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This question could easily have become a HR related question Glad that we were able to stear away from that and there are some very good answers as to how VoE can be leveraged for business excellence initiatives. The best answer is from Vikas Choudhary.

Employees being the frontline users in any given process, Voice of Employee (VoE) is a very useful tool for the Business Excellence Team. Here are some of the key areas where it can help – 1.) Identifying Process Improvement Opportunities – Employees have a higher visibility of broken processes, system issues. Additionally, overtime employees develop best practices based on their exposure to the process which can benefit the entire process if successfully replicated. 2.) Employee Engagement and Retention – Ensuring employees are heard and their suggestions are evaluated for implementation in a transparent manner, can improve employee engagement and retention. Challenges in gathering VoE – 1.) Lack of structured VoE framework 2.) Lack of trust and fear or retaliation among employees 3.) Failure to act on the suggestions 4.) Effectiveness of action items – It can be challenging to identify actionable insights from the VoE data 5.) Resistance from management (supervisors, managers, etc) - Ensuring the feedback is viewed as an improvement opportunity vs criticism by all leadership stakeholders. Best Strategies – 1.) Create a structured framework in place with a clear RACI for all stakeholders and a proper governance structure. 2.) Building a culture of trust, ensuring anonymity of the surveys, promoting leadership buy-in and commitment. 3.) Publishing action items and implementation status with the employees 4.) Manager training and accountability Example – Here is an example from one of the previous organizations – A VoE program was designed for an 300 FTE process to identify employee pain points. Feedback was collected and a structured manner, action items were created and progress of implementation was regularly published, below was are the benefits which were realized – 1.) 26 validated process improvement ideas (Themes – AHT improvement, Quality Improvement, Automation) 2.) 20% reduction in EWS 3.) 8% reduction in attrition

Scenario: The beverage company faces frequent stoppages, which lead to production loss and variation in the bottle quantity (overfilled or underfilled), which leads to increased production waste and customer complaints. To eliminate this problem and customer complaints, the operation improvements team approached line operators and maintenance technicians and discussed the problems and listed the causes, such as 1. The operator frequently identified that jams were caused by worn guide rails and sensor misalignment in the packaging line. 2. By listing out the machine health check parameters, they found that many bearings in the conveyor section are noisy and vibrating, which may lead to breakdown, and some of the filler nozzles are also clogged because the nozzles get dribbling and vibrating after a certain cycle of usage, which causes the sticky residue in the filling nozzle. 3. Maintenance technicians suggest increasing the lubrication cycles for the specific area where the wear and tear parts are high and changing the filler nozzle before it starts dribbling and servicing it in a timely manner. From the suggestions from the operators and technicians, they decided to implement the action points in the production line as 1. Major problems are caused because of the minor issues in the production line, so the operator gets well trained in machine maintenance, such as routine machine checklists, cleaning, and lubrication, and any minor alignment can be done by the line operators. This will reduce the downtime, and by training them, it can be fixed without maintenance team interference for the minor issues that they face during running production. 2. Preventive maintenance and replacement will be the solution to address this issue by developing a schedule for proactive replacement for high-wear parts like conveyor bearings and filler nozzles before they fail, based on operator/technician recommendations. 3. Increase the frequency of regular sensor calibration and replace the faulty ones, which will eliminate the wastage and improve the productivity. From this scenario, business excellence leverages the voice of the employee (operators and technicians) by getting feedback from them about the process issues, solutions to rectify the issues, and improvements to be done in the process to avoid the challenges in future operations. Challenges hinder gathering actionable employee insights; 1. Fear of speaking up—in some cases, they don't trust their boss or feel sometimes their honesty could lead to negative consequences. 2. Continuous collection of data or feedback from employees, but not using it. Strategies to overcome these challenges: 1. Build Trust: Use anonymous surveys or suggestion boxes so employees feel safe. When action is taken based on employee suggestion or input, reveal it to the employee and thank them; it will build employee confidence. 2. Regular Feedbacks on Action points: Once you get the feedback, assign someone to review and look into it and update the employee on a regular interval basis on what is being done with their feedback.

Voice of employee (VoE) refers to process of collecting, analyzing and acting on employee feedback to improve employee engagement, productivity and work place culture. It ensures employees feels valued, empowered leading to higher retention and organization success. Few component of VoE: Feedback collection: Through survey, suggestion box, open house and one to one discussion Data analysis: Identification of trends, concerns, opportunities for improvement, identification of pain areas and bottle necks. Implementation and follow up: Implementation of changes, communication with employee Example to understand the challenges and how it can be resolved: Low participation of employee for feedback, disengagement due to time constraints (to overcome we need to keep survey short and concise, clear communication about the purpose, offering incentives, survey through multiple channels) Lack of honest feedback: Employee withhold concerns due to fear of backlash (can be overcome by using third party to ensure anonymity) Vague feedback/ no follow up on feedback: Setting clear time lines, publicize progress Feedback/survey submission should be easy, safe and rewarding. Questions need to be clear and concise. By prioritizing VoE, organization foster a culture of continuous improvement and employee friendly workspace.