For a long time it has been discussed how it is possible to increase productivity in organizations, regardless of whether they are for profit or some other altruistic purpose, all of them find themselves in the need to constantly improve their ways of working in order to achieve the satisfaction of its clients or beneficiaries, in the case of non-profit organizations. For some time now and as a result of the strong existing competition, it has sought to implement a philosophy called "Operational Excellence", it is not the purpose of this document to extend its definition, but it does contribute to some methodologies that can lead to achieving the objectives traced in the so-called philosophy.
Happiness
One of the methodologies that in Chile are beginning to be implemented with considerable success is the so-called Organizational Happiness, although this issue has been around for a long time, it was not until about 15 years ago that professor Ignacio Fernández, director of the Department of Organizational Psychology at the University Adolfo Ibáñez (Santiago de Chile) began to implement it in organizations achieving very interesting results, as indicated:
“Empirical evidence shows that when there are happy workers, productivity increases between 31% and 40%, there are improvements in profitability, service quality and work excellence, in addition to improving the internal climate. On the part of the workers, a psychosocial well-being is generated, that is, they break the logic that work is a scourge and a valley of tears, and they begin to see it as a place of personal deployment, social contribution and trustworthy relationships »(Italics added).
Despite the excellent results obtained, it is still interesting that it indicates that no more than 15% of companies in Chile use this work methodology. In the same note, it is emphasized that “Fernández was an advisor to Banco Estado Microempresas and Transbank –first and second place respectively in the list of Great Place to Work Chile 2014- when both companies began to integrate the theme of happiness into their strategy organizational ”(italics added).
It is vitally important to note the need for leaders to become aware of the need to implement these policies since they must be incorporated into the strategic direction so that they have permanent effects on the organizations, otherwise they will only be isolated as the effort of a person but who will not have a greater impact on the daily work of the organization. (See full quote)
Participation
Annie Brooking in her book Intellectual Capital states: “Recent research has revealed that, in practice, only about 20% of the knowledge available to the company is used. That means there is still plenty of room for greater efficiency, higher profits, higher growth and a higher competitive edge. (Page 19)
If there is only 20% of the knowledge used, we must ask ourselves where the remaining 80% is, we would fall into an error by assuming that the knowledge is in those who run the organization, because if this were that way we would be indicating by default that each official is simply an automaton which only exists to obey orders from its superiors, that was acceptable in the era of industrialization, but today in the information age where the greatest capital of the organization is based on human resources, this knowledge is In each of the people that make up the organization, in this way the way to take advantage of human capital is to create, and this is perhaps the greatest responsibility of those who have the mandate of the strategic direction of the organization, the mechanisms,methodologies and instances necessary to exploit that knowledge, in this sense, the participation of each member of the organization is vital since they are the ones who carry out the tasks on a daily basis, the challenge for those who lead is given to align the expectations, actions and desires of the people with the strategy.
Motivation
Continuing with the previous point, it is necessary to understand the need to generate a commitment on the part of each member of the organization, this is not possible where there is no participation, because participation is the key to motivation, here we aim to get to the part top of Maslow's pyramid, self-realization, because to be motivated it is necessary that people love what they develop, otherwise we will not make the challenges of the organization feel like our own and as long as they do not feel like personal challenges there will be no need to overcome them. One of the ways to better understand this situation is by taking as a reference a study by the Mexican Institute of Social Security in which it is indicated that employees who are not comfortable in their work decrease their productivity by 40%.(Reference)
It is considered that a depressed employee, who feels unpleasant (extremely) in his work environment, generates a cost three times higher than any other medical condition due to low productivity, underlines the specialist of the Psychiatric Hospital Dr. Héctor Tovar Acosta del IMSS, Wazcar Verduzco. (Italics added)
Having such high unproductivity as a result of these three factors, wouldn't it be time to get to work on them through methodologies?
We should not ask ourselves what models or methodologies do we use to develop the long-awaited operational excellence? After all, in such a competitive and complex world as in which we operate, giving advantages in these aspects is neglecting the most essential of the organization… THE CLIENT.
