companies have heated internal debates on this question: "Are our written policies and procedures good or bad? " How do you know?
Some people measure quality based on whether P&Ps exist and are physically accessible to staff, whether they are grammatically correct, or how they look. Criticisms range from “Our P&Ps are too long” “We don’t have enough pictures” "We need differnt fonts." “Playscript format is best” “No, a flowchart is the answer." "We don’t need details." "We need much more detail.” and on and on.
When it comes judging to the quality of your policy and procedures manuals, it’s all a matter of opinion, right? Wrong! In this post, we show you how to tell OBJECTIVELY if your corporate policies and procedures are “good” or not.
The definitive test is how you answer this questions: Are we getting the PERFORMANCE results we want?
The term “Performance results” is a little broad, so we’ve broken it down into 7 specific areas relating to operations and training. If you answer YES to just one question, your standard operating procedures are either missing in action or need fixing and you are not getting the return you should for the time, money, and effort you’re spending on writing policies and procedures.
Diagnosis Checklist
Training Difficulties: Does it take too long to get new employees productive? Do supervisors spend too much time answering the same questions? Is training inconsistent? (How are you training your people?)
Inefficiencies, Slowness: Does it take too long to: Perform routine tasks? Open new locations? Take a business concept and “franchise” it? Implement major changes? Roll-out new systems? Launch new products?
Errors, Waste (Quality Control): Are people making too many errors? Do you have difficulty controlling the quality of service, products without a lot of labor and oversight.
Knowledge Retention: Are there areas where you would be at significant risk or project failure if your STAR performer or consultant left today? Are best practices in peoples’ heads? Are your “experts” overwhelmed by people constantly asking them for help?
Inconsistency / One-offs: Are work processes inconsistent? Is there a significant variance in how one person performs a job vs. another person? Do people often re-invent the wheel?
Fire-fighting: Are managers spending too much time fighting fires, dealing with mundane issues, instead of mentoring employees and focusing on innovation?
Regulatory Compliance / Liability Risk: Are there areas of exposure? High risks? Are Board Members signing off on policies they aren’t reading and don’t fully understand?
Any one of these issues by itself is serious. The financial impact could be costing you tens of thousands of dollars (or could possibly even you out of business).
A “good” P&P system is the most efficient and least costly way to alleviate these problems, so if you still have them, whatever you’re doing (or not doing) isn’t working. Here’s the bottom line.
If people are USING your corporate policy and procedure manuals and achieving the expected results with minimal supervision, then you get an A+. If you have operations, quality, and training costs under control and down to a science, then whatever you are doing is working. If you have a systematic and sustainable way to transfer the best practices of your star performers then BRAVO.
That’s the true test of whether P&Ps are GOOD or not. Nothing else really matters.
Streamlining operations, improving organizational performance, and standardized procedures are 3 critical and interlocking components of success in every organization. But as we have talked about in many posts, the real key is getting good people and good systems to work together. If the wheels on your car are out of alignment, you are in for a bumpy ride and might even end up in a ditch. It's the same thing if your people and your systems are out of alignment.
In his book, Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less, Marc Lesser makes the point well:
"ORGANIZATIONAL ALIGNMENT: Organizations are in alignment when each person on the team or in the organization understands the larger mission and how his or her actions are connected to it. Organizations are out of alignment when individuals don’t fully understand and embrace the mission, goals, and objectives and don’t see how their particular activity influences and contributes to the organization."
The Company Procedures Manual delivers many benefits, but not enough people recognize its power as a strategic management process. Writing policies and procedures down and sharing standard best practices serves to align your organization. Not only does everyone know what to do, everyone knows why they are doing it.
As you are doing your strategic organization planning, take a look at the alignment between people and systems. If it's not in sync, developing and sharing clear standard operating procedures is the fastest way to get the wheels realigned.
By writing policies and procedures that clearly explain your unique business system you can guarantee that your employees understand their roles and responsibilities and are working on the right tasks. This is the very core of COMPROSE's Operations Mapping approach and Zavanta software.
For more perspective on this topic see these previous posts:
How do you keep your employees operating efficiently and error free? What is the most important factor for reducing task errors and improving organizational performance? Is it employee training methods, effective work instructions, or strategic management processes? These are organization challenges and questions that operations executives and corporate training managers struggle with on a daily basis. Where should you invest your efforts for maximum results?
Watch this short video to learn about some interesting scientific research showing the impact clear, standard operating procedures (SOPs) can have on employee performance and error reduction.
The implication for organizations wanting to improve organizational performance and reduce errors is clear. As simple as it may seem, the most effective technique is to streamline systems and procedures. Corporate training methods and common strategic management processes, such as reward versus reprimand, did not achieve the anywhere near the positive results that simply defining a clear, efficient standard operating procedure did.
Training employees and keeping them compliant with regulations is a big challenge. Just about every business is interested in improving organizational performance and with the increased regulations coming down the pike, it is only going to get more difficult to achieve compliance. As we shared in an earlier post, we have been spending time lately talking informally to bank regulators to get their insights on the role policies and procedures play in “keeping the bank out of trouble” and how companies can get a handle on this before the next regulatory tsunami hits.
What we learned was that the regulators want to see proof that the Bank has thought through all their corporate policies and set guidelines, directions, and exceptions that pertain to their unique situation. One of the biggest challenges is figuring out a system for dealing with all the complex exceptions and conditions involved in daily operations. (This comes up in other industries too. Can you say insurance claims processing?!)
One of the regulators we spoke with drove the point home by sharing a story of a problem he experienced as a Compliance Officer in a multi-location bank. The audience served by one location was very different than the customers served at another location. This presented many challenges; handling Customer Identification was one. The bank had no formal, written guidelines. Everyone just did what they thought was best which put the bank at risk and caused a lot of employee frustration and upset customers.
As this regulator put it: “Employees – especially those on the front line – have to know what to do in every weird situation. They need to know what to do when they are outside of the normal stuff.”
“Outside the normal stuff” can vary from bank to bank or even by location. A branch serving Population A may have different issues than a branch location that serves Population B with completely different demographics. So, when writing policies and procedures for your bank you need a system that is flexible and designed with these exceptions built in.
Through our Operations Mapping approach and Zavanta software, COMPROSE helps our clients design their policy and procedure systems with this flexibility in mind. In the next post, we share 5 specific tips for making sure your content delivers value and is useful.
The answer depends on your situation and business need. There are tons of corporate policy and procedure examples on the web as well as many companies that sell pre-written company procedure manuals. However, most are Employee Manuals, not Operations Manuals and there is a difference. (See Previous Post: How are Employee Manuals and Operations Manuals Different ) Most pre-written content is focused on policy, not procedure. So if you’re looking for a basic Employee Manual focused on HR issues, or you need help identifying the kind of topics you should address as you develop your own policies, these products may be helpful. Most are very affordable. Boilerplate manuals and standards guides often contain useful subject matter information, but can rarely be used “as is” for running an operation — especially at the tactical level.
At COMPROSE, we focus on Operations Manuals (Standard Operating Procedures) that provide step by step details on how to complete work. For example, when A happens do B, when C happens do D and so on. Think about your own organization. How many processes and tasks are unique to your company? Probably most of them — that’s what makes you better than your competitors! Bank Operations is a good example. All Banks have certain basic processes such as Commerical Lending, New Accounts, or Wealth Management. At a high-level there are process commonalities across organizations. But once you get past the big picture, there’s quite a bit of variation from bank to bank.
Boilerplate manuals cannot capture your unique operational flow or how your organization actually “works.” Boilerplate manuals don’t contain all the tips, tricks, and best practices of your star performers. So, if you’re looking for a “magic bullet” that you can just buy off-the-shelf to run your operation and keep your employees trained on “how to” tasks, you’ll be disappointed. That just doesn’t exist.
Pre-written “boilerplate” material may give you topic ideas or industry-specific policy information. But, for real operations results we recommend following a systematic approach to identify your processes and begin breaking them down into manageable chunks (procedures and tasks). Our Operations Mapping is a proven, systematic technique. Our Zavanta software is a specialized tool for writing policies and procedures fast and effectively transferring know-how out of your experts’ heads.
Figuring out the best way to maintain operations in the event of an H1N1 flu epidemic is one of the biggest organization challenges corporations are faced with right now. An article just released by the Associated Press, warns that:
"Many American businesses are unprepared to deal with widespread employee absenteeism in the event of an outbreak of swine flu, according to a Harvard School of Public Health study released Wednesday [9-9-09]"
"Companies need to train workers to handle the jobs of absent colleagues and need to determine which jobs can be handled remotely from home. "
These serious operational threats are why it is so important to have standardized procedures in place that are easy to reference, train and cross-train from. If your organization has well-defined corporate processes and corporate training programs in place, you can weather any unexpected operations challenge much more easily than your competitors. If you don't, your business can take a major hit.
The COMPROSE Zavanta software system makes it easy for your organization to have essential operations policies and procedures securely available 24/7 to your staff from any location--even home! If a key employee is side-lined with the flu, another employee can quickly reference the procedures to step in and perform essential job functions. Read how other organizations are using Zavanta today.
We’re amazed at the number of people we talk to who really want to develop better standard operating procedures for their organization, who clearly understand the benefits of standardized procedures, who even have management mandates and funded projects to develop or update their corporate policies and procedures manuals, but–despite all that–never manage to actually do anything about it. They have good intentions. They hold meetings. They discuss requirements. Sometimes, they even open up the word processor. But that’s as far as they get. Momentum grinds to a halt. Years can go by with no usable results.
If this sounds familiar, maybe you need some better strategies to get back on track.
Here is a list of 5 Simple Strategies that work to break the logjam and finally get your procedure manuals project off the drawing board and across the finish line.
Start Small – Don’t try to do everything at once–you'll get overwhelmed. Instead, pick just one key task or operating process. Develop just that content and then publish it and start getting feedback. You'll get a quick win. Then go on to the next area, and the next, piece by piece in bite size chunks.
Divide and Conquer – Many hands make light work. To cover a lot of ground rapidly, involve a large pool of subject experts to contribute first drafts. Then edit their work. Each person has only a small part to do, but the combined effort gives fast results. For more on this approach see: Getting All Employees Involved in Maintaining Good Procedures
Set Goals – There’s nothing like a deadline to provoke action. If your CEO demands that the Operations Manual be done by October, you’ll figure out a way to get it done. So, if you’re stalled because there is no external deadline, set one and stick to it.
Learn from the Experts––sometimes projects bog down because the task is new and your team lacks experience and confidence. Consulting a third-party expert can often jumpstart your momentum. Consider a staff training or enrolling your team in some educational webinars.
Get the Right Tools—if your project is stalled, the problem might be that you lack the right system. Traditional word processors and general-purpose software has proven cumbersome, ineffective and costly for creating and updating effective corporate policy and procedure manuals. Investigate if there are better tools for your needs. COMPROSE invented Zavanta software to provide a faster, better way to get high-quality results.
We’ll be expanding on each of these strategies separately in upcoming posts.
As Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” but corporate manuals come in all shapes and sizes under all kinds of names: Employee Policy Manual, Company Procedures Manual, Employee Manual, Corporate Training Manual, Policy and Procedure Manual, Operations Manual, etc., etc., etc.
Does the name make a difference?
Yes! Although all manuals share a common goal of laying out consistent standards, streamlining systems, and standardizing operations within a company, their content, structure and purpose vary dramatically from type to type. The difference between “Employee” manuals and “Operations" manuals in particular is worth a closer examination.
Employee Manuals cover basic employment rules and policies, such as hours of work, vacation and holiday policies, non-discrimination policies, overtime policies and so on. Most organizations have some sort of general employee manual or handbook blessed by the corporate lawyers and handed out by HR during new employee orientation.
Operations Manuals are unique to each organization and cover the specific work systems and procedures of the organizations. Operations typically contain processes, procedures, work instructions and job aids that help employees understand how to complete tasks correctly and in a standard way.
Many organizations have basic employee handbooks, but a large number of organizaions lack any kind of Operations Manuals and pay the price for this through inefficiencies, lowered productivity and higher costs. For more on why that is, see previous post Standardizing Operations Helps You Work Faster and Eliminate Waste.
Starting a new job ranks high on the Life Stress meter. That fact is very important to remember when planning new employee orientation and employee training programs.
The first day at a new job people are nervous. They want to make a good impression. Everything–and we mean EVERYTHING–is new. Where to park? How to navigate the building? Where are the bathrooms? How to navigate security? How does the phone work? Who ARE all these new people? These are just a few of the thousands of questions racing through the minds of every new employee–from the summer intern to the newly recruited CEO. Most new employees are too nervous or embarrassed to ask questions for fear of seeming incompetent.
Why is this so important to remember?
New job nerves and anxiety drastically lower everyone's ability to process and remember new information. New employees hit "information overload" much sooner than normal. If you want your new employee orientation programs to "stick" and really help new employees get productive as soon as possible, you can't forget this reality.
Most new employee orientation methods run the gamut from "Here's your desk. See ya!" to intense weeks long seminars covering every detail and nuance of corporate policy and detailed work instructions. Both of these extremes are costly and counter-productive.
The "Go figure it out yourself" orientation method might seem like a good way to eliminate a line item from the training budget, but it costs a lot more in the long run by lengthening the learning curve, increasing errors and liability, and even hurting morale.
The opposite extreme–intensive instructor led training sessions covering every aspect of the position–can be just as ineffective and costly. New employees become overwhelmed and fail to retain all the details. Even after training, they can still need significant "on the job" coaching from supervisors and co-workers before they can be fully productive. Some training programs are so detailed and intense that new employees are intimidated and quit shortly after, or even during, training.
So what's the answer? If you want new employee orientation to "stick," write it down. A clear, easy to understand company procedures manual provides a solid foundation for all new employee orientation and training programs. New employees can read and review key policies and procedures before and after face-to-face orientation and training. They don't have to rely on their memories or whatever notes they can jot down.
This one simple tactic can dramatically increase comprehension and decrease training time and employee anxiety. An even better way to make new employee orientation stick, is to provide customized "Position Guides" containing the specific policies, procedures, job aids and work instructions each position requires that any employee can reference when they have questions both during and after training.
When you are writing policies and procedures, job aids, and work instructions, clarity should always be your first consideration. Remember that people in your organization turn to the company procedures manuals and new employee orientation training guides for two main reasons: 1) they have no idea how to perform a task or 2) they are having difficulty with a tricky task and need to confirm the exact steps.
Every word counts and has a precise meaning, even the little ones such as a, an, the, one. These words known as articles mean very specific things. Notice how the meaning changes in the following sentence depending on which article you use:
There’s a building on the corner.
There’s the building on the corner.
There’s one building on the corner.
Don't leave out articles such as an, a, or the to save space. Leaving them out, can confuse the reader and even lead to errors.
Example: Rotate the compass to center line.
Readers can’t tell if "center line" is a noun (the center line) or a verb with its object (center the line). Experienced workers (who often write the procedures for the employee manual) might know from past experience which meaning is correct, but imagine this is a new worker who has just completed new employee orientation training, but has never actually completed the task. That person will be forced to guess the meaning and could make a serious error as a result.
For clarity’s sake, write instead: Rotate the compass to center the line. or Rotate the compass to the center line.
If your goal is to have your organization’s employee manuals and training guides read and used, keep this tip in mind when writing policies and procedures. Don’t be vague!
Abstract terms are harder to understand and frequently boring and lifeless. When you use vague generalized words, you'll either bore or frustrate your reader. Vow to use specific and accurate nouns to make an immediate impression and draw a picture in the reader's mind.
Here are a Few examples:
Instead of ...
Try ...
Book
CSR Training Guide, War & Peace, your Zavanta User's Guide
Output device
HP laser printer, Linotronic imagesetter, Epson dot-matrix printer
Vehicle
Truck, Half-ton flatbed trailer, white Jaguar XL
Watch our upcoming posts for more tips and techniques that you can use for writing policies and procedures that deliver more value. You might also want to check out our webinar series, particularly our How to Create User-friendly Procedures webinar. Follow the link to download a data sheet.
"You will make better progress in coaching employees when you train them—and yourself—to stop looking to you for answers."
This tip from the July 2009 issue of Communications Briefings struck a chord. We've talked to many managers who complain they can't delegate tasks effectively, or even leave the office, because their employees are too dependent on them—bombarding them with questions and seeking advice on how to complete tasks all day long.
Empowering employees to work independently is one of the best steps you can take on the path to improving organizational performance and improving efficiency. No matter what type of corporate training methods you adopt, if employees are trained by "word of mouth" from their supervisors they will learn this first and foremost: Need an answer? Go ask the boss!
Your company procedures manual is one of the most powerful "empowerment" tools you have for promoting independent action from your employees without sacrificing standards. When the "Best Practices" are clearly written out and available 24/7, employees learn to "look it up" first. This reinforces learning and independence. They only go to the boss when the problem is new or needs clarification.
So if you want your employees to be more empowered, take a look at the quality and accessibility of your employee manuals and policies and procedures.
The COMPROSE Operations Mapping approach helps you break your operating procedures out into modular processes, procedures, and work instructions that you can easily link to relevant policies. Zavanta software creates reader-friendly “drill down” websites and company procedure manuals so your employees can accurate policy answers and standard operating procedures quickly and easily—making them more independent every day.
The current scholarly research, backed up by our own field experience, indicates that flow charting your processes and procedures has definite proven value as an analytical tool for understanding high-level workflow and grasping the Big Picture. As well, by providing a Flow Chart or System Diagram when writing policies and procedures and employee manuals you can often help readers create “mental models” of procedure steps more easily.
However, while flow charts can provide a good process overview, large complicated flow charts can be very counter-productive—only confusing and intimidating employees. Except for very simple processes, flow charts can rarely stand alone. In practical settings such as training and daily operations, concise, detailed text procedures do a better job at providing the levels of detailed information employees actually need to carry out work tasks.
The Policy and Procedure Pros agree that the optimal solution is to utilize flow charts for what they do best—giving the "Big Picture"—and to utilize clear, concise written procedures and work instructions for what they do best—supporting task learning, reference and performance improvement.
The COMPROSE Operations Mapping approach helps you analyze your operating procedures and break them out into modular tasks, processes, procedures, and work instructions that you can easily link to relevant policies. Zavanta software creates reader-friendly “drill down” websites and company procedure manuals that give you high level process descriptions including flow charts for management views as well as increasingly detailed step by step instructions for task performers. This integrated approach delivers optimal results.
While Flow Charts certainly have proven benefits and many managers and quality experts advocate them, some recent empirical research uncovers some undeniable weaknesses that limit flow charts’ usefulness in practical applications such as corporate training, standardizing daily operations and performance improvement.
Several studies described in the Journal of Information Systems Education[1] and the British Journal of Educational Technology [2] found subjects performed faster and more accurately when using concise text instructions and/or pseudo-code compared to flow charted procedures. Flow charts were found to be particularly ineffective when applied to complicated procedures with much branching.
Researchers published in the ACM Annual Computer Science Conference put it this way: “Although studying a “picture” may be more aesthetically appealing than poring through lines of “textual” code . . . empirical studies have indicated that flowcharts may be no more beneficial than source listings. In fact, they may be a hindrance”[3] According to the same source, another study concluded that procedures written as flowcharts did not increase performance by subjects in identifying procedural faults.
A 2007 study published in the Journal of Information Systems [4], cited weaknesses of flow charting and similar systems diagramming techniques finding them “inadequate for complicated processes.” The study cited weaknesses including employee unfamiliarity with the method and limited usefulness in daily operations. Study authors found that flow charts made it “too easy for the documenter to over-simplify the processes” and found that most flow charts needed “additional narrative” to fully explain the process to users. User feedback stressed the deficiency that flow charts failed to indicate “why something is done”—a critical component in training, compliance and operational settings.
A 2009 study published by the American Accounting Association [5] found that although theory suggested flow charts would make it easier for auditors to create mental models of processes and improve their speed and accuracy, their study found that business process flow charts “did not improve auditors’ ability to identify missing internal controls” which was their primary aim, and in fact client prepared flow charts actually hindered the auditors work.
This research clearly indicates that although graphical representations of procedures (aka flow charts) can certainly aid in understanding and communicating process flows and Big Picture views, in many cases a picture is NOT worth a thousand words. Concise, well-crafted text procedures are often the most effective way to convey how-to instructions.
See our next post for the bottom line verdict on using flow charting when writing policies and procedures and company procedures manuals.
Sources: [1] “Teaching Flowcharting with FlowC,” Journal of Information Systems Education, 15: 1 65-77
[2] Abstract: “Extracting information from flowcharts and contingency statements: the effects of age and practice” British Journal of Educational Technology 22: (2) 84-98.
[3] “Survey of empirical studies of graphical representations for algorithms” Proceedings of the 1988 ACM sixteenth annual conference on Computer Science. ACM Annual Computer Science Conference.
[4] Bradford, Marianne et. al., “System Diagramming Techniques: An Analysis of Methods Used in Accounting Education and Practice” Journal of Informations Systems 21: (Spring 2007) 173-212.
[5] Bierstaker et. al., “Do Client-Prepared Internal Control Documentation and Business Process Flow Charts Help of Hinder and Auditor’s Ability to Identify Missing Controls?” Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 28: (May 2009) 79-94.
We get asked often about how, when, and why people should use flow charts when writing policies and procedures and developing corporate training manuals and guides.
The Policy and Procedure Pros are firmly divided on the overall effectiveness of flow charts as a way to communicate how to perform procedures and work instructions and reduce errors. Some see significant benefits in flow charts. Some see significant drawbacks. We decided to survey the current scholarly research on the topic to settle the debate and found that both sides are right.
According to current research, the question “To flow chart, or not to flow chart,” is an “it depends” proposition. Some times it helps. Some times it doesn’t.
The following 2 separate Posts look individually at the Benefits and the Problems and Weaknesses of using flow charts for communicating"how to"information in company Procedures Manuals designed to improve employee and operations performance and support corporate training efforts.
In an previous post Do "Unwritten Rules" Undermine Your Business?, The Good Business Systems squad warned about the dangers of operating your business with "unwritten rules." This question from the May issue of St. Louis Small Business Monthly highlights more of the dangers. What happens when star performers leave and take their "unwritten" knowledge out the door with them?
My biggest all-star employee just left the company to work for a competitor. He was efficient, virtually mistake-free and energetic. When he left, he took with him a bunch of unwritten knowledge about how he did his job. I now have a couple of people that are similar in background and knowledge, but they just can’t match what this person was able to do. Besides working on my employee retention, how can I get access to the hidden or tribal knowledge that people like this all-star have? What is a way that I can document the habits that separate all-stars from bench warmers?
- Missing My All-Star, Maryland Heights Business Owner
If you are still relying on word-of-mouth training and tribal knowledge you are putting your business at risk.
The very best way to retain the knowledge of star performers is to capture that unique knowledge as part of your company's operations manual and standardized procedures. By writing policies and procedures that clearly explain your unique business system and contain the unique details that only your All Star performers understand you can prevent costly "brain drain" and also improve your corporate training effectiveness.
Don't wait until a star performer leaves and you are left with a big knowledge gap to overcome. COMPROSE Zavanta software is designed specifically to make it easy for your "All Star" Subject Matter Experts to capture their special knowledge and share it with others through effective policies and procedures. It provides all the tools necessary for writing policies and procedures that others will read and use. You can learn how other organizations have successfully implemented this strategy at www.comprose.com.
Often the burden of writing policies and procedures, Employee Manuals, and Operations Manuals falls on the shoulders of training or HR departments. But to get the real value of living, breathing systems, the whole organization needs to be involved in creating and maintaining standardized procedures. This can be a challenge, but the results are well worth the effort.
Here are some ways to encourage employee participation in preparing and maintaining effective procedures:
Use experienced employees as subject matter experts and procedure writers
Provide support and guidance for subject matter experts in good techniques for writing policies and procedures so they know what to do
Provide all employees an opportunity to give input on the procedures they use
Implement a system that encourages any user to raise an issue or recommend improvements to an approved procedure
COMPROSE Zavanta software is designed specifically to help Subject Matter Experts “think through” a task so they can capture the right information into effective policies and procedures using a series of input screens. It also provides all the tools necessary to streamline the process of developing and maintaining policy and procedure content. You can learn how other organizations have successfully implemented this strategy at http://www.comprose.com/productsservices/zavantasoftware.html
What’s the most important factor in reducing task errors? Employee Skills? Training Methods? or the “System” itself (aka steps used to perform the task)?
An interesting research study carried out by Michael Byrne of Rice University and Elizabeth Davis of the University of Texas overturns many common assumptions about employee training methods and performance improvement. They were interested specifically in why “post-completion” errors are so prevalent. In a post-completion error, a person correctly completes a series of actions but then fails—or forgets—to complete an essential final step. Running a complicated photocopying job but then walking off and leaving the original documents behind in the copier is an example of a post-completion error most of us can relate to.
To investigate this, Byrne and Davis created controlled laboratory studies and compared performance results using two distinct step sequences for completing the same task. They also, examined the relative effectiveness of employee training methods (reprimand, reinstruction, and praise) on correcting post-completion errors. We found the results, published in the journal Human Factors, “Task Structure and Post-completion Error in the Execution of a Routine Procedure” fascinating. They surprised even the researchers.
None of the “motivational manipulations (reprimand, reinstruction, and praise) had a reliable effect on altering task performance (for either task completion time or task accuracy)." The only group that consistently outperformed the others was the one that followed the better procedure in the first place.
When the standard procedure that test subjects followed included the “post completion” step within the logical sequence of the task (rather than as a separate “after task” activity), errors were drastically reduced. The only difference between the test groups was the ORDER of the steps given in the written procedure test subjects followed. Yet, the performance results showed a significant difference in error rate.
The implication for organizations wanting to improve organizational performance and reduce errors is to the most effective technique is to streamline systems and procedures. Changing corporate training methods and varying strategic management processes, such as reward versus reprimand, did not achieve the results that simply defining a clear, efficient procedure did.
The Good Business Systems Squad shared a study with us that we found really thought provoking. Researchers Michael Byrne of Rice University and Elizabeth Davis of the University of Texas created controlled laboratory studies to examine the relative effectiveness of employee training methods on correcting post-completion errors. Published in Human Factors, their study, “Task Structure and Post-completion Error in the Execution of a Routine Procedure” compared the effectiveness of four common training practices for improving performance and reducing errors.
Sometimes referred to as “Blame and Train,” the four training techniques were:
1.Reprimand: When testers made errors they were reported for poor performance and advised to improve.
2.Reinstruction: When testers made errors they were reported for poor performance and advised to re-read the manual and take a test to demonstrate proficiency.
3.Praise: Testers were praised for good performance and advised to keep up the good work.
4.Redesign: When testers made errors, they were trained on a different procedure and re-tested.
The results surprised even the researchers! They showed that none of the “motivational manipulations (reprimand, reinstruction, and praise) had a reliable effect on altering task performance (for either task completion time or task accuracy)." The only group that consistently outperformed the others was the one that followed the better procedure in the first place.
The system or step sequence the tester followed had a much greater impact on performance than any other factor!
Wow! This research has some significant implications for corporate training departments to reflect on. Are we investing our resources in the areas that can have the biggest impact on ROI? Before we invest in training, blaming, or even rewarding, do we start with clear, effective “procedures” that support good performance?
Is it the employee or the “system” that needs improvement?
The article "Why Your Training Is So Ineffective?" from the Quality Insider Newsletter caught our attention because it raises a crucial issue in corporate training and new employee orientation, namely Return On Training Investment. Here's the key question the article raises: 
Many companies have heated internal debates on this question: "Are our written policies and procedures good or bad? " How do you know?
In his book, Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less, Marc Lesser makes the point well:
Figuring out the best way to maintain operations in the event of an H1N1 flu epidemic is one of the biggest organization challenges corporations are faced with right now. An 
We’re amazed at the number of people we talk to who really want to develop better standard operating procedures for their organization, who clearly understand the benefits of standardized procedures, who even have management mandates and funded projects to develop or update their corporate policies and procedures manuals, but–despite all that–never manage to actually do anything about it. They have good intentions. They hold meetings. They discuss requirements. Sometimes, they even open up the word processor. But that’s as far as they get. Momentum grinds to a halt. Years can go by with no usable results. 
Starting a new job ranks high on the Life Stress meter. That fact is very important to remember when planning new employee orientation and employee training programs. 
What’s the most important factor in reducing task errors? Employee Skills? Training Methods? or the “System” itself (aka steps used to perform the task)? 
Powered by Compendium Blogware