Daniel B
HR Strategist with the knowledge and tools to improve your organization
Been asked to construct one day seminar on six sigma for HR professionals
Seeking case studies that can be used in an educational setting to demonstrate for hr professionals how to utilize six sigma in improving their operations. I found one from ASQ in reducing turnover in a hospital and an article from ASQ on enhancing hr through 6S but it is back when we called it TQM. Any suggestions for other case studies that might be appropriate?
Good Answers (5)
Brent P
Author of Getty's Work; HR Leader working to increase value and people's sense of value
Best Answers in: Change Management (3), Personnel Policies (1), Staffing and Recruiting (1), Business Development (1), Corporate Governance (1), Planning (1)
I just completed a green belt certification project. Mine was on identifying and correcting sources of variability between like positions and their levels. Outcomes were about 5% correction of the level of positions, sharpened evaluation criteria for the future, and harmonized career path.
Maybe the learning of a 20 year HR vet on what are the hurdles to bringing Six Sigma to HR would be helpful to you
:
- HR colleagues are generally not used to doing analysis (Measure and Analyze). You have get by the mindset that this is complicated and HR is about simplifying things.
- HR can improve the impact of their projects and define better projects with careful, transparent voice-of-the-customer and process-mapping (SIPOC). Rather then conceiving and launching with input only from within HR.
- HR leadership can get restless with the 30-90 days of start-up that can occur through Six Sigma's Define, Measure, and Analyze phases. Urge patience versus skipping or going too fast here.
- Most if they get through the Improve phase will be ready to step away and go onto something else. Urging the commitment to follow up on the improvements to ensure that results are better and the change is institutionalized is critical. This may mean checking back in for a day a quarter for several subsequent quarters.
- HR is more comfortable reacting to situations or new opportunities usually formulated by the line manager. This is especially true for the HR generalist supporting a business. Get by this helping them recognize that Six Sigma projects are opportunities for HR to demonstrate their leadership and advance business performance.
The ability to use these methods are critical for the HR toolbox, and most will come around.
I hope this helps.
Dawn B
Director, Business Development & Human Resources
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WOW - you are asking for a lot!
I can describe some scenarios, but not case studies, if that would help.
Situation:
HR folks need to get payroll completed in time for 500 employees.
You have outliers which are employees in foreign countries that might not have access to the Internet to report daily hours worked. You also have folks in worksites that simply forget to record their hours on the last day of the payroll period.
You can challenge the HR folks to come up with solutions and streamlining of the process to reduce the number of 'non-compliant' payroll submissions.
Ideas to get the workforce closer to the goal of 100% complete and compliant payroll:
1) Pre-recorded time-sheets for OCONUS employees who will not have- access to the Internet; kept on reserve until the EE either completes the 'real' timesheet; or provides a 'corrected' timesheet. (Have to be careful here for defense contractors - there are rules to payroll hours and compliance.)
2) Memos or reminders macro-plugged into all computers or reminder sent weekly or bi-weekly to record all hours worked going out the day before and four hours before deadline.
3) etc. There should be plenty of other LSS exercise results that could solve the problems of the high-error rate of compliant and complete time recording.
Hope this might be a viable exercise for you to use?
Good luck with your training!
Dawn Boyer
Lean Six Sigma Certified
I accept all LinkedIn Invites: Dawn.Boyer@me.com
Links:
Forrest B
CEO and President of Smarter Solutions, Inc. (Forrest@SmarterSolutions.com)
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Suggest that you talk to your management asking what they really want. Seems like the approach you have been given is not unlike a hammer (six sigma) “looking for a nail”.
What I would think that you management would really want is figure what they should do to improve their business system and how to do this.
This is a different question. Six Sigma is not a business system but a process improvement methodology. How about asking your management if they would like to discuss in one day a business system so that they could figure out how to select and execute projects that impact the business system as a whole.
Such a system to accomplish this, and can be explained in one day, is described in the link below.
Links:
Valeria S
Vice President at Metrus Group
Best Answers in: Personnel Policies (4), Staffing and Recruiting (2), Change Management (1)
Daniel--
This is not a case study, but may be an interesting adjunct to your program. Our company conducted a research project, in partnership with ASQ/Quality Progress, in which we looked at the impact of the workforce dimensions of Alignment, Capabilities and Engagement on a range of quality initiatives. The results provided an interesting perspective on how quality processes and employee perspectives influence each other. You can access the article at the website below; it is entitled "People Equity, the Hidden Driver of Quality".
Please let me know if you have further questions about this info,.--and good luck with your program!
Regards,
Valeria
Links:
Jay A
The KnowWare Man, Lean Six Sigma Sensei
Best Answers in: Quality Management and Standards (3), Budgeting (1)
HR has to reduce cycle time to hire the right person and the costs of hiring the wrong person.
I worked with a credit union that had signficant turnover of tellers. The hiring and training process was 82 days (ouch)! This led to understaffing and customer delays in the branches.
I used Lean to help them eliminate many of the unnecessary delays in the process. Based on past turnover, we also figured out which branches had the most turnover (defects) and created a predictive model to find and fill vacancies in a way that would provide tellers just in time.
From a Six Sigma perspective, a bad hire is a defect. Bad hires cost $50,000 or more (training, salaries, lost opportunity, etc.). A bad hire might be someone who doesn't stay 90 days or more. If they can define what is a "bad hire," then they can track it and improve it.
Most often, people don't hire people with the right "mindset" for the job. I described some of these motivation styles in ezines.
Links:
More Answers (7)
Herb B
VP - Operations Strategy and Compliance
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Daniel:
If you've only got one day, may I suggest that you (collectively) solve an actual HR problem that these folks have been facing rather than a case study?
If you meet ahead of time with a few members of that organization, you're virtually guaranteed to get a couple of issues that would response well to TQ techniques.
Decide ahead of time what real-life scenario to focus on, one that will allow you to present two or three key tools. Make your case for using management by fact and structured problem solving in the morning, and then use the rest of the time guiding the group through the actual solution of your chosen issue using the tools you've already selected.
They'll learn by doing real work.
Herb
Interesting challange !! Some challanges that HR face:
> Centralisation !!
> Simplification !!
Examples for centralization: Encourage them to centralize their benefits system globally, encourage them to have one single information source of all policies.. Encourage them to have a single portal for all travel & living questions / queries and etc... Examples for simplification: Encourage them to make the policies / procedures simple and understanding for all global employees.. Encourage them to make the feedback mechanism / review mechanism simple and easy for following and documented...
6 sigma tools come in handy in attepting such stuff
We deliver these Seminars..Peformace Staffing and Streamline Recruiter Training.
Please see http://www.rcirs.com/rci-center-of-excellence.html
Mike Moore
HR has major responsibility in improving orientation time and efficiency of newly hired sales force to the company.
HR should consider and work on; ROI of each sales person, short term turnover and retention issues, orientation programs and ongoing trainings, evaluations, cost issues, compensation systems e.t.c.
This is a real challenge for HR because time is short, expectations high and more importantly the results of this process shows the efficiency of HR owned recruitment process.
So I suggest this process as case study.
There is a little book that has several instances that might be useful try:
"The Power of Six Sigma" by Subir Chowdhury. IT is written in a story format and will take maybe 2 hours to read. Copies can be purchased and they offer to recover with your logos! Dearborn publishing.
See private note for e-mail and phone-I don't market for them but, I did enjoy the book!
Muhammed U
Business Analyst At Web Notes Tech. Pvt. Ltd.
Best Answers in: Business Development (1), Business Analytics (1), Career Management (1)
Hi,
In India six sigma is associated with a group of people delivery tifin to working wmployees from there houses on very large scale. They are called "DabbaWala" in mumbai, India.
They are group of illiterate villagers coming from nearby village of Mumbai city but got an opportunity to give lectures in Horward and IIM india.
Plz. refer to following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala
Regards and good wishes,
Umair Sayyed
www.webnotestech.com
Links:
George C
VP RD&E
Best Answers in: Market Research and Definition (2), Search Marketing (1), Packaging and Labeling (1), Product Design (1), Biotech (1)
Daniel, a very simple DMAIC problem for HR professionals to get started down the six-sigma journey relates to call center operations. The customer is easy to define (it's the employee), the defect is simple to measure (the employee's question was either answered correctly or it wasn't), there's opportunity to discuss whether a good measurement system for employee satisfaction is in place, etc. etc....
Good luck.. I'll scan around for some case studies and will send one if I come across.
