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Review the competency of your current shipping personnel. Find out if their training has been adequate.
Do your shipping people do a lousy job because they need training? Ask them. Have you delayed spending the money because they are so busy? If you have problems it is the fault of management for not having spent the money for training employees. The short-sided problem this causes is you cut long-term profits when you delay training. Good training increases the productivity of the plant without spending a dime on new capital.
Questions to ask shipping personnel:
- What products are returned that you already knew had problems before they were shipped to the customer?
- If you knew they had problems, why did you think there were problems? How did you know this? Note: First, why would employees who already knew there were problems with products continue to ship them out? When you have employees who are willing to tell you they did something they were not supposed to are normally leading up to their supervisor problem. There is most likely a management problem which needs to be addressed. They may have been directed to do this so the process needs evaluation. Most employees want to do the right thing and worry about keeping their job.
- Have you ever been instructed directly by someone in charge to ship products that you knew were no good? Note: As part of the suggestion program, we will not ask for the supervisor’s name but will be doing more targeted supervisor training as a result of the answers received.
Employees will normally follow the directions of a supervisor but still privately question their manager’s poor judgments. They know actions like these may ultimately ruin customer relations. Employees are normally smarter than given credit. They recognize bad managers when they hear them give bad directives. They are stuck until someone comes along with a survey and asks questions to ferret out management problems. Few complain and turn in bad supervisors. Assigned to poor supervisors, these employees deserve to be heard, so ask them.
- Are there directions you are given sometimes that you think are incorrect or not right? What are they? Can you give an example? You do not have to give anyone’s name; we just want to improve production and the products for our customers to increase sales in the market.
- If you were given the decision as to what type of training your supervisor needed, what type specifically would you choose for him or her? Why do you choose that type of training?
- If you had the option to complain or make suggestions but wanted them to remain private, how would you like that system set up to make you feel comfortable responding? Do you think this more anonymous type of reporting is necessary in this company environment? Describe how that system would work for you?
- Have we shipped or made product that you knew already was defective? Were you overruled and told to ship it anyway?
- What made you think we had problems about the defective products we shipped to customers that subsequently came back? Was there a sign or something that caused you to think this before they were shipped? If so, what was it?
