Title of the practice |
Usability of Management Software (MS) in the Organizations. |
Precise theme/issue tackled by the practice |
The tool application at different working milieu, public and private bodies. |
Objectives of the practice |
Verifying that the Software structure is flexible enough to be adapted to different corporate planning and to different workers typology (junior/senior workers). |
Location |
Italy: Friuli Venezia Giulia (manufacturing company and public institution), Abruzzi (manufacturing and fashion companies, public institution), Sicily (transport company). Finland: North Karelia (manufacturing companies, and tertiary industry), Helsinki (Hospital District) |
Detailed description of the practice |
We are convinced that the improvement of employees’ working life has to be done by making the management more sensitive towards the main problems in an organisation. This way we can create a virtual circle: I feel better, I work better, and I thus produce more in a better way. Our work aims at this exact direction, in creating a useful tool available for company management that would allow one to measure the range of changes by using statistic tools that are introduced in a company in order to improve the life of employees. With the results gained with MS, synergy can be created between employees and the management. Based on a common tool, i.e. MS, we can get the most genuine picture of the reality of work in a specific company, highlighting the critical points and the areas of primary intervention. In this way we can plan a process of actions important for the quality of work. During this process, we can on one hand make constant and cyclic improvements for work conditions and on the other improve the performance of the whole company. In order to create these pictures of the reality of the company, we needed to create a model that could be consulted in different periods of time in order to obtain current information of the reality. We started by defining two main topics for our system: the company with its own organisational and economical complexity, targets and goals, and the employee with his/her own personality, potential and life. During the project, a group of experts from company finances to work psychology and from medicine to statistics was put to the test in order to create quantitative variables describing the reality of work. Gathering these variables into a coherent, unitary and quantitative model forms the heart of the evaluation system in MS. By analysing the points given by the different variables in each cycle, it is possible to find out the areas of critical intervention and the areas of excellence, define adequate actions of improvement, and set objectives. On every cycle, there is a “radar” and an index for every stage allowing us to receive a graphic model of the situation, of the company and the worker. Graphs and histograms form a professional pyramid that analyses the variables for each age group in order to see how the years in service have influenced a certain problem. Statistic information on the data (value, variance, correlation between the data etc.) allows us to conduct a specific statistic analysis. The causal connection between the variables in the system and actions of improvement in a certain period based on statistic tests, gives us a measure of the level of quality of a certain action, allowing the management to abandon actions that only have little effect and to concentrate on the ones that give the best results. The software has been applied to companies before the start up of the improvement action (good practices) and after two-three months the end of the tested improvement action. Different tools of survey have been utilized for each application (focus group, questionnaires, meetings etc). All the collected data have been put in the software and, at the end of their insertion the software have calculated a series of results and correlations represented as radar chart and matrix. After the two investigations (of the experimentation cycles), radar charts and the two matrix have been compared in order to understand how the good practices were effective and efficient and their repercussion on the company's economy. It hasn't been possible to get this last data own to the project shortness of time. The tool therefore allows to evaluate in real time both the effectiveness and efficiency of the good practices on senior workers and the company's performance correlated to the best practices, that is, to choose the best of them. After a sufficient numbers of cycles, it is possible to use the tool to implement previsions of a best practice's impact on the worker/company system. |
Evaluation |
The results have been studied, but it has been very complex. We have studied all the experimentation results for comparing the coherent results with others that were not. The aim in fact was to find the application running defects trough the comparison of different graphics and data at a given situations. I.e. :The degree of correlation between Taking responsibility and Informal communication was 0,76 (a correct correlation degree); after the improvement action was 0,05. As the results could be the same, higher or with a small decrease, such a decrease was unacceptable, Where was the mistake? In the enquiry tool? In the person in charge? In the experimental group composition? The numbers representing the correlation degrees were anomalous and the research had been conducted in-depth to understand where was the problem in order to modify the process of the software utilisation for the next experimenting cycles. Briefly, the software worked correctly, but the systems of data collecting had to be adapted depending on the case. We had short time to evaluate correctly this practice and more experimenting cycles were needed to better understand the reason why of the “incoherent” data. For example, comparing the two graphics at the bottom of the page of the same improvement action developing coaching programme, related to a Finnish private company and to an Italian public institution, we can see some differences: at the end of the improvement action of the first one there’s an improvement of almost all the factors, whereas in the second one the two radar charts are almost super-imposable. There were no differences between the factors before and after the improvement action. At this stage we couldn’t say if the data were coherent or not, but we knew that with the same improvement action we had two different “responses” from the older workers, therefore other experimenting cycles to understand which improvement action was the most relevant was needed. For a good and efficient MS functioning, some aspect for its application in the companies have to be implemented, in particular the personnel need a very good training and the benchmarking between the different staff of experimentation is necessary during the experimentation phases. |
Lessons learnt from the practice |
In many cases the tool hasn’t been used correctly, in some cases evident mistakes have been made, in others it has not been given the right importance to some questions or investigation tools. In view of this know-how and awareness acquired, projects’ companies keep on using it. These results confirm that the most important 'age' is not the 'physic' age but the 'work age'. In short, the worker grow old depending on the number of 'working years' in the same task. So the problem is the 'task' and not the 'age'. |
Relevant factors/conditions for the transfer of the good practice |
It is necessary a good training for the end users explaining the software’s usability and potentiality; demonstration on the spot using the acquired data and its usability in a real and concrete situation. |
Implementing organisations |
SII Consulting; DMB Solutions ; A.I.C.C.R.E. |
Contact information |
f.battisti@aiccre.it ; g.sgandurra@siiconsult.eu  |
Other possible interesting information |