Inspiring Employees to Develop A Continuous Improvement Culture in Your Organization

What is Continuous Improvement?

Continuous improvement is designed to empower employees to solve problems that niggles them and gradually improve their work processes’ efficiency. For example, it can standardize work processes to prevent employees from duplicating efforts and ensure organizations/agencies achieve the most effective outcome.

A Continuous Improvement Leader

A continuous improvement leader is one who can engage their staff at all stages of the continuous improvement process, from identifying opportunities to testing and evaluating implemented improvements. “Leaders should be the example of working alongside their team to build a team of leaders who continuously improve their processes and talk about if often. Once people see the improvement is worth the time of leadership, they’ll know that it’s worth their own time as well.” ~Kai Nexus

Continuous Improvement Culture (CIC)

A continuous improvement culture is one that challenges employees and managers to go beyond their comfort zone. By applying continuous improvement, organizations can challenge their employees to improve their skills and knowledge, motivating employees by letting them know that their ideas are valued.

Here are some key areas to Inspire Employees to Develop A CIC in Your Organization:

Workforce – Enhance a CIC and engage a workforce that focuses on process improvement, projects, and the services your organization/agency provides. Continuous improvement is about problem-solving, and removing waste from processes, becoming more efficient in delivering value to internal and external customers.

Knowledge Exchange – Be fair and transparent when developing a CIC, organization/agency-wide—for example, management can promote a CIC throughout the organization using the intranet, promotional flyers, and requiring leaders to often speak directly to their staff.

Modernization – Use more cloud-based services that ensure optimal performance—organizations can provide remote access capabilities for employees, for example.

Remove Barriers to Improvements – Empowering employees to make continuous daily improvements as a part of their work every day.  Specifically, asking for ideas that make people’s jobs better, easier, or safer is one way to get an influx of ideas.

Welcome Improvements of All Types – Small changes can add to significant results, so celebrate incremental improvements.

Cost Savings – Leverage shared services across the organization/agency and vendor partnerships to maximize the supplies an organization procures and the services an organization provides.

Governance – Be consistent and transparent in the work organizations/agencies provide and ensure investments support public service objectives.

Do you have tips on how best develop a Continuous Improvement Culture in your organization/agency? Feel free to share your tips in the comments below.