A SYSTEMIC APPROACH TO DELIVERING ‘BEST VALUE’ WITHIN A PUBLIC SECTOR HOUSING ASSOCIATION
...ve. The approach requires: A customer-minded approach Job satisfaction System efficiency Technological renewal A leading role in society Agfa’s belief is to do everything right from the first time in an open management culture. It enables them to consolidate and to strengthen their position as a world company. Similar success stories of TQM implementation are many - Xerox, Motorola, Milliken, Nucor Steel, to name a few. Organisations implementing TQM are obsessed with improving their operational processes - product quality, reduced inventory; reduce downtime and improved set-up time. But little or no effort is made to modify the existing management processes in the organisation. TQM cannot succeed unless employees are involved in the various business processes in an organisation. The best way to ensure commitment is to empower employees, to involve them in making decisions of the day-to-day running of the organisation. Organisations that incorporate business process reengineering with their TQM initiatives tend to achieve better results. (Mulhaney et al 2001) EFQM Business Excellence Model is an over-arching, non-prescriptive framework based on nine criteria. Five of these are 'Enablers' and four are 'Results'. The 'Enabler' criteria cover what an organisation does. The 'Results' criteria cover what an organisation achieves. 'Results' are caused by 'Enablers'. The Model, which recognises there are many approaches to achieving sustainable excellence in all aspects of performance, is based on the premise that: Excellent results with respect to Performance, Customers, People and Society are achieved through Leadership driving Policy and Strategy that is delivered through People Partnerships and Resources, and Processes. The principles of the model have been used successfully in some organisations such as Unilever, where a participative approach is used, but the framework has many critiques. John Seddon – World Quality Congress (2002) stated: “I don’t know if you know where this came from, but this is, ‘Man falls off a horse in America. European managers take two steps backwards.’ That man was Malcolm Baldridge, friend of President Reagan. The Baldrige award came to Europe and we, of course, developed our own – the Excellence Model. There’s no evidence that this works.” Typical arguments are from the gaps between aspects of performance. Seddon (2004) argues that because an organisation has done an assessment against service standards, benchmarking groups (BVPIs, best value performance indicators (Government targets)) it doesn’t mean customers are happy. Organisations processes are not necessarily fit for purpose because they’ve got ISO 9000. Low morale isn’t necessarily rectified by training managers as coaches because leadership box it says, “Good leaders have visions and missions”. The Evergreen Study (Nohria, Joyce & Robertson, 2003) recognised four critical factors in delivering high performance companies, Strategy, Execution, Culture and Structure. The Evergreen project more than 200 well known management tools in 160 organisations across 40 sectors from 1986 to 1996 and found that there was no correlation between successful organisations other than these criteria. This study found that the culture of successful organisations was one that encouraged outstanding individual and team contributions with employees, not managers taking responsibility for success. ARENA METHODOLOGY In response to regulatory requirements, the business support division of Arena has developed an approach to Best Value in the form of a manual and brief training programme for the management team. The manual described process-mapping techniques, brainstorming tools and document proformae. In order to build upon these initiatives, Arena looked for support from outside the organisation. In particular, assistance was required in the scheduling and delivery of Best Value reviews. How do we decide which part of the organisation to audit first? (Robbins & Mulhaney, 2004) After conducting an organisational audit and shadowing some of the review teams using resources from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), Arena was able to develop a more systemic approach to Best Value. Core areas selected for review following the organisational audit, (described in Robbins & Mulhaney, 2004) , these being rent collection, lettings, repairs and estate management. In addition, the following key drivers for a change in approach emerged: Original approaches were perceived to be too bureaucratic. Meetings frequently took place with a variety of stakeholders but without subsequent action. Regulatory obligations to consult and agree with all stakeholders were not being met, and as a consequence projects ran over time and over budget. Arena had just been through a merger and departments were already experiencing a high variety of changes. As a result, a gradual change in approach was appropriate in order to embed Best Value into the organisational culture. Arena also recognised the need to improve project productivity before inspection and further overspend. In order to address these issues, Arena introduced a ‘challenge day’, designed to reduce project timescales, address on-stakeholder involvement, and diminish the time taken to meet the regulatory requirements. The organisation of the challenge day involves identifying key stakeholders through a stakeholder analysis and encouraging them to attend the event. Initial interviews are conducted in order to discern issues for the challenge day. The beginning of the event involves all attendees sharing perceptions and identifying themes. Participants then break into smaller teams to focus on evaluating the identified issues and themes. Techniques such as role-play, ‘super heroes’ or affinity analysis are used to challenge the existing status quo, compare stakeholder perceptions, and consult other participants about solutions through competing groups. . Key to the day’s success is the creation of action plans against which developments can be measured. Action plans are categorised as either long or short-term. Short-term actions can be implemented immediately. For example, one short term ‘win’ resulting from a challenge day was the distribution of notices of intent to seek possession of a resident’s home. These are legal documents required by law to be hand-delivered to a resident in debt. Previously, it could take months before an eviction was legally secured, due to debt. The early delivery of these documents often prompts payment of debt to the association. At the debt recovery challenge day the necessary stakeholders were able to identify a solution that would ensure delivery of the notice to the satisfaction of the court and the resident, thus reducing wasted trips and stopping debt escalating further. Within a month, Arena were sending a notice with a receipt from the post office, meaning officers could spend more time giving debt advice rather than travelling around their region delivering notices. Examples of long-term solutions identified at challenge days include outsourcing the payroll process to the satisfaction of staff, management and regulators; developing a unit responsible for centralised operational services such as rent collection and lettings; and outsourcing repairs to local contractors. Challenge day events have been successful in reducing organisational focus on bureaucratic, form filling, and regulatory requirements. They have also encouraged employee and customer ownership of problems through debate and participation in action generation, resulting in measurable actions. EVOLUTION IN PRACTICE The first of the challenge days were hosted and facilitated by LJMU in order to demonstrate the tools and techniques required for running successful challenge days. Following these initial events, LJMU subsequently provided one or two practitioners to supervise facilitators selected from Arena’s management team. After just four challenge days, Arena had fully embraced the event, and members of the management team were organising their own challenge days and afternoons. These were utilised for Best Value reviews and also to solve complex problems such as low demand for housing in a particular region. As staff, residents, contractors, and management began to see actions being implemented, they increasingly came to challenge days enthused and prepared. As a result, challenge days became increasingly useful and effective in providing ‘Best Value’ to the organisation and its customers. Once the event was embedded into the Arena, further improvements to the Best Value method were made. Challenge day organisers introduced scribes and modern technology such as digital cameras, electronic whiteboards and laptop computers, enabling real time reporting and faster implementation of quick wins. Consequently, managers no longer waited for reports to make decisions on implementing improvements. A challenge framework encompassing toolkit has been produced in conjunction with LJMU. This provides organisers with an understanding of the requirements for successfully planning, and management, of the day, ensuring maximum effectiveness and ‘real’ actions. Figure 1 depicts the Arena challenge framework with emphasis placed on planning, administration, creative tools for thinking, feed forward (or reporting) and actions. Figure 1: Arena Challenge Day Toolkit Framework Following these developments, the event became more focused on action research with multiple stakeholders facilitating multiple improvements of a tactical and strategic nature. A comprehensive repairs service review was conducted within the context of this framework, leading to significant process improvements. The capacity of staff involved in the process was increased by 20%, administration costs were reduced by 40% and service delivery to residents was ...