Continuous Improvement

Work practices are generally not fixed, static arrangements. Rather, they grow and change over time and as the needs and expectations of your clients and the sector as a whole change.

Many workplaces participate in formal continuous improvement processes and use these processes to inform and drive positive change across the organisation.

You may be asked to contribute to continuous improvement as part of your work activities. This could include:

• Participating in continuous improvement meetings.
• Making suggestions about changes to work practices.
• Collecting feedback from clients and others.
• Implementing changes in your own work practices.

Being a part of a continuous improvement process can be extremely satisfying. It is a great way of contributing to your organisation as well as making sure you are striving to achieve best practice outcomes in the work you do.

Sharing Your Ideas

You may feel as though you do not have a great deal to contribute to continuous improvement cycles when you are first starting out in a workplace. However, this can often be the time when your ideas and feedback can be the most valuable.

As a new worker, you are quite likely to be experiencing many things for the first time. You have a fresh, new pair of eyes and ears and this means you are more likely to notice the little things that don’t work as well as perhaps they should.

Feeding this information into the cycle of ongoing improvement in the workplace is a wonderful contribution that you can make for your organisation, as well as to future new workers.

There are many ways you can share your ideas, depending on how confident you feel at communicating with others.

Here are some suggestions you could try:

• Filling out a feedback form and submitting it.
• Making suggestions at a team meeting as part of a discussion.
• Join a continuous improvement committee.
• Make a time to speak one to one with your supervisor.
• Write an article for a staff newsletter.
• Write an email to send to your supervisor.
• Talk to a more experienced colleague.

You should not feel as though your ideas will be dismissed or that they have no value. Remember that the ideas of everyone in a workplace should be valued and considered and that you have an important role to play in helping your organisation grow and develop over time.

Work practices can often be improved simply by making little changes, or by noticing the things that are not working well and fixing them.

Pro-active organisations encourage an approach where people are willing to share and contribute to positive change. This does not mean simply ignoring processes and systems which have been established and deciding to do things your own way. Rather, it means being willing to participate in discussions, planning events and tasks that help drive the organisation and your work team forwards.

Goals for Improvement

Many work teams set goals for themselves about how they are going to improve and develop over time. These goals may contribute to the broader picture of the organisation, either as a way of meeting organisational goals and objectives, or as a part of a continuous improvement process.

Goals are written statements which explain what is being aimed for in the future. They set out what success will look like, and how you will know when you have achieved the goal.

The best goals are ones which can be easily measured, so that it is possible to recognise when the goal has been reached.

Promoting Changes

You can be an active participant in promoting changes based on goals and outcomes for your work team.

Promotion can be a formal or informal process, where you take on a leadership role to encourage and direct others to make a positive change. This may seem a little daunting if you are in the early stages of your career, but you will soon become more comfortable at helping to drive positive changes and help your organisation achieve its goals.

You can promote changes to procedures and systems of work by:

• Talking to others about changes that you think should occur.
• Being a positive, active listener and communicator.
• Taking on and responding positively to feedback from others.
• Being willing to provide clear, constructive feedback to others.
• Participating in formal and informal opportunities to promote change.

Example

Trishna has noticed that it takes a long time for a client to move from the intake system to the case workers who provide direct support.

Several times, clients have told her by the time they get to speak to a case worker, their need for support has changed completely. The problem seems to be worse on a Friday, leading to a backlog of work over the weekend and into the following week.

When Trishna watches closely, she sees that the intake worker on a Friday appears to have a higher number of files to manage than any other day of the week. Trishna thinks that if the intake worker on a Friday has some additional support, the files will not become backlogged and clients will be assigned to case workers more efficiently.

She suggests this change to her supervisor during a regular discussion and is pleased when her supervisor asks her to run a team discussion on the topic during their next team meeting.

The change is agreed and the whole team find the new system of work is far more efficient once the intake worker on a Friday is given an additional worker to help assign files and process applications for three hours each morning.

As well as participating actively in discussions and continuous improvement activities, you can also play a role in modelling changes to systems of work.

Modelling is an approach where you ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ someone about how to make a change. Modelling is an important part of working in teams and it is a very effective way of helping people learn new skills.

Modelling is particularly useful for complex tasks, significant changes to systems and ways of working, and for communicating a change to people who do not share a common spoken or written language.

Modelling involves several steps:

1. Think about the change you want to show or teach.
2. Decide on the most important features of the change.
3. Invite the other person to participate and learn with you.
4. Focus on showing the task rather than telling.

Feedback is a way of learning how to improve your skills, knowledge and performance at work. People use feedback frequently in a workplace to help the organisation achieve its goals and to facilitate ongoing and continuous improvement.

Types of Feedback

There are two types of feedback:

• Knowledge of performance
• Knowledge of results

Both types of feedback are useful, but in different ways. Knowledge of results simply tells you about the outcome of a task; the end point of your efforts and activities.

Knowledge of performance tells you about the process of getting to the end point; it is more about the efforts and activities you have undertaken along the way.

In a workplace, knowledge of performance is useful in helping you build your knowledge and skills in very specific ways. It helps you understand the detail in what you are doing each day, so that you can learn to grow and improve.

Knowledge of results is useful in providing you with a way of measuring and comparing your achievements against a set of goals so you can tell clearly that you have fulfilled what you set out to do.

• Asking for Feedback

There are usually many people in a workplace who will be happy to provide you with feedback—all you must do is ask.

You could say:

• Can you watch me doing this task and tell me what you notice?
• Do you mind listening as I conduct this interview, so I can work out what I can do to improve?
• I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong here—can you watch and listen and then give me some feedback?

Feedback should be given in a way which helps you learn and improve your skills. Asking for feedback should not mean that other people simply criticise what you do.

Feedback should tell you about what you are already doing well and what you could change so you become more effective as a worker.

If your work involves clients and you would like to receive feedback, make sure you seek permission from the client first. Some clients may not be comfortable with another person being present.

Responding to Feedback

Once you have been given some feedback, it is important to respond to it.

You should think carefully about what you have learnt and think how you can apply it to your work.

Some people write feedback into a diary or journal so they can look back on it and reflect on what they have found out. This helps you to truly understand the feedback you have received and work out what you can do to improve your knowledge and skills over time.

Example

Magdella asks her supervisor to sit in on an interview she conducts with a new client. She seeks permission from the client first and makes sure they are comfortable with someone else being present.

The supervisor sits quietly towards the back of the room and watches and listens to Magdella.

Later, the supervisor and Magdella talk about the things she is already doing well, and what she can do to improve in her interviewing skills.

As a new worker in health and community services, it is important to realise that the learning does not stop as soon as you begin in an organisation. In fact, the learning cycle is only just getting started.

Many people consider that building new skills and gaining knowledge is something that happens throughout their whole lives and that we never really stop learning.

Building skills and gaining new knowledge can happen in many ways. You could:

• Attend a formal training activity such as a conference, workshop or learning session.
• Spend time with a mentor on a regular basis.
• Watch a more experienced colleague perform their work duties.
• Attend an industry information session or webinar about changes or updates.
• Network with other professionals who work in similar roles or fields to your own.

Make sure you keep a record of any professional development activities you attend, such as by writing them into your diary or making notes about what you have learnt.

Who to ask About Skill Development

Your supervisor or the Human Resources Manager at your organisation can advise you about the process of applying for professional development.

They may be able to offer training activities at your workplace, or suggest workshops, seminars or webinars which could be useful.

Understanding the Process

Once you have found the professional development activity you think will benefit you the most, it is time to put your plan into action.

Many organisations have a process for applying for professional development, and there may be a form you need to fill out. Sometimes the professional development will be embedded into a professional learning plan or performance evaluation plan that you complete each year with your supervisor.

This helps the professional development you complete to be closely aligned to your job performance and your regular tasks in the workplace.

Using Work Performance Goals

Writing goals can help you decide what you want to learn next, and help you work out what professional development activities could be useful. Make your goals as clear and specific as you can.

For example, you could write:

• I will learn to identify infection control breaches and problems and plan how to prevent them occurring in my daily work activities.
• I will be able to perform manual handling tasks safely using equipment.
• I will learn to use Auslan to communicate with clients who have a hearing loss.

Each of these performance goals tells you exactly what you are going to learn. This makes it easy to see when you have achieved your goal.

It also makes it easy to find a professional development activity that will support you in reaching it.

• Name two ways you can contribute to your organisation’s continuous improvement.
• What are three advantages of receiving feedback?
• What are some ways you can ensure you get regular feedback at work?