Satisfied employees through Lean (3): Use skills and take responsibility

Job satisfaction depends to a large extent on being able to use and apply one’s skills and competencies. It is always important to find the right balance. If the requirements clearly exceed the abilities, stress occurs (“burn out”) – but regular under-challenging is just as exhausting and can end in “bore out”.

In lean management, the wrong use of employees is now also considered waste. These can be, for example, highly qualified engineers or other specialists who spend up to 35% of their working hours on administrative activities such as travel bookings because the position of a team assistant has been eliminated elsewhere. And under certain circumstances, the capacities of the specialists are not sufficient, so that there are always bottlenecks.In lean administration, the roles and tasks of the employees are also checked. A clear and stable distribution of tasks is a prerequisite for flowing and customer-oriented processes. The tasks must match the qualification profile of the employees. The analysis tool ‘activity structure analysis’ is used here and creates transparency as to whether the employees are pursuing their actual core tasks and can optimally contribute their know-how.

Lean also means that employees take on as much responsibility as possible for their work processes and improve and shape them through their own input. Taking on responsibility and being able to bring one’s skills into day-to-day work processes are essential prerequisites for job satisfaction, even more important than the purely financial aspects. And the company definitely benefits – again a win-win situation for everyone involved through the implementation of lean management.

To be continued – Episode 4: Working in flow