November 2019
www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
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COMMENT The facts about vocational education reform
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COMPANY PROFILE Real Steel, Wellington
Ideas can come from everywhere -Gemma Stanbridge, ViAGO International Limited
Are the managers in your company empowering employees to pursue their broader passions, skills, and experience? Or are they pigeon-holing employees into a box defined by their current job title, taking them at face value of their job title, and restricting further development? These latter rigid typecasting behaviours serve only to limit employees from reaching their full potential and they discourage initiative and innovation within a company.
Typically, operational and strategic decisions are handled by the appropriate higher managerial function and so many employees are left without a very clear view of the bigger picture.
An artificial limit is imposed on the value an employee can provide because the additional strengths or skills the employee has which are not required for the specific position are overlooked.
Further, managers adopt a mindset of, “Why would a low-level employee be able to help solve a business problem or provide input into a decision unrelated to their job title?”
Jack Stack, author of The Great Game of Business, shares in his introduction to the new edition, a story of a company he worked for where a drill press operator was actually a self-made millionaire who had built his wealth through real estate investments.
When this mindset is present, the job titles act as barriers to advancement for employees and a barrier to growth for the company.
“Here was this incredible entrepreneur working under our noses and all I had this guy doing was drilling holes. What a wasted opportunity.” Stack and the company failed to use the drill press operator’s full range of talents, asking the operator to only think about drilling the perfect hole, not about how they could build a better company. Why did this happen, and why does this still happen today, over 20 years later? Managers or recruiters look for and hire people to do a specific job or position that needs to be filled. Upon employment, the employee is labelled with their specific job title and job description. Managers (and even other employees) are often blinded by job titles, only giving each employee as much information as they feel is needed for their respective job title.
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This approach also ignores the fact that ideas can come from everywhere, and that sometimes a fresh view or take on things can really pay off when delivering the best result for the company or clients. When it comes to problems and decision-making, asking the people ‘on the floor’ is a no-brainer. But how often does it actually happen? In most companies, like the example Stack uses in the book, employees are told to ‘just do their jobs’ and leave others to worry about the operations of the business. The result? Silos of information and conflicts between departments as employees focus on local efficiencies. The employees focus on what impacts their local area as they cannot see the bigger picture of the company; they cannot see the impact of their actions on others. The Deloitte September 2012 Talent 2020 employee report, Surveying the Talent Paradox From the
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