The GM strike highlights how costly breakdowns in communication between workers and executives can be
UAW members on the picket line at the General Motors Flint Assembly Plant. The ongoing walkout of 48,000 United Auto Workers employees from 31 General Motors plants that began last Sunday night has numerous causes. Those include wages, health care benefits, the status of temporary workers, and the job security concerns caused by plant closures affecting five North American sites that were announced last November.
Admittedly, keeping those in the executive suite in touch with the employees on the front lines is tough. Multiple layers of management, and a natural inertia toward “see no evil, hear no evil” communications from bottom to top, make the job of having floor workers feel their concerns are heard seemingly an insurmountable problem. Yet the flow of that information is crucial to good operations.
It’s accepted wisdom in the manufacturing world, that notion that the person closest to the problem usually has the best answers. So why is getting those answers so difficult? “Even the best-intentioned management teams don't have the right channels in place to create easy two-way knowledge exchange with their valuable frontline employees,” said Dunn.
Continuous improvement methodologies such as Lean and Six Sigma are also intended to break down barriers to communication and problem-solving. Tools used in those program include standardized practices designed in part to put everyone on a level playing field and eliminate breakdowns in trust and communications.
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