GA 356 | How Standards Prevent Turnover with Jason Haines

Got into Lean and starting to study it and realizing it would help bridge that gap between the communication of the frontline employees and your managers. That's where I just realized it was just fun, adventurous, something new that helped bridge the gap to help people out and learn and be able to do their jobs much easier.

Today I'm excited to welcome Jason Haynes to the show. Now, as you'll hear, Jason has a manufacturing background and today he helps other companies through some. And so what we really kind of dove in today was the topic of standard work, visual workplace management and topics like that. In particular, we spent quite a bit of time talking about how not having standards and not having a visual workplace can actually really frustrate employees and it can be a leading cause to turnover or being able to retain your employees. So I thought it was an interesting conversation because I don't think a lot of people really always put those things together on things like employee turnover and lack of standards. So it was an interesting perspective and so I think you're going to enjoy the show. Show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com this is episode 356. Again gembapodcast.com look for episode 356. Finally, if you are interested in learning more about standard work, visual workplace management and just, you know, lean daily management at a high level, come to check out GEMBA Academy in our School of Lean. Over the last, I would say in 2020, we added a tremendous amount of content on daily management systems and Lean management systems and visual workplace management and different topics like that. So go check out. All that content's gonna be in our School of Lean. So go to gembacademy.com and check out the School of Lean if you wanna dig a little bit deeper into those topics. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Jason, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Not too bad. I want to thank you for having me on today, Ron. It's great to finally meet you. Not in person, but yeah, it's good to meet you and nice to finally put a face with a name rather than just podcast.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming on. It's going to be a fun, fun show and I know you listened to the show before, Jason, and as you know, we do like to kind of kick things off with our guest sharing a quote. So did he have one?

So the biggest quote that I've always liked was from Taiichi Ono. Without standards, there can be no improvement within your process and it always Struck me as big because of the. One of the startups I worked for. We really didn't have standards. And after working there, I realized needing those standards helps you get to the point where you're training employees much easier.

Mm, got it, got it. Good stuff. Well, Jason, why don't you tell us about yourself, Tell us a little bit about your background, maybe how you first got introduced to all this continuous improvement stuff and then, and then tell us what you're up to these days.

Okay. Well, I started in manufacturing over 20 years ago, basically. And a funny story, my, my, my father and my grandfather always told us that to never go into manufacturing. And it was back then, it was one of those things where a lot of the jobs were leaving here and there wasn't a lot of opportunity in manufacturing. So they always told us not to go into manufacturing. But the big thing was I grew up in a manufacturing family and that's where we usually always went to. So I went into working at Griffin Will in Columbus, Ohio for a. They made train wheels and everything. And that's where I got my love for the manufacturing world and continuous improvement and just realizing that there's people out on the floor that are normal, people in the front office that are normal. And from there I moved, moved from Columbus, Ohio, or from the Ohio area down here to Arizona. And that's where I really got a passion for continuous improvement. When I was working for a startup company and got into lean and starting to study it and realizing it would help bridge that gap between the communication of the frontline employees and your managers. And that's where I just realized it was just, it was fun and fun, adventurous, something new. I mean, yes, I know it's been around for a long time, but it was something new that helped bridge the gap to help people out and learn and be able to do their jobs much easier. And that's why now I'm doing a lot of consulting work as far as with industrial solutions, in order to help companies out to bridge that gap, to get that communication between their frontline employees and their managers so they can understand that, that having one language and understanding each other helps in the long run.

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, good stuff. So, Jason, I guess really the theme of today is going to be maybe around standard work visual workplace and how that all ties in with employee retention and training and all that kind of good stuff. So maybe let's just kick it off with just some high level definitions, if you will, or when you talk about standard work visual workplace, describe what you mean. What are you talking about.

When I'm talking about standard work, I'm talking about the having the frontline employees having something there so they can visually see. I know you've always said it, and I do use this when I talk to people. You've always said something that they know what the score is. Because when you go into a basketball game or any sporting event, you have a scoreboard there telling you what the score is. And if you have something there that's helping employees that have questions but don't know what, they don't have time to go ask somebody and need to be producing parts or anything like that, they at least have something they can take a quick glance at and know where they're at within the process or if they have to go back and redo something throughout that process. So it's just something that's visually easy for the frontline employees to understand, to make their jobs simpler and easier to communicate with them.

So when you're out working with folks in different companies and businesses, how would you. What's the score as it relates to visual workplace and, you know, standard work and different things like that? How are folks doing out there as.

Far as, like, KPI boards and anything like that?

Yeah, and I know your customers are obviously doing great, but I'm just saying, like, I know you go into a. A lot of different places, but, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being like Toyota and 1 being the complete opposite of Toyota, how do you think the world is doing as it relates to visual workplace standard work? And again, maybe you got to separate yourself a little bit from your. Just your clients in general, but just business overall.

Business overall. As far as the standard work that's going on at the front line and everything, I would say a lot of. A lot of companies are nowhere close to what Toyota is doing, so I'd say they're more of a two or a three. But they're learning as far as. I think a lot of times they forget to do that, that frontline standard work. And that's why I kind of put them at a two or three. But like I said, they're learning, so they want to get to that 8, 9, 10 level.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. So what are you seeing and hearing from people then when you're out speaking with them?

The biggest thing I'm hearing is just employee turnover, having a lot of difficulty of having employee retention. And that's the biggest reason that I like to talk to them about putting that standard work into place to Help them be able to train those employees and help them keep employees on longer and also get feedback from the employees as far as what they're seeing on the job. And if something within that standard work isn't really helping them in the long run. So that's the biggest thing I'm hearing is a lot of companies are having trouble keeping and retaining employees, especially in the current situation. Now, I know we've had the COVID issues, but that's a whole different ball game as far as. As far as retaining employees.

I'm interested, though, so talk a little bit. Let's dig into that a little bit. Why do you believe standard work is a potential root cause to folks leaving. Leaving a company and going somewhere else?

I think the biggest reason, it's my wholehearted opinion, is the biggest reason that it's a big root cause as far as what's going on is a lot of employees get frustrated with each other. Regardless if that's somebody that's been there for 10 years and somebody that's been there for 10 minutes, they get frustrated through that whole training process. And when there's no standard work there, then the employee has to go ask the person that was training them. Well, usually the person that was training them has their own job to do. And, and you've probably been in the areas where you've been training people and gotten to die the point where you're not yelling at each other, but you're upset with somebody, and then you go to your manager and you tell the manager this person isn't the best worker, and then you end up getting rid of that worker and then getting another worker. And it just, it's a snowball effect to where you're just constantly training people over and over. And that's why I think standard work needs to be there to help with those questions, especially the simple ones that sometimes people just in the middle of doing their job, they get lost and standard work helps that retention. As far as somebody doesn't have to go stop doing what they're doing and go ask somebody, they can actually just take a quick glance at the standard work procedures and just be able to start doing what they need to be doing again.

Have you had any experience with TWI and job instruction?

I have actually. Just recently, one of my clients that I worked with, we did a job instruction before their upcoming. Their Christmas season. So they're, they're a. They. They print. Print Christmas cards. So they're busy seasons right now. So we did a job instruction to get them rolling into that whole being able to break down the jobs and then do job instruction and be able to train people when they. They bring in, I think they. They basically ramp up from rate during their non peak season. They have 200 employees, and they ramp up to 4 to 500 employees during peak season. Mm.

And just so people, People are. Their eyeballs, are their, Their. Their minds racing right now. They're listening to this probably in January, February. I don't know exactly when this episode's gonna come out, but we're actually recording this, folks, in the middle of December. So we're a little bit ahead of schedule here. So in case of one, people like, wait a minute, wasn't Christmas like a month ago? So. Okay, well, that's great, you know, because, you know, I think you're really onto something. You know, when you just think about the human person, many of us value certainty, right? And clarity. And when we, when we don't have certainty or we don't have clarity, that can really introduce all kinds of. Of issues, right? It could just. I mean, some people are better at chaos, managing chaos than others, right? I mean, they can kind of go with the flow. But I would say most of us, we want to know, like, what do you want me to do and how do I do it? Right? And so that's where I'm a big believer in that combination of job instruction from twi, kind of, you know, as a, As a. The one best way to do a job. Right. I mean, and that's. It doesn't mean that's the only way, and that's the way that we'll do it forever. Because obviously when we find a better way to do the job, we can update that jib or that. That breakdown, right? But talk a little bit about what you're seeing as far as the relationship between, say, like a job instruction breakdown sheet and standard work. Because obviously they're not exactly the same thing. You know, like when you go into a factory in Toyota, the standard work actually faces out because the employee is not necessarily following the standard work. They've been trained through job instruction and things like that. And the standard work is almost, almost like an auditing function, right? So people can walk through and. And kind of look and say, hey, is this. Is this job going the way that it's supposed to? So what are you seeing as far as that relationship between something like job instruction and standard work?

I think, because that's where a lot of the companies have that breakdown. And then I try to get a lot of the places I Go into, talked into going to places like Toyota or down here we have a company called Assa Abloy that does a lot of lean and has a lot of lean implemented into their processes just so they can see what those companies are doing. Because sometimes when you're explaining it to them, as far as having that standard work there, it's not technically facing your employees and there it makes it easier for them to see stuff. A lot of places are putting that standard work and the job instruction into more of an sop. And yeah, I voice I don't get me wrong, I understand what SOPs are for. I've always been a stickler for having an sop, but it's not for somebody at the front line or somebody that's able to train those people because there's too many. It's, it's too wordy. And usually people are not going to stop to read, especially when they're busy doing their job. So, yeah, a lot of companies aren't at that stage where Toyota's at as, as far as having it there so you can visually see what's going on at the front line. Not able to start in that area. Yeah.

So for somebody that's listening to this right now, Jason, maybe they're newer on the lean Journey. And so we have visual workplace and we have standard work and they're definitely complimentary, but they are different. Right. So if you were to tell someone where to start, and I had to choose between those two, and I know there's not a perfect answer here, but I'm just curious to get your thoughts on it. What do you think? Would you have them kind of work on some visual workplace management, you know, help us determine what the score is, or would you try to maybe get some, some standardization to the way that we're doing our job? What do you think?

I would get more standardization as to which direction you're going in your job and everything, just so people can, so you can understand what's going on in the job. One, because the frontline leaders and the leaders need to know what's going on in the job because you can't teach somebody that you don't know. But that's where I would start at as far as the standard work and you learning the jobs and then, then do the visual workplace management and help employees through that whole process.

Yeah, I tend to agree. I tend to agree, you know, kind of, you know, well, we can keep score all day long, but if the score is just randomly changing all over the place because there's Complete chaos, you know, in the, in the production area, you know, what's the point? Right.

And that's one thing I always talk to people about. It's also having, like you said, if you keep in score all day, but if you have different, different scoreboard for this area than the another area, the usually those two scoreboards are fighting against each other. If you don't have one common goal as far as that, that scoreboard goes.

Yeah.

So when you're setting standard work into place, you're trying to find a common score to get to a common goal at the end of the day.

Got it, got it. Hey, can you think without. I don't want you to use any company names or anything like that, but can you think of a situation or story maybe of where you've seen a success story with, with a company that, you know, maybe they didn't have any kind of standards in place and, and they, and you know, they were struggling along a little bit and then they implemented some standards and you know, things got better. Can you think of a situation and maybe share a story or two?

Yeah, actually at the company that I just got out of working with, they've been doing great. As far as we go in there, we've done the training, done the JI or the job breakdown and the job instruction and everything, helped them through the whole process to get those people that need to be training the brand new employees as far as bringing them in. And from there they've started visual workplace, having it set up to where it makes it much easier for newer employees to understand where to take certain material to and where the travel lane should go through rather than not understanding where the machinery's at. Like I said, they've, from day one they've pretty much taken hold of the whole lean and went from. They want to go from basically having 4 to 500 employees down to only have to worry about having 3 to 400 employees within their facility during their peak season. So it's helped them as far as getting more streamlined throughout their processes just through their job instruction and job breakdown and, and training those employees to come in and make it easier for the frontline leaders not to be frustrated through their, their whole process.

Yeah, I'm always interested with those companies that do have that hockey stick approach, you know, just due to the nature of their, of their business. Another one that, that I've known over the years is our friends over in Zingerman's Mail Order there in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And, and they have this huge spike and you know November and December in particular with, with volumes. And so they have this pretty sophisticated, you know, onboarding system and training for, for essentially warehouse workers, you know, and, and they'll have hundreds of new employees that kind of come in and it's, it's, it's mind boggling, you know, how difficult that task is to train. You know, honestly, these folks are going to be around for a month or two for that, that peak and maybe students coming home or whatever it might be, right?

Yeah.

And yeah, that's a real challenge. You know, it's a completely different animal. Can you think of maybe any others that, that aren't seasonal?

I can't think of any that aren't seasonal right off hand because a lot of places down here for the last three or four years have been more seasonal. Yeah, Phoenix is actually growing to exponentially as far as manufacturing and everything goes. So we're becoming less seasonal. Yeah, these and everything. But yeah, as far as companies that I've worked with, not just seasonal, the company that I worked with as a production manager, when we set into place more of a visual work, visual workplace with the job instructions, job breakdowns and the standard work, we were able to combine our production and packaging departments to where we got a lot closer to the one piece flow. I know I always tell people that the primary goal of lean is one piece flow and zero inventory. But then you always tell people that you'll probably never get to that, that perfection as far as everything goes because there are the Kanbans and everything going through that whole process. But within that we actually got very close to our one piece flow where we was able to, rather than producing 10 to 15,000 bottles and then packaging maybe 8 to 10,000 bottles a day, we're able to produce and package 10,000 bottles which was our goal for our company every day.

So what's your strategy for dealing with the, the lean haters out there when there is an issue with a supply chain and you know, we run out of material a little bit faster than the big mass producer who's got all this money. Buffer, how do you, how do you. I don't know, how do you. What's your comeback to that when people attack the more the just in time one piece flow approach, which is obviously a little bit more vulnerable to supply chain disruption.

I think my biggest comeback is, is we, we have to go back and we have to study it so we can get it closer to. Right that rather than sitting here and worrying about what's going on. Yes, it is a bad thing. If we run out of supplies and we're not able to supply our customer, but at the same time if we don't, if we sit, stand back and we just complain about it and don't do anything about it, as far as trying to figure out what our right sized, right sized inventory is, then we're never going to change anything. I know. I read a book here recently, even talked about it having, you know, people usually have forecasts for the next year and he said when I take over a team and anything, it's nothing's changed as far as making it better. The forecast the next year is going to be the same as it was this year. So if we don't change in order to make it better, it's going to just stay the same. So we have to go back in and study those things rather than standing back and worrying about running out of supplies, making sure that we don't run out again.

Yep, yep. No, exactly. I mean, you know, buffer stuff and safety stock, you know, they're for different reasons. And, and yeah, I guess my comeback is typically that, yeah, you know, we are a little bit more, more vulnerable, you know, for that, for that signal or that special cause, you know, that happens from time to time. But even the big mass producer, if, if we, if the supply chain gets cut off, yeah, they might be in business for another week or so, but they're eventually going to be out too.

Right.

So it's not like, you know, but when you Compare the other 360 days of the year, you know, the lean producer is to, going, going to be, you know, just really, really superior. Right. In performance and profitability and all the rest of it. So. But yeah, good stuff. So yeah. What else are you guys seeing out there as far as, I mean what about like things like 5s and you know, just different concepts like 7 waste. How are you kind of tying those into, into your standard work and visual workplace and different things like that.

A lot of how we've typically been doing it through how we get companies to understand the 5s and the standard work, the 7 deadly wastes, just get them to understand that yes, standard work is not there to just tell you to do the job one certain way. As you were saying earlier, it's also to help you understand. So we tie the 5s in and the 7 deadly ways to help people understand. And this is to help you understand how to change your jobs by learning how to eliminate those waste and learning how to organize a department. And also with the change over times and helping throughout the whole process of giving you that opportunity to not just work one way, but also to be able to change your job through the tools that Lean helps offer to everybody.

If someone said, jason, you can only use one Lean tool for this next year with any of your clients, one, what would it be and why?

One Lean tool that I would use and why would I use it? I would probably use the seven Deadly Waste. And the biggest reason I would use that because I think it ties a lot into your 5s. I like the mood of Murray Murray Waste more than I like the seven Deadly Waste because it's a little bit different than the seven Deadly Waste as far as it helps with also balancing out the line and helping people understand that in. But that would be. The one biggest tool that I would probably use is seven Deadly Waste. Just because it helps people understand how to make changes within their job and also communicate between departments and understand what to search for when you're. You're looking to make your job much easier. Rather than going out and firefighting and changing something and putting a band aid on something, you're able to eliminate steps throughout the whole process.

I like it. It's kind of a. I think that's a wise answer because you can also cheat a little bit with that answer because, well, yeah, I got, I got motion, you know, so I gotta, I gotta do some 5s workplace organization to kind of move everything closer together, get rid of the junk we don't need and all the rest of it. Right. So I think it's a smart answer, Jason. Now, you mentioned Muda, Mura and Muri. Not everybody's familiar with those concepts. Muda. I think most of us have, most Lean folks have heard of is waste, you know, generally speaking. But what, what talk about Mira and Miri. What are those things?

Mira and Miri are basically balancing out the. The line and also helping people to level load your. Your whole process and then also helping with the whole respect for people, which is a big thing that I. That's the biggest reason I actually got into Lean is having that respect for people and being able to, like I said earlier, have that communication between the frontline leaders or your leaders that are within your office and your frontline employees. Because everybody's typically saying the same. And me being from both areas, everybody's typically saying the same thing. But a lot of times that communication is breaking down and, and it just. That's one of my biggest frustrations is I know people want to do a great job, but when you have that communication breakdown that's where you see a lot of frustration come into place as far as frontline employees and managers, because they're. They're trying to get one goal, but usually they. They're. They're talking past each other.

Well, that's what's so interesting also about these kind of seasonal, you know, the gift card company type of thing. Because by definition, that's the definition of mira, which is unevenness. Right. And then because of the unevenness, we then apply muri, which is overburdening our employees. Right. And so it's interesting how. How all these things kind of sort of all back together. Right. I mean, they can't help it. It is what it is. Right. People are going to buy Christmas cards around Christmas time. There's nothing you can do about it. But it is a form of mira, which causes miri. Right. So it's interesting. It's like a spider web, right? These Lean concepts. You pull on one and the rest of the web seems to go along with it.

That's a lot of what I did. The biggest reason I like standard work is just to help people understand what the balance is and not overburdening employees with too much work. Because usually that's another thing that happens. They don't go and ask a question, and they add an extra step in there that they probably shouldn't be doing. And then they train a new employee and they tell that employee how to do that extra step.

Yeah.

And a lot of mistakes end up happening. It just. It. It's like I said, I. The biggest reason I love Lean is the. The whole respect for people being able to help each other out.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, good stuff, Jason. I appreciate you coming on today. It's been fun. If folks want to connect with you, what's the best way?

Jason, the best way to connect with me is you can either Find me on LinkedIn that my profile be just Jason Haynes spelled H A I N E S. I usually have to tell people that just because of the fact that there are so many spellings for the last name Haynes.

Yeah.

And then you can either find us there, find me there, or you can find us@isiworld.net and then that's usually the two places you can find me at.

Fantastic. All right, well, appreciate the time, Jason. Keep up the great work, and maybe we can connect again down the road sometime.

Yep, Yep, that'd be great. Ron, I thank you for having me on today. All right.

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