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Quality Management means making sure that the work you’re doing, the services you’re providing, or the product you’re producing, have a high quality. Often managers are tasked with conducting quality management activities—from identifying areas of performance that are weak, to implementing solutions to address those weak spots. Not as often managers engage staff members in quality management processes. This is likely because it becomes a more onerous task when you have to start including more people into any process. Additionally, if it’s not in a company’s culture to engage staff members in the process, a management team may not consider doing so. However, to come up with and implement long lasting solutions to key problems, it’s best to include as many stakeholders as possible. Staff members are key stakeholders as they are often the ones engaging directly with consumers. Below are a few ideas about how you can engage staff members in your quality management processes.
- When you’ve identified that you’re low in a certain deliverable, or haven’t met your goals for the last month, ask your team why. They have a different perspective than you do, and will likely shed light on some reasons of which you were not aware. Asking for their ideas is important as it makes them a part of the process and sets the stage for getting buy-in when changes occur.
- Once you’ve identified the causes of your problems, ask your team for solutions. Again, they’ll probably have some good ideas of which you hadn’t thought. This solution brainstorm is great for boosting up their problem solving skills, too.
- When solutions are suggested, be open to what they say, and explain carefully why some would work, and others would not. They may not have the breadth of knowledge about what’s possible within your company or field, so be patient as this process is also about them learning.
- Once you’ve implemented changes, make sure you go back to your team with the results on what those changes did for your company. It’s important that they understand what came of your quality management conversations, and how their input shaped changes made.
Have thoughts about engaging employees in quality management processes? Share with us in the comments below.