Organizations can help drive continuous improvement at their organization by ensuring their employees are engaged in process improvement efforts. Here are nine ways organizations can engage and empower employees to help drive organizational process improvement. 

1. Find their pain points.

Focus on simplifying the parts of the process that affect each person individually. Look for ways to remove clutter and frustration or to increase their ability to do work that does motivate them. 

Focusing on the individual makes them feel heard and seen. Often, change is hard, but if you listen to your employee, understand what is making their job difficult, and highlight how this improvement will mitigate the issue, they may be more willing to participate and help with the improvement efforts. 

2. Give them a stake.

It’s important to give employees a stake in the problem-solving process early on. Before specific initiatives are even identified, entrust employees with studying processes and finding opportunities for improvement.

This gives employees a sense of ownership and increases their buy-in into the process. One way you could do this is to create separate “sub-committees” within your department that are each in charge of tackling one improvement initiative. They could assess the current state, develop ideas and opportunities, present them to the team, and then assist the team in carrying out the change(s) and/or improvement(s). 

3. Create incentives.

In some cases, metrics related to bringing forward new ideas and moving the needle on process improvement initiatives can be integrated into employees’ performance goals.

Create an incentive or something that you know your employees will strive to achieve. For some, this is simply a coffee mug, or a free lunch. For others, it’s monetary rewards or specific goals showing up in their annual performance review. All individuals are different though, so remember that you may need a range of rewards to create enterprise-wide buy-in. APCQ’s research on reward and recognition provides five methods organizations can use and how they differ in effectiveness between leaders and employees.

4. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Be transparent about the business reasons for the change and the change management process. Clarify what does and doesn’t need to change. Be attentive to not only the practical concerns of having to change, but also employees’ emotional concerns. 

Rarely do employees complain about too many communications. Most mishaps and conflicts arise due to miscommunication. Be sure that you have a well-thought-out communication plan (separate from your change management plan) for any process improvement you plan to implement. View additional research on change management to learn more about how to communicate with employees successfully. 

5. Show, don’t just tell.

Sometimes, communicating isn’t enough. It’s also important to give people a sense of empowerment and buy-in within the organization. This often requires dynamic, two-way conversations.

Employees like to see leaders and middle managers walking the walk; not just talking the talk. If you are a manager or leader, hold yourself to the same rules/guidelines that have been created for your employees. Seeing you following the new process (even if it has growing pains) will show that you are bought in, and they should too. Here’s an article on how executives and senior managers can help change management efforts succeed. 

6. Focus on development and advancement.

Knowing that advancement or specific professional development opportunities are a potential outcome of helping to drive strategic improvements can help engage an employee in process management efforts.

Our People of Process Management research revealed that at least two-thirds of professionals have participated in professional development in the last 2 years. Leverage that drive of continuous learning; turn the process improvement into a learning opportunity and highlight the ways your employees will be able to further their career and develop as a professional along the way.

7. Offer training.

People often don’t understand what process management involves. Training addresses that and gets people over the fear about what a change is going to do to their jobs.

Organizations should use a variety of training approaches, including one-on-one coaching, self-paced training videos, and coaching. Consider training your employees on one or many of the following topics: technical skills, new processes, new behaviors, change management principles, and/or emotional intelligence. 

8. Provide adequate time for change.

It’s important to give employees enough time to learn the new ways of thinking or working. There’s a lot of urgency in business life, but change takes time.

We conducted a case study with Emerson Manila Shared Services, and through their change initiative they discovered that a two-week lead time on change communications was critical to success. This lead time allowed the employees to receive communications, and for the managers and leaders to collect feedback and provide it to the change team; allowing for any corrections to be made prior to implementation. While a two-week lead time worked for this specific change at this organization, it may or may not work for your organization. You need to discover (or experiment) with different lead times for the various ways you want employees to change and how early (and often) you should communicate about it.

9. Reward success. 

Honoring individual achievements, whether it’s through an award, event, or different titles, not only keeps them engaged but also helps motivate others.

While the carrot is important, highlighting the success at the end of the road is important too. Have cupcakes at the coffee bar or offer a team lunch. Be sure to celebrate the small steps in small ways, and big milestones in a bigger way. All employees are different, but one thing is the same – all employees like to know their effort was worth it. Discover the best way to show your thanks for your team; and remember, it may change from time to time and project to project. 

In Summary

Engaging employees in any change is hard. Using the nine techniques listed above will help organizations strategize on how best to engage THEIR employees. And remember, we are always learning and continuously improving – individually, as a team, and as an organization; however, you shouldn’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, learn best practices from organizations that have been there before you