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    human sigma

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    22 views5 pages

    Human Six Sigma

    Uploaded by

    Ankita Bhardwaj
    human sigma

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    of 5
    Strengthening the Employe ustomer Interaction Page | of S Pe Excellence @ Sigma SPRY IF) LTS Return To Previous Page Strengthening the Employee-customer Interaction By Peter Sherman ‘The most perfectly designed and built process or system is only as good as the human being who uses it. That's the idea behind Human Sigma, a new branch of Six Sigma that focuses on improving the Quality of the employee-customer encounter, particularly within sales and service organizations. Human ‘Sigma proponents, including John H. Fleming and Jim Asplund, authors of Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Relationship (Gallup Press, 2007), argue that the traditional Six Sigma approach — while successful for controlling production processes and systems, particularly in the manufacturing environment ~ is just not suitable for the human systems that are a large part of organizational performance, Six Sigma and Human Sigma are not mutually exclusive, however. In fact, when combined they can unleash a beneficial flywheel effect on leadership, creativity and teaming, Defining Human Sigma The Human Sigma management approach takes human nature into account and then uses that knowledge to manage and motivate employees, and accelerate their development, as well as to engage customers’ emotions, The central premise of Human Sigma is that emotionally satisfied customers contribute far more to the bottom line than rationally satisfied customers. The key is to strengthen the employee-customer interaction, ‘The approach relies on a simple yet powerful set of questions to measure customer engagement and ‘employee engagement (Figures 1 and 2), Scores are ranked from 1 10 5, with 1 being not at all in agreement and 5 being extremely in agreement. Figure 1: Questions to Measure Employee Engagement Employee Engagement — Scoring: 1 = Not at all in agreement; 5 extremely in agreement 1) I know what is expected of me at work. 2) | have the materials and equipment | need to do my work right. 3) At work, | have the opportunity to do what | do best every day. 4) In the last seven days, | have received recognition or praise for doing good work. 5) My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person. 6) There is someone at work who encourages my development. 7) At work, my opinions seem to count. 8) The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important. 9) My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work. 10) | have a bestfriend at work 14) In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress. 12) This last year, | have had opportunities at work to learn and grow. Source: Human Sigma Figure 2: Questions to Measure Customer Engagement Customer Engagement — Scoring: 1 = Not at all; 5 = Extremely 1) Overall, how satisfied are you with [Brand]? hitp://www isixsigma,convlibrary/content/c080908b.asp?action=print 9/19/2008 Strengthening the Employee-customer Interaction 2) How likely are you to continue to choose [Brand]? 3) How likely are you to recommend [Brand] to a friend? 4) [Brand] is a name | can always trust. 5) [Brand] always delivers on what they promise. 6) [Brand] always treats me fairly 7) Ifa problem arises, | can always count on [Brand] to reach a fair and satisfactory resolution. 8) I feel proud to be a [Brand] client. 9) [Brand] always treats me with respect. 10) [Brand] is the perfect company for people like me, 11) I can't imagine a worid withaut [Brand] Source: Human Sigma ‘A company's Human Sigma score is calculated by converting the mean scores on employee and customer engagement into percentile equivalents and then taking the square reot of the product of the two percentile values. To account for certain boundary conditions, there is a correction value equal to the ratio of the two percentiles (highest over lowest) raised to the 0.125 power. This produces a single bimodally distributed score that is used to establish threshold values that define each of the Human. Sigma levels: HS, through HS,. The single score summarizes the overall effectiveness of the ‘employee-customer encounter that is reliably related to that organization's or business unit's overall financial vitality. Understanding the Human Sigma Levels In 2007, Fleming and Asplund conducted a Human Sigma survey involving 1,979 business units in 10 different companies in the financial services, professional services, retail and sales industries, Their results are shown in Figure 3, Figure 3: Human Sigma Scores Found in Fleming and Asplund’s 2007 Study ach Cand oh ga i 3 i 2 é tom righ Employes Engagement “Source: Human Sigma The HS, threshold is defined as one standard deviation below HS, (meaning the standard deviation of the Human Sigma distribution), Successive thresholds are one standard deviation away from the adjacent level. Organizations or business units at HS, and HS, perform significantly below par on employee or http://www isixsigma.com/library/content/c080908b.asp?action=print 9/19/2008 Strengthening the Employee-customer Interaction Page 3 of 5 customer engagement metrics, and require significant intervention and improvement. Notice the long talls on these two performance bands. This extreme and unbalanced performance on the two metrics is associated with relatively poor financial performance. These two performance bands account for 37 percent of the companies studied. Organizations or business units at HS, account for 29 percent of the companies studied and are also frequently out of balance, ranking high on one vital sign but poor on the other. Organizations or business units that engage their employees without engaging their customers suffer from being too inwardly focused and have lost their direction. In contrast, organizations or business units that engage their customers without engaging thelr employees cannot sustain themselves Organizations at HS, are classified as “emerging optimized” performers. They have established balance in the vital signs of the employee-customer encounter, but there are still substantial gains to be made to strengthen these metrics. Organizations at HS, and HS,, are classified as “super performers, Overall, organizations in HS, HS. and HS, are 3.4 times more effective financially than HS,, HS, and Hs, a Introducing Variation ‘Most practitioners are familiar with the concept of variation and how to use a histogram to transform that variability into graphical form. Processes that are normally distributed exhibit the familiar symmetrical bell-shaped curve that has a single mode. The inherent problem with normally distributed processes, however, is that variability is largely unmanaged. The principles of Six Sigma instruct Practitioners to attempt to manage this variabilty by shifting the process average and reducing process variation, because doing so helps to produce consistent and predictable processes. From a customer's Perspective, variability is critical because customers experience variation, not averages. What makes Human Sigma intriguing and controversial is that it does not rely on reducing the variability in how employees are managed or how they serve customers. Human Sigma challenges ‘conventional Six Sigma wisdom in that it strives to improve the quality of customer relationships by actually increasing the variability in how those relationships are developed and maintained, Human Sigma contends that as an organization tries to standardize processes and scripts for management teams to follow, scripting employee behavior does not really enhance the quality of the ‘employee-customer interaction. In fact, it may worsen it by emphasizing the steps to do the job instead of the outcome the process is supposed to produce. Human Sigma followers look at the manufacturing world and conclude companies can improve processes and systems because the inputs they use to make things can be kept at predictable and repeatable levels. But human systems in business — such as the employee-customer encounter — do not conform to such predictable rules. Sales and service organizations in particular, with @ high degree of direct employee-customer interaction, cannot expect to follow such conforming practices as those in the manufacturing world Getting to the Core Principles Fleming and Asplund have combined the key characteristics of employee engagement and customer ‘engagement to produce four core principles that great organizations and managers exhibit 1. Manage by outcomes, not behaviors — In other words, although the end remains constant, the means to achieve that end wil inevitably vary between individual. 2. Liberate, don't legislate ~ The most dramatic increases in productivity occur when companies allow workgroups to choose their own initiatives and focus on them. Anything that makes ‘employees passive viewers instead of active participants in the employee-customer encounter Is. counterproductive 3. Engagement is for everyone — The ability to capture the heads, hearts, and souls of employees and instill an intrinsic desire and passion for excellence. 4. All polities is local ~ Companies cannot dictate employee engagement from corporate headquarters. They must manage engagement locally. To this end, the local manager is the single most important factor in local group performance, http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c080908b.asp?action=print 9/19/2008 Strengthening the Employee. ‘ustomer Interaction Page 4 of S Blending Six Sigma and Human Sigma ‘There are many opportunities to jointly apply the rigor of Six Sigma’s data-driven, analytical focus and Human Sigma's behavioral and relationship traits to achieve even higher performance levels, regardless of the industry (service or manufacturing) or application (process, system or people). After all, at the center of Six Sigma or Human Sigma is a person ~ the customer. Figure 4 shows the convergence of Six Sigma and Human Sigma and its positive impact on: * Leadership — the strength to marshal the right resources, make the right decisions or go the extra mile when the situation demands it ‘* Creativity - The wherewithal to think outside of the box, yet stil operate effectively within the framework of an organization, ‘* Teaming ~ The ability to understand that successful outcomes often require teaming up with fellow employees and with customers. Figure 4: Convergence of Six Sigma and Human Sigma Traits Six Sigma Human Sigma Traits Traits (Be an (

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