Simplify for Better Workplace Performance

In good economic times, we tend to see an overabundance in all facets of business and life.  There are more options to choose from.  However, in difficult economic times tough choices need to be made.  With resources dwindling and costs spiraling out of control, companies need to make choices and decide which products or programs to keep and which ones to cut.  However, one of the unintended benefits of an economic decline is simplification.  With fewer choices and options comes opportunities for better workplace performance.

Let’s face it – we live in a world with too many choices and too many options.  Sometimes it gets overwhelming and especially in business it slows performance and productivity.  If there are several ways to get a job done or several ways to produce a product or service, we tend to run into analysis paralysis, a commonly heard phrase in business.  Nothing gets done or nothing gets produced in a timely fashion.

If a company has to make tough choices in what to keep and what to let go, a simplification approach to cutting costs may have a greater impact than an all too common across-the-board budget cut.  Perhaps using the ISPI’s HPT Model as a template to find opportunities for workplace performance improvement can help in making these important decisions.

With adversity comes opportunity for improvement.  Reviewing the model, here’s how one could approach this:

• Performance Analysis (Need or Opportunity) – Aligned with your organization’s mission and vision, take a look at current performance.  Is it falling short of expectations?  What is the state of the work environment and can improvements be made.
• Cause Analysis – What are the root causes to the performance issues (if any)?
• Intervention Selection Design and Development – Come up with solutions to address the root cause.  You may find simple changes or inexpensive solutions can be created to resolve performance issues.

Of course, proper evaluation will have to take place at each phase of the performance improvement process just to make sure the choices made are objective, but the point is by following the HPT Model it is possible to identify areas of overabundance that may be hindering workplace performance.  Removing the overabundance can make the organization lean, cost effective and productive, thus improving its bottom line in a difficult economic environment.  Perhaps you may find employees have too much data to sift through, too many tools or options to do their job or too many steps in a procedure that really do nothing more than waste time and resources.  It takes money to maintain all of this, a resource that is becoming more and more scarce in business these days.  If you can eliminate or consolidate resources you may encounter greater cost savings.

Simplification may be the way to go when your company is faced with the difficult choice to make cuts in order to preserve the bottom line.  By using the HPT Model you can make your decisions based on your company’s mission and vision, which in the beginning made you prosperous before we hit our current economic recession.