Education Two Part Assignment

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7

Cause and Effect Analysis

Introduction

The most significant issue facing me in my current work environment was employee turnover, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 20 of our team members planned to quit in early 2020 within two weeks of each other. Their sudden exit has kept us from hiring new employees to rebuild the workforce to the ideal level. However, most new workers must familiarize themselves with our objectives and processes, creating operational problems. This has manifested in lower output, extended change over time, and increased procedural violations. Inexperienced operations have led to degraded high-quality production and an inability to meet the expectations of the business.

Cause-and-Effect Analysis

The cause-and-effect analysis is a technique that helps to identify the root causes of a problem by categorizing potential sources of an issue. That is very important to problem-solving because it systematically considers all possible causes rather than just symptoms of a problem. Commonly developed using a fishbone diagram, the causes of this Ishikawa diagram have been categorized into six main groups: people, processes, materials, equipment, environment, and management, with many causes branching off from these major categories.

Findings and Key Points

From the fishbone diagram, several critical causes of employee turnover and the subsequent operational issues emerged:

1. People: Lack of experience and familiarity with procedures among new employees.

2. Processes: Inefficient onboarding and training programs.

3. Management: Need more support and guidance for new employees.

4. Environment: The disruptive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

5. Materials: Limited resources for training and development.

6. Equipment: Inadequate tools and technologies to support new hires.

These factors collectively contribute to the ongoing challenges of maintaining high-quality output and meeting business expectations.

Problem Restatement and Definition

Importance of Defining and Framing a Problem Correctly

It became clear that problem formulation determines the direction of a solution search, so defining and framing are critical activities for problem-solving. A well-defined problem guarantees that the actual problem is being solved, not only the symptoms. Such precision helps harmonize the work of a team, its leadership, and resources to meet a shared end, not forgetting the impact on productivity. Besides, problem definition can help stakeholders improve their comprehension by giving everyone the same understanding. Properly defining a problem also avoids common pitfalls of cognitive errors that lead to wrong or less-than-ideal solutions. It assists in making issues more comprehensible by isolating them into comprehensible fragments that can be dissected and handled independently. Further, it fosters excellent attention to the problem, and one may notice that some underlying factors contributed to it. It is thus essential to come up with an overall understanding of the problem so that the solution found is not a temporary one that would not solve the given issue.

Problem Statement Testing Technique

To frame and define the problem statement effectively, I will use the problem statement testing technique. This technique involves evaluating the problem statement to ensure it accurately reflects the core issue and is framed in a way that facilitates solution generation. The original problem statement from Module 1 is: "At my present job, we have struggled with employee turnover for the past few years. It started almost concurrently with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. We had over 20 team members early in 2020 who intended to depart our organization in two weeks. I have put much effort into hiring new employees and increasing the workforce to the ideal level. The issue we continue to have is that our younger personnel need to gain familiarity with our goals and procedures. The inexperience has generated great trouble among our operations staff. The reduction in output was the most obvious at first. We planned to produce sales each month in 2019. A monthly average has scaled back that goal. Furthermore, we have reduced our change over time: the time between the end of one lot and the beginning of the next. There has also been a noticeable increase in the number of procedure infractions. Our operations team's inexperience has led to declining high-quality output and business expectations."

Problem Restatement Techniques

i. Paraphrase

Restating the problem differently: ‘Our organization has been facing a high turnover rate post-COVID-19 outbreak, and therefore has had to recruit many new inexperienced employees.’ The inexperience displayed is the root of operation problems, such as diminished efficiency, higher rates of errors, and inability to fulfill business requirements and goals.

ii. 180 Degrees

Turning the problem around to find an opportunity: How could we use the new employees to bring new ideas that alter the former means of operations and enhance the organization’s performance?

iii. Broadening the Focus

Restating the problem in a larger context: ‘The underlying problem is the difficulty of achieving business objectives and effectively managing operations amid drastic workforce shifts and disruptions resulting from, for instance, COVID-19.”

iv. Redirection

Changing the overall focus of the problem: Rather than dwell on the inexperience of the new employees, how can we improve training and methods of placing the newcomers under work so that they become productive and valuable members of our team as soon as possible?

v. Why Ask Why

Continuously asking "why" to dig deeper into the problem:

Why are we struggling with employee turnover? Because the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruptions and uncertainty.

Why did the pandemic cause such high turnover? Employees faced health concerns, work-life balance issues, and remote work challenges.

Why are new employees inexperienced? Our hiring processes have been rapid to fill gaps, and our training programs may need to be revised.

Why is inexperience causing operational issues? New hires need to familiarize themselves with our specific procedures and goals.

Why are they unfamiliar with our procedures? Our onboarding and training processes may need to be more comprehensive and practical.

Final Problem Statement

The final problem statement for our organization is: "How can we improve our onboarding and training processes to integrate new employees better, reduce procedural errors, and enhance overall operational efficiency?" This formulation focuses on actionable steps to address our operations' core issues.

Conclusion

Looking at the problem and its changes, it is clear that these changes correspond to the problem restatement techniques. Initially, the issue was generally defined as linked with a high coefficient of employee turnover and related organizational losses. If we paraphrase, redistribute focus, and make other restatements, it is evident that this matter arose from insufficient onboarding and training procedures. This change of focus provided more clarity in terms of defining the issue; our objective turned to how to prepare PAs to produce at the desired organizational level. The use of the restatement process showed that while change in personnel may be an essential factor, a more significant problem is the impact of High Turn Over Rate on New Hires Corporation’s operations have been affected in several areas including Therefore, maintaining efficiency and quality during turnover is one of the biggest problems New hires have to be integrated and trained promptly to continue operating at optimal efficiency. As previously mentioned, during the problem restatement process, some findings that need additional research were identified. First, there is information to be gathered about the particular methods of onboarding and training because it is essential to apply practical methods that would help to integrate the newly employed employee quickly and totally. Also, analysis of the specific deficiencies in our present training courses will enable the enshrinement of these endeavors towards our precise application modalities. Furthermore, they could gather valuable information regarding how training effectiveness might be affected by remote work and other hybrid models in the post-pandemic environment. In aggregate, these innovations stress how scientific, strategic approaches to addressing process problems promote the right ways and means of getting new employees up to speed toward contributing to our vision and mission.