At the end of each Productivity Improvement Team (PIT) training, team members present to their management team. This is a chance for PIT teams to look back on and celebrate their accomplishments as well as provide any suggestions they have for how to improve the Lean programme in their organisation. Below, we have reproduced the last slide of a recent PIT Review at Image Holdings PIT Review – written and spoken by liquids plant worker Maloni Tuitupou. When Maloni finished speaking there was not a dry eye in the room!
Maloni speaks for us all…..
OUR FACTORY, OUR BUSINESS, OUR HOME
While our fellow workers highlight the outcome of our training, I would like to speak on the indirect effect of this in-service course. Speaking from the perspective of an employee, a worker is just a person who does whatever the higher authorities say(s). It can be said that decision-making in relation to factory matters is only done by those in the office or the owners. In the light of the above, process workers come every morning, start working and can’t wait for the bell at 4 o’clock to be rung. With no hesitation, employees work hard to complete the work orders and the like, but still in their hearts and minds thinking “I AM JUST A WORKER.” This phrase denotes the idea of an employee who just comes to work, to do the job and leave. The point is, the minds and hearts of the employer and employee are totally different in relation to the business. Generally speaking, the employer’s mind never sleeps, thinking of how to make his/her company grow healthy while the employee can’t wait to see his/her pay slip.
In this training we not only learned to work smarter, but we are also given opportunities in a way for our voice and ideas to be heard. We take part in decision making to some extent – employees can make changes in the factory for the common good. Upon the latter, we believe that we no longer feel and see ourselves as more or less “just an employee” but as a group partaking in giving life to the factory. To a certain extent we feel that we are owners of the factory only because the company utilize our skills and hear our voices. An employee having this positive attitude towards the factory, with no doubt works with a mindset of an owner. Even though he/she is just an employee, he/she works and has the heart of an employer only because he takes part in running the whole factory by having his/her voice heard. We all work for the good of the factory and the business is part of us. We are no longer eager only to reach our payday, but also thinking of how we can do our job better and to keep OUR business running smoothly because this is where we can put bread on our table. Speaking of myself personally, I am a work permit holder with no benefit(s) from New Zealand government in anyway(s), this is my family’s only income and therefore I have to do my job to the best of my ability. This Skills4work training not only helps me to do my work better but also uplifts my motive and inspires me to do work with the heart of an employer whilst complying as an employee. To conclude this, with the eyes of kaizen, THIS IS OUR FACTORY, OUR BUSINESS, OUR HOME…..