Communicating For Productivity

Communicating for Productivity

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:50:26 -0400

Dear Friends

Communicating for Productivity

When I stared posting this series on a few blogging sites sometime back, I did hope that a few visitors would take notice – may even download the entire set from

TimeTravel ( http://www.indiarecruiter.net/wfrmTimeTravel.aspx ) Then

something that I never expected happened ! Search-engines “read” my blog and considered it “relevant” enough to rank it as follows:

Search Term = Communicating For Productivity
Search Results as on Oct. 08,2008
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For those Banks around the World who have lost billions of dollars of shareholder / Investor money, may be, it is still not too late to communicate

Direct – Open – Honest

Hemen Parekh

hcp@recruitguru.com

www.IndiaRecruiter.net

Ph. 91-22-670 70 360

59 LAKH SUGGESTIONS !

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 06:50:42 -0400

Dear Friends,

Following is just one of 200+ letters that I wrote to 7500 employees of Larsen & Turbo Ltd’s, Mumbai factory, when I was General Manager (1979 - 1987). This open honest communication led to a remarkable improvement in industrial relations. If you wish to download the entire set, just click here

Regards,

Hemen Parekh

www.indiarecruiter.net

-------------------------------------------------------------

To,
Dear Colleague :

59 LAKH SUGGESTIONS !

The enclosed article was distributed at a recent seminar on "Japanese Management" which I attended.

One session was devoted to "Small Group Activities". It was conducted by Mr. Sekijima who has been with Hitachi Ltd. for last 17 years and currently designated 'Manager - international Personnel Relations Section'.

The article describes the small group activity at just one of the factories of Hitachi Ltd. But Hitachi has 26 factories in all. And Mr. Sekijima gave the following statistics for the entire Hitachi organisation.

HITACHI - 26 FACTORIES
1983 DATA

1. Total no. of suggestions	58,77,000 (58.77 lakhs)
2. No. of employees who sent suggestions	57,617 (62,000 employees have joined SGA)*
3. Average no. of suggestions per person	102.6/ year (All-Japan average is 70/ year)
4. Average saving per suggestion	$ 31
5. Average saving per each suggestion	$ 3145
6. Total saving during the year	$ 182 million ( Rs. 218 crores)
7. Hitachi's Sales Turnover	$ 19.4 billion
8. Best suggestion saved	$ 4000 per month approx.

* SGA "Small Group Activity"

Other things which Mr. Sekijima told me are :

Hitachi have a total of 6205 small-groups (of 8-10 employees each) of which half are of "blue-collar" workers and half belong to "white- collar" workers.
In many Japanese companies, the small group activity is known as "Quality-Circles".
Suggestions must relate to the "Goal/Objective" set by the Section/Unit/Department for itself and must be job-related.
The suggestions are distributed amongst various topics as follows :

		HITACHI	JAPAN
1.	Improvement of Quality	36%	31%
2.	Improvement of Mgt. or Control	7%	5%
3.	Cost - Reduction	36%	42%
4.	Safety	11%	3%
5.	Improvement of Equipment	10%	6%
6.	Miscellaneous	-	13%

"Meeting-time" for the small-group meetings is as follows:

	Meeting - time	% of meeting held in Hitachi s held in Japan (avg)
During Working Hours	During Rest-time Morning or Evening During Idle-time Actual working-time	54%	80%
Outside Working Hours	After Shift-end Before Shift-start	46%	20%
	TOTAL	100%	100%

There are no monetary rewards for the suggestions given The foreman or manager gives to the suggestors small token gifts such as a ball-pen or a diary - never exceeding Rs. 400/- in value.

I could not quite appreciate why each Hitachi employee sent in, over a hundred suggestions every year, when there was no monetary reward! So I posed this problem to Mr. Sekijima.

Here is his answer :-
1. The single biggest factor motivating a Japanese employee to send in a suggestion for improvement is the RECOGNITION he receives through acceptance and implementation of HIS suggestion. Nearly 70% of all suggestions are accepted and implemented.
2. There are other ways of recognition such as:
  - publishing photograph in factory or company newsletter
  - requesting the worker (or the group) to make a presentation before Colleagues & managers
  - accepting a particular suggestion for inter-dept, inter-unit or inter-factory competition
  - organising a lunch with the General Manager of the plant.

Introduction of "small group" activities is a pain staking process, in Hitachi, it took nearly 8 years as follows :-

1968 - 1971

Improvement of relations between the employees and the Managers
Orientation & Training of Managers.

1972 - 1976

Training of worker-leaders
Introduction of program at worker-level.

1977-

Small-group activity becomes an ordinary event for employees.

Every 6 months, there is an intensive training program for "worker-leaders". The program is conducted by engineers from quality-control, production and industrial engineering functions. The curriculum includes, Methods-Study and Time standards. Preventive Maintenance, Quality-control techniques and Industrial Engineering techniques.

In conclusion Mr. Sekijima added,

"If you wish to introduce such an activity in your company, everybody, starting at the top, must attend orientation/ training seminars.

The small-group activity is more transplantable in your country than other Japanese techniques, because it was born in the West".

The only way we can find out if Mr. Sekijima is right or wrong, is by trying!

H. C. PAREKH

December 12, 1984
M - 18

INFILTRATING THE UNION ?

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 06:34:39 -0400

Dear Friends, Following is just one of 200+ letters that I wrote to 7500 employees of Larsen & Turbo Ltd’s, Mumbai factory, when I was General Manager (1979 - 1987). This open honest communication led to a remarkable improvement in industrial relations. If you wish to download the entire set, just click here

Regards,

Hemen Parekh

www.indiarecruiter.net

---------------------------------------------------------------

To:

Dear Colleague

INFILTRATING THE UNION ?

I may be accused of giving you an overdose of Japan but that only goes to show that I have such a high respect for your capacity to absorb things Japanese ! When it comes to ball pens, digital watches, cameras, two-in-ones, tape-decks, colour-TV, walkman and a hundred other Japanese things, we never seem to have enough !. So why leave out "Japanese Industrial Culture" from our list ? In the enclosed article. Dr. Maheshwari tells us how labour unions are organised in Japan. Now those of you who belong to our management-cadre may wonder why you should worry how labour unions are organised in Japan - or for that matter even in India .! To me it is obvious why the managers amongst us must think about the organisation of labour union. Someone has said that "health is too serious a matter to be left to the Doctor - and education is too serious a matter to be left to the Educationists." It is for the same reason that I think that organisation of labour unions is too serious a matter to be left to the workman .! Which is not .the same thing as saying that we should interfere in the internal affairs of a union and that we should try to run their show ! Quite contrarily ! Managers have enough "management-problems" on their hands as it is, without taking on a union's "internal affairs". But if those "internal affairs" start hurting the long-term interests of our organisation and the interests of our employees at large, I do not think we should remain silent. It is then time to do some plain-speaking and say "enough is enough" .!

We must not give-up our right to "influence" (not interfere with) the union organisation when issues crop-up which cut-across the subscription-barrier. And this is where the Japanese labour union organisation is of interest to all of us at L&T, because, at one place the article reads,

"For all employees of Hitachi Ltd., upto Asst. Manager level, union membership is compulsory. In other words, every senior executive of Hitachi spends at least ten years as member of the Union and may have even functioned as an office-bearer of the Union during this period."Do you see the point ? Would you say that " - The top-echelons of Hitachi management has been infiltrated with Union - members ? " or that, " - The rank-and-file of Hitachi union has been polluted by future managers masquerading as union-members ? " And for my unionised friends who will receive this note, I would like to quote MR. MISU (in 1977, Executive Vice-President and Director of Hitachi Ltd., - and now Advisor to the Board of Hitachi Ltd.) from "Management of Human Resources in Japan", "The Japanese workers do not necessarily work only for money and it is customary for us not to raise complaints about monetary matters. If we think of the total benefit of the country, there is no doubt that we would be better off without any strike, and the economic growth of Japan was largely accelerated by this moderate behaviour of the Union. The fact that the labour union exists, does not mean that it has to fight every time. Reaching an amicable solution is the best way for both the Union and the company. We know that frequent strikes endanger the base of the country as is observed in United Kingdom. I have an impression that when both parties persist in their opinion at the sacrifice of national interest, it is a wrong choice."—

H.C. PAREKH

December 12, 1984

M-17