LEARNER MANUAL

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND SUPERVISION

MODULE #: 226302001-KM-05
NQF LEVEL: 5
CREDITS: 6
NOTIONAL HOURS: 60

smsupport
Table of Contents
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE ____________________________________________________________ 4
ICONS ____________________________________________________________________________ 4
PROGRAMME OVERVIEW ____________________________________________________________ 5
PURPOSE _________________________________________________________________________ 5
LEARNING ASSUMPTIONS ____________________________________________________________ 5
HOW YOU WILL LEARN ______________________________________________________________ 5
HOW YOU WILL BE ASSESSED _________________________________________________________ 5
PROVIDER ACCREDITATION REQUIREMENTS FOR THE KNOWLEDGE MODULE __________________ 6
KM-05: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND SUPERVISION _____________________________ 8
KM-05-KT01: THEORIES, CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES OF STRATEGIC PLANNING AND HOW THIS
APPLIES TO OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT. ____________________ 10
KT0101 DESCRIBE THE BASIC BUSINESS SYSTEM; ________________________________________10
IAC0101 GIVEN A RANGE OF OHS RELATED PROBLEMS IN VARIOUS BUSINESS OPERATIONS BE ABLE TO: A.
DESCRIBE THE ORIGIN AND IMPACT OF THESE PROBLEMS IN RELATION TO THE BUSINESS SYSTEM; B.
INDICATE THE ROLE THAT PLANNING PLAYED IN THESE PROBLEMS AND WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED IN
THE PLANNING PROCESSES TO PREVENT SIMILAR PROBLEMS IN THE FUTURE. _______________________ 14
KT0102 DESCRIBE THE FUNDAMENTAL BUSINESS PLANNING PROCESS AND DESCRIBE THE ROLE OF
STRATEGY IN IT; ___________________________________________________________________21
KT0103 EXPLAIN WHAT IS MEANT BY: STRATEGY, VISION, MISSION AND BUSINESS OBJECTIVES; _25
KT0104 DESCRIBE HOW THE FUNDAMENTAL BUSINESS PROCESSES ARE APPLIED WITHIN THE
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY ENVIRONMENT. ___________________________________30
KT0105 DESCRIBE THE CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES OF INTEGRATED VALUE CHAIN MANAGEMENT 34
KM-05-KT02: LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS AND CYCLE AND HOW THIS IS USED TO
IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY ________________ 39
KT0201 EXPLAIN THE TYPICAL LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE ADDI _______________39
IAC0202 GIVEN VARIOUS ORGANISATIONAL OHS LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT NEEDS, COMPETENCY
PROFILES AND DESCRIPTIONS OF DIFFERENT LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT STRUCTURES, STRATEGIES AND
RESOURCES. BE ABLE TO: A. IDENTIFY POSSIBLE DEFICIENCIES IN THE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
PROCESSES; B. DESCRIBE ACTIONS TO DEAL WITH THE GIVEN LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES 42
KT0202 DESCRIBE THE IMPACT OF EACH ELEMENT OF THE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT LIFE
CYCLE ON OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY; ________________________________________52
KT0203 DESCRIBE THE CRITERIA FOR EFFECTIVE LEARNING MATERIAL _______________________55
KT0204 EXPLAIN THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF ADULT LEARNING ______________________________ 61
KM-05-KT03: CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND HOW TO APPLY
THESE PRINCIPLES WHEN IMPLEMENTING NEW SYSTEMS. ___________________________ 65
1
 KT0301 DEFINE CHANGE AND GIVE REASONS WHY THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CHANGES IN AN
ORGANISATION MUST BE MANAGED; _________________________________________________65
IAC0301 GIVEN VARIOUS OCCUPATIONAL SCENARIOS WHERE NEW SYSTEMS AND/OR PROCESSES ARE BEING
INTRODUCED, USE THE CHANGE MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES TO DEVELOP AN APPROPRIATE PROGRAMME
TO ENSURE THE SMOOTH IMPLEMENTATION OF THESE PROCESSES. ______________________________ 70
KT0302 EXPLAIN THE TYPICAL RESPONSES OF PEOPLE TO CHANGE AND HOW THEY IMPACT ON THE
EFFECTIVENESS OF IMPLEMENTING CHANGES IN ORGANISATIONS. _________________________73
KT0303 DESCRIBE A TYPICAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND GIVE EXAMPLES OF WHAT
MUST BE DONE TO HELP PEOPLE UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT CHANGE. ______________________77
KT0304 GIVE EXAMPLES OF THE USE OF CHANGE OF MANAGEMENT IN RELATION TO
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY ISSUES.___________________________________________84
KM-05-KT04: CONCEPTS, PRINCIPLES AND LEADING PRACTICES ASSOCIATED WITH
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT __________________________________________________ 89
KT0401 DESCRIBE WHAT IS MEANT BY CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT AND HOW IT MANIFESTS IN
THE PLAN, DO, CHECK, ACT CYCLE: A. COMPARISON WITH THE MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS (POLC);
B. DISCUSS THE PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE CONTROLS WITHIN THE MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS __89
IAC0401 GIVEN A RANGE OF ORGANISATIONAL OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY SCENARIOS DESCRIBE
THE LEADING PRACTICES THAT CAN BE APPLIED TO ENSURE CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT ____________ 94
KT0402 GIVE EXAMPLES OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PROCESSES IN VARIOUS WORK PLACES.
________________________________________________________________________________97
KT0403 DESCRIBE THE ADVANTAGES AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE EFFECTIVE USE OF CONTINUOUS
IMPROVEMENT PROCESSES. ________________________________________________________100
KT0404 EXPLAIN THE TYPICAL PRACTICES ASSOCIATED WITH CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
PROCESSES: A. OCCURRENCE MANAGEMENT; B. DEVIATION AND NON-CONFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT; C. LESSONS LEARNT AND ORGANISATION WIDE IMPLEMENTATION; D.
MODIFICATION MANAGEMENT; E. PROPER COMMISSIONING AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT ___103
KT0405 EXPLAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF STANDARDS AND SPECIFICATIONS IN ENSURING
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT ______________________________________________________113

2
© COPYRIGHT

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
Transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of:

This manual was compiled by SM Support on behalf of the training provider

3
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE

This workbook belongs to you. It is designed to serve as a guide for the duration of your training
programme. It contains readings, activities, and application aids that will assist you in
developing the knowledge and skills stipulated in the specific outcomes and assessment
criteria. Follow along in the guide as the facilitator takes you through the material, and feel free
to make notes and diagrams that will help you to clarify or retain information. Jot down things
that work well or ideas that come from the group. Also, note any points you would like to
explore further. Participate actively in the skill practice activities, as they will give you an
opportunity to gain insights from other people’s experiences and to practice the skills. Do not
forget to share your own experiences so that others can learn from you too.

ICONS
Learner Manual

PROGRAMME OVERVIEW

PURPOSE

The main focus of the learning in this Knowledge Module is to build an understanding of
providing learners an opportunity to build their understanding of the key concepts and principles
that underpin operations management

LEARNING ASSUMPTIONS

The learning will enable learners to demonstrate an understanding of:

• KM-05-KT01: Theories, concepts and principles of strategic planning and how this
applies to occupational health and safety management. (Intermediate) (25%)
• KM-05-KT02: Learning and development process and cycle and how this is used to
improve the effectiveness of occupational health and safety (Intermediate) (25%)
• KM-05-KT03: Concepts and principles of change management and how to apply
these principles when implementing new systems. (Intermediate) (25%)
• KM-05-KT04: Concepts, principles and leading practices associated with continuous
improvement (Intermediate) (25%)

HOW YOU WILL LEARN

The programme methodology includes facilitator presentations, readings, individual activities,

group discussions, and skill application exercises.

HOW YOU WILL BE ASSESSED

This programme has been aligned to registered unit standards. You will be assessed against
the outcomes of the unit standards by completing a knowledge assignment that covers the
essential embedded knowledge stipulated in the unit standards. When you are assessed as
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 5
Learner Manual
competent against the unit standards, you will receive a certificate of competence and be
awarded 6 credits towards a National Qualification.

PROVIDER ACCREDITATION REQUIREMENTS FOR THE KNOWLEDGE

MODULE

1. Physical Requirements:
Providers must have access to:
Back up facilitators;
A physical address and access to proper lecture facilities, audio visual aids and
equipment with appropriate contingencies;
Maximum facilitator/learner ratio should not exceed 1:15;
Venues must have adequate seating, and ergonomic requirements to cater for
the number of learners.
Facilities must be provided for breakaway sessions and all the simulations and
other resources as stipulated in the module specifications.
Appropriate learning resources must be available and accessible to meet the
requirements as set out in the curriculum.
All learners must be provided with easy access to the required learning
materials and resources.
Providers must have the administrative ability to maintain records of all learners
and monitor the progress of the learners.
Providers must have adequate policies and procedures in place to review and
manage the progress of learners and learners must have access to their
progress reports.
Providers must be able to access and comply with reporting requirements as
set by the External assessment Quality Partner.
2. Human Resource Requirements:

Facilitators of learning must:

Be in possession of a recognized qualification in the field of OHS at a level of at
least NQF 3 or equivalent;
Have completed at least three years relevant work experience;
Be in possession of a recognised Adult Learning qualification at the level of at
least a Facilitator Certificate and/or prove this through relevant recognition of prior
learning.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 6

Learner Manual
Appropriate arrangements must be in place to conduct learner assessments in a
fair and equitable manner.

3. Legal Requirements

The providers must prove an acceptable arrangement of co-operation with recognised

employers to facilitate the practical skills and assist learners to get exposure to the
work experience components;
Facilities must comply with all relevant regulatory requirements;
Providers must obtain and retain ISO certification.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 7

Learner Manual

KM-05: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND SUPERVISION

On completion of this section you will be able to understand the key concepts and principles
that underpin operations management.

1. KT0101 Describe the basic business system

2. KT0102 Describe the fundamental business planning process and describe the role
of strategy in it
3. KT0103 Explain what is meant by: Strategy, vision, mission and business objectives
4. KT0104 Describe how the fundamental business processes are applied within the
occupational health and safety environment.
5. KT0105 Describe the concepts and principles of integrated value chain management.
6. KT0201 Explain the typical Learning and development life cycle ADDI
7. KT0202 Describe the impact of each element of the learning and development life
cycle on Occupational Health and safety;
8. KT0203 Describe the criteria for effective learning material
9. KT0204 Explain the basic principles of adult learning

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 8

Learner Manual

10. KT0301 Define change and give reasons why the implementation of changes in an
organisation must be managed;
11. KT0302 Explain the typical responses of people to change and how they impact on
the effectiveness of implementing changes in organisations.
12. KT0303 Describe a typical change management process and give examples of what
must be done to help people understand and accept change.
13. KT0304 Give examples of the use of change management in relation to occupational
health and safety issues.
14. KT0401 Describe what is meant by continuous improvement and how it it manifests
in the plan, do, check, act cycle: a. Comparison with the management functions
(POLC); b. Discuss the principles of effective controls within the management
functions (ISMECC)
15. KT0402 Give examples of continuous improvement processes in various work places.
16. KT0403 Describe the advantages and implications of the effective use of continuous
improvement processes.
17. KT0404 Explain the typical practices associated with continuous improvement
processes: a. Occurrence management; b. Deviation and non-conformance
management; c. Lessons learnt and organisation wide implementation; d.
Modification management; e. Proper commissioning and change management.
18. KT0405 Explain the importance of standards and specifications in ensuring
continuous improvement

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 9

Learner Manual

KM-05-KT01: THEORIES, CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES OF

STRATEGIC PLANNING AND HOW THIS APPLIES TO
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT.

KT0101 DESCRIBE THE BASIC BUSINESS SYSTEM;

BUSINESS SYSTEM
A methodical procedure or process that is used as a delivery mechanism for providing specific
goods or services to customers.
Systems and processes are the essential building blocks of our companies. Every facet of your
business—on the shop floor, in the warehouse or in the office—is part of a system that can be
managed or improved by applying correct principles.
A business system is designed to connect all of an organization’s intricate parts and interrelated
steps to work together for the achievement of the business strategy.
When we apply defined principles and practices to the systems and processes that deliver
value to our customers, we’re creating what is often referred to as a “business system.”
Creating effective business systems often unifies the problem solving and decision making of
the organization. Many common tools and methodologies are universally taught and expected
to be utilized by all levels. Several key management structures, such as a full-time Performance
Excellence office or systematic maturity assessments, are made a permanent part of the
infrastructure. The business system also encompasses how we lead our people and connect
them to the operational strategy.

Why Implement a Business System?

There are several reasons to implement a business system.
Improving Top-Line Performance: Part of the business system is the development and
implementation of strategy creation, business processes and strategic planning throughout
your organization. Those foundational elements lead to a much more insightful way to
investigate and grow top-line revenue. In short, a business system takes care of your future. It
ensures you meet your customers’ expectations and improve your brand, which are key to
growing a healthy business.
If you use a systematic approach, your organization will have constant information on areas
that need to be improved and you will begin to understand the unmet needs of customers.
Meeting Customer’s Expectations: If you use a systematic approach, your organization will
analyse, measure, compare and test all the possibilities of what your customers want and don’t
want. You will have constant information on areas that need to be improved and, even more
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 10
Learner Manual
importantly, you will begin to understand the unmet needs of customers. A business system is
key to improving the brand that the organization projects to your community, including
customers, employees and suppliers.
Consistent Results: Whether we are considering safety, quality or getting the job done in a
timely manner, a business system is designed to give you effective, efficient and repeatable
results. In short, the business system gives you a “process to fix your processes.”
Employee Engagement: The goal of the system is to enable proper education and
opportunities to all employees so they can complete their work more efficiently and effectively.
We also seek to harness their ideas and creativity and, in the process, increase their personal
engagement. Additionally, having the system in place allows you to quickly integrate new-hires,
and makes it easy for them to see their role within the organization and bring forth new ideas.
Reduce Cost and Increase Profits: It has been proven time and again that the implementation
of a sound business system helps reduce costs, but so will many things. A business system is
intended to reduce costs without taking the shortcuts that often lead to an erosion of profitability
due to the necessity to lower quality expectations or service levels.
The Lean Methods Group’s System of Performance Excellence
Performance Excellence, among other things is used, as part of our approach to creating a
business system, taking a holistic approach that involves the whole organization. All of the
pieces must come together and paint a picture that is clear to each and every employee who
views it. Our System of Performance Excellence comprises four parts:
• Strategy— the way the organization thinks and plans
• Processes— the way the organization operations
• People—the way the organization leads
• Technology— the way the organization connects
Without a business system, organizations often experience silo-ed thinking. Each department
might perform well on its own, but customers don’t see the results of each individual
department. Instead, they see the result of the whole.
A business system focuses on alignment of all activities to the customer perspective, from the
strategy to employees’ day-to-day work, and installs value-chain-based thinking.
The Power of a Business System
When implementing a business system based on Performance Excellence, there are at least
eight major changes that we want the organization to see quickly.
Value-Stream Based— Instead of assigning resources to projects based on financial priority,
which means they can be spread all over, we assign resources to a specific site or value stream
to work a series of projects. This creates focus, achieving significant transformation in that
value stream and allowing the local leadership team to become comfortable using new tools to
solve problems. With this approach, we build up islands of excellence much faster.
Such a value stream approach also allows for a more systematic project selection process.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 11

Learner Manual
Project Selection— Such a value stream approach also allows for a more systematic project
selection process. We don’t want to be haphazardly selecting projects but rather working on
initiatives designed to drive toward the achievement of the strategic goals and objectives of the
business.
Move to Local— Nearly all improvement teams and kaizen events should be conducted at the
local site. No more conference room kaizens! This gets more point-of-action team members
involved and experiencing the process first-hand.
Pinpoint Focus— Improvement opportunities such as kaizen events should be scoped with a
small enough focus to allow for actual process improvements to be made DURING the run
week. Thirty-, 60- and 90-day plans are good for creating a long-term view, but we want to see
immediate results both to the bottom line and in the lives of the employees doing the job.
Drum Beat of Success— Process improvements should take place in the same value stream
on a consistent monthly basis until we have affected the required amount of improvement and
have trained the local team. The “drum beat” of success is of vital importance both from a
cultural standpoint and a sustainment point of view.
Replication—By installing a replication process, organizations can take an improvement
implemented in one location and duplicate that to all of the other affected locations. This allows
the whole organization to see results much faster.
Deployment Dashboard— A deployment dashboard summarizes all results to date and
informs the leadership team of expected progress. This dashboard should be communicated
on a regular basis. Results have to be measured and shared to sustain success.
Daily Management—Through a thorough Daily Management system in each value stream, we
put in place—depending on needs—a tiered meeting structure, visual management boards and
leadership standard work. Daily Management is the backbone of sustainability and is often
where the most significant improvement opportunities are surfaced.
In addition to these quick-hitting changes listed above, we also expect to see, over a longer
period, these other changes to occur.
Strategy Creation— As part of strategy creation, we explore market and technology trends
that highlight opportunities for growth, and identify customer insights using qualitative and
quantitative research. Senior leaders learn to become better strategic thinkers and gain a more
systematic process for strategy creation.
Strategic Planning—With the implementation of the Hoshin Planning process for strategic
planning, there’s complete alignment of your organization to the future vision.
Systematic Innovation— Another part of the business system framework is creating a
scalable and sustainable innovation ecosystem in order to create competitive advantage. The
organization learns to address innovation challenges quickly, build a pipeline of innovation
opportunities, prioritize ideas, and apply methods and tools for both front-end innovation and
back-end design.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 12

Learner Manual
Culture Change—Along the way, the organization starts to see a shift in culture. While some
change will happen naturally, other changes must be guiding and steered. To effect positive
culture change, the Cycle of Accountability and Trust guides us in forming a virtuous cycle.
With all of those changes taken together, you can see how a business system provides a
framework for a constant pursuit of improvement and innovation, and a deep understanding of
change and motivation. At the end of the day, when you have all of these things in place, a
sound business system gives the organizational leaders confidence in their ability to create the
future.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 13

Learner Manual
IAC0101 GIVEN A RANGE OF OHS RELATED PROBLEMS IN VARIOUS BUSINESS
OPERATIONS BE ABLE TO: A. DESCRIBE THE ORIGIN AND IMPACT OF THESE
PROBLEMS IN RELATION TO THE BUSINESS SYSTEM; B. INDICATE THE ROLE THAT
PLANNING PLAYED IN THESE PROBLEMS AND WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED IN THE
PLANNING PROCESSES TO PREVENT SIMILAR PROBLEMS IN THE FUTURE.

Accidents in the workplace occur because someone does something wrong, or doesn’t do
something they should do. Nearly all accidents and things that damage someone’s health are
preventable.
Each year in South Africa are about 150 people lose their lives, 150,000 people are injured and
about two million suffer from ill health caused or made worse by work. And small businesses
have more than their fair share of incidents - for example, the fatality rate in small and medium
size manufacturers is about twice that of large ones.
As an employer – even if you only employ yourself – you have a legal responsibility to prevent
people being harmed or becoming ill in the workplace. This makes good business sense too –
accidents and health incidents can cause disruption, lead to extinction.
It’s impossible to eliminate every risk but the law requires you to take ‘reasonable and practical’
steps to protect people, including yourself.
Identify any hazards – things that could cause harm. If you have employees ask them – they
may be aware of things that you haven’t noticed
Decide how you are going to control the hazards you’ve identified. Wherever it’s practical get
rid of a hazards. For example, fix broken handrails, repair or replace defective equipment,
change dangerous chemicals for less harmful ones
If you can’t remove the hazard you need to control it to reduce the risk it will cause and minimise
harmful effects
Once you’ve identified risks and decided upon measures to control them make sure that
anyone you employ understands them. If you have more than five employees you must put this
into writing
Be aware that for some risks the law specifies control measures that you must use
Each type of business will have its own risks – some being more severe than others – but the
way of doing a risk assessment is the same
No matter how small or large your business or company is, you have to remember that
managing its safety is very important. If you are a business owner, you are legally responsible
for the safety of many components in your business, such as your employees, other workers
that are affected in the work field and also yourself. If you think about it, workplace accidents,
injuries and medical health costs end up losing productivity, efficiency, time, legal proceedings,
insurance premium hikes, skills and much more. Health and safety management contributes to
all business sectors no matter what kind and how big.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 14

Learner Manual
As an employer, it is obvious that there are many moral and legal duties. You have to consider
the possible outcomes and consequences of incidents that may occur in the workplace of
businesses. The basis of the management of health and safety in the work field is the written
safety statement. This written statement is crucial since it is the program that protects the safety
and health of all your workers and other individuals that may be affected in the work force.
The primary goal of occupational health and safety is to nourish and foster the work
environment for all the individuals in the work field. By keeping everyone safe and healthy,
businesses could reduce their workers’ medical expenses and insurance costs, reduce return-
to-work payouts, decreases the costs for job accommodations for those employees who are
injured and with medical illnesses. Keeping everybody in the company safe and healthy will
surely increase the efficiency and productivity of the entire business, which will lead to a
successful and good business.
Protect your staff
Effective health and safety practices help you protect your staff from injury. This may mean you
are more likely to retain skilled and loyal employees by preventing:
back pain and other musculoskeletal disorders – e.g. upper limb disorders - see safe manual
handling at work and prevent RSI and upper limb disorders injuries from slips and trips - see
avoid slips and trips falls from height - see work safely at height or in a confined space accidents
involving vehicles at work - see transport safety in the workplace aches, pains and strain from
using display screen equipment - see computer health and safety at work
Looking after your employees' health will mean that your staff are less likely to suffer from: the
effects of noise and vibration
asthma - see manage risks from substances which can trigger allergies or asthma
work-related skin disease
asbestos-related illness - see key occupational health issues
Reduce absences and sick leave
Another benefit of good health and safety measures at work is that employees are less likely
to take sick leave. This saves the business the direct and indirect costs of staff absence.
Retain staff
If you reduce staff absence due to illness or accidents at work, you will save the time and costs
of recruiting and training a new member of staff.
Reputation
Good health and safety measures will help you to build a positive reputation with your clients
and staff and their friends and associates. The resulting good public relations could help to
increase sales and generate more leads.
Productivity and profits
Good health and safety measures mean that your staff can do their work more easily and
safely. This will boost morale, increase productivity and reduce costs.
Save insurance and legal costs
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 15
Learner Manual
A good standard of health and safety in the workplace can reduce your insurance premiums,
as well as the costs of accidents that aren't covered by your insurance, such as sick pay,
production delays or repairs to plant or equipment. Uninsured costs can be greater than insured
costs, and they have to be paid out of your business' income.
Prime responsibility for accident and ill health prevention rests with management
Accidents, ill health and incidents are seldom random events. They generally arise from failures
of control and involve multiple contributory elements. The immediate cause may be a human
or technical failure, but they usually arise from organisational failings which are the
responsibility of management. Successful policies aim to exploit the strengths of employees.
They aim to minimise the contribution of human limitations and fallibilities by examining how
the organisation is structured and how jobs and systems are designed.
The importance of organisational factors
Organisations that are good at managing health and safety create an effective framework to
maximise the contribution of individuals and groups. Health and safety objectives are regarded
in the same way as other business objectives. They become part of the culture and this is
recognised explicitly by making health and safety a line management responsibility. The
approach has to start at the top. Visible and active support, strong leadership and commitment
of senior managers and directors are fundamental to the success of health and safety
management. Senior managers communicate the beliefs which underlie the policy through their
individual behaviour and management practice. Health and safety is a boardroom issue and a
board member takes direct responsibility for the co-ordination of effort. The whole organisation
shares the management perception and beliefs about the importance of health and safety and
the need to achieve the policy objectives.
Quality, environment and health and safety management
The principles and approach to managing health and safety described in this and the following
chapters are the same as those advocated for managing quality or the environment. A well-
developed approach to quality is increasingly seen as an essential activity for the successful
organisation rather than an optional extra. Organisations often fail to manage health and safety
effectively because they see it as something distinct from other management tasks. They
conclude that it is too difficult. They do not bring the same rigour to it as they do for quality or
the environment.
Planning for health and safety
The results of successful health and safety management are often expressed as a series of
negative outcomes, such as an absence of injuries, ill health, incidents or losses. But it is often
a matter of chance whether dangerous events cause injury or loss (see Inset 1). Effective
planning is concerned with prevention through identifying, eliminating and controlling hazards
and risks. This is especially important when dealing with health risks which may only become
apparent after a long latency period.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 16

Learner Manual
Prevention can only stem from an effective health and safety management system, and
organisations need a framework or benchmark against which to judge the adequacy of the
current situation. Although health and safety management
Management arrangements
A set of management processes is necessary to organise, plan, control and monitor the design
and implementation of the RCSs. These are the key elements of health and safety
management which are described in this guidance. Here they are summarised as ‘management
arrangements’

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 17

Learner Manual
This three-component framework can be applied to any organisation. In multi-site businesses,
there need to be sufficient management arrangements at the centre to control and ensure that
an adequate health and safety management system is provided at each business unit and site.
The centre may wish to establish minimum expectations for management arrangements, RCSs
and workplace precautions at each business unit and site.
You should document other health and safety system information so that it is proportionate to
business needs, hazards and risks. The control of relatively minor hazards affecting all
employees (such as ensuring passages and gangways remain free from obstruction) can be
dealt with by a number of simply stated general rules. The control of more hazardous activities
may need more detailed workplace precautions and RCSs. The control of high hazard activities
may demand detailed workplace precautions and an RCS which needs to be strictly followed,
such as a permit-to-work system.
All the components of the health and safety management system need to be adequately
inspected, maintained and monitored to secure continued effective operation. Risk
assessments and workplace precautions should be reviewed in the light of changes and
technological developments. The type, frequency and depth of maintenance should reflect the
extent and nature of the hazard and risks revealed by risk assessment. The balance of
resources devoted to the various RCSs will also reflect the hazard profile of the business.
Even in a well-designed and well-developed health and safety management system there is
still the challenge of ensuring that all requirements are complied with consistently. The main
way of achieving this is by rewarding positive behaviour according to the maxim of ‘what gets
rewarded gets done’.
After an accident or case of ill health, many organisations find that they already had systems,
rules, procedures or instructions which would have prevented the event but which were not
complied with. There are many reasons why such ‘violations’ occur. The underlying causes
often lie in systems which are designed without taking proper account of human factors, or
violations are condoned implicitly or explicitly by management action or neglect (see Reducing
error and influencing behaviour, and Improving compliance with safety procedures: Reducing
industrial violations26). Managers need to take positive steps to address human factors issues
and to encourage safe behaviour. They need to recognise that the prevailing health and safety
culture is a major influence in shaping people’s safety-related behaviour.
Some organisations have applied performance management techniques and behaviour
modification to promote and reward safe behaviour and reduce unsafe behaviour. Such
techniques can play an important part in accident and ill health prevention and promoting a
positive health and safety culture. However, they are no substitute for a sound health and safety
management system. They achieve their best effect where the health and safety system is
relatively well developed and where employees are actively involved in the behavioural safety
process.
How you can prevent safety problems
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 18
Learner Manual
1. Communicate your health and safety policy to staff. Every business is required to have one,
and if you employ more than five staff, it must be in writing and available for employees to read.
This might be by including it in induction packs, staff handbooks or posting it on a notice board.
2. Assess the risks. All businesses are obliged to carry out a health and safety risk assessment.
Consider all the potential hazards in your workplace ? for example, are employees required to
carry heavy items or work from height? Or is there any chance that customers could trip or hurt
themselves on your premises? Keep a written record of your risk assessment and any steps
you take to reduce the chance of accidents.
3. Deal with any hazards promptly. According to the HSE, slips and falls account for more than
a third of all workplace accidents - mainly caused by preventable dangers like slippery floor
surfaces, trailing cables and poor lighting. Reducing risk is usually straightforward, so act
quickly to mop up spillages, repair broken steps and encourage staff to report maintenance
faults straightaway.
4. Invite feedback from staff on safety improvements. Create a safer workplace by consulting
with staff on risk management, inviting feedback on safety issues and encouraging your team
to flag up workplace hazards.
5. Display safety information clearly. Make sure you stay within the law by clearly displaying
safety signs for staff and customers - for example, directions to emergency exits, warnings
about moving industrial vehicles or providing information on the location of first-aid equipment.
6. Maintain comfort and cleanliness. Aside from providing basics such as clean working toilets,
adequate lighting and drinking water, you must also provide appropriate tools. Try to provide
the most ergonomic layout to reduce the chance of injuries such as repetitive strain injury (RSI).
Buying cheap chairs and desks is a false economy if half your employees end up with back
problems.
7. Provide first-aid supplies. The minimum businesses are required to provide is a suitably
stocked first-aid box, a person appointed to take charge of first-aid management and
information for staff on first-aid arrangements. Ideally, you should arrange emergency first-aid
training for the appointed person in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and helping
someone who is unconscious or bleeding.
8. Meet fire safety standards. You are obliged to carry out regular fire safety risk assessments
and maintain a fire management plan that identifies possible hazards. Typical workplace
breaches can include blocking fire exits, propping open fire doors and failing to train staff in
evacuation procedures.
9. Learn from any mistakes. If someone is injured, however slight, take steps to ensure it cannot
happen again. The law insists you keep a record of all accidents or illnesses that happen to
your employees during working hours - this can be a simple record book or a computerised
log.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 19

Learner Manual
10. Keep safety procedures updated. Don't forget to review your policies at least once a year
or more often if you are expanding fast. Keep up to date with legislation - remember it's your
job to stay within the law.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 20

Learner Manual
KT0102 DESCRIBE THE FUNDAMENTAL BUSINESS PLANNING PROCESS
AND DESCRIBE THE ROLE OF STRATEGY IN IT;

What Is the Business Planning Process?

The business planning process is designed to answer two questions: Where are we now?
Where do we want to go? The result of this process is a business plan that serves as a guide
for management to run the company. Describing the most critical tasks that must be completed
and the time frame for completion, a business plan allows companies to allocate resources to
accomplish goals.
Review of Current Situation
Companies begin the planning process by taking a critical look at the business' current state.
The management team evaluates what the company is doing well and where it is falling short.
Objectives could be revenue targets or ascertaining the company’s reputation for reliability in
the marketplace. The planning process provides a blueprint for improvement in all areas.
Industry and Competitive Review
Keeping track of competitors is an on-going process in business, but in the planning cycle this
information is used to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor. This analysis
shows management how to position the company’s products or services to compete more
effectively. It may be that the best way to contend with a competitor is by offering better
customer service rather than lower prices.
Defining the Opportunity
Success in business is the result of providing products and services that meet customers’
needs in a significantly better way than competitors. Before launching a product or entering a
new market, management must determine a strong customer need to solve a problem. Solving
the customer's problem must be important and urgent. Because no company has unlimited
resources, these decisions about which opportunities are best to exploit are critical to the
company’s success.
Devising Marketing Strategies
The marketing plan details which customer groups will be targeted and how these customers
will be convinced to make a purchase. The planning process must produce specific and
detailed tactics, not vague generalities. Instead of saying the company will employ Internet
marketing, the plan must detail which categories of Internet marketing will be emphasized,
which websites will be used, and the cost of advertising. Also included in the plan must be
reasons why these strategies are likely to result in success.
Resource Allocation
The planning process determines how all the assets of the company will be marshalled to
achieve the goals and objectives. Thorough planning allows financial resources to be used
wisely, and for the human resources of the company to be as productive as possible. Planning

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 21

Learner Manual
helps avoid problems such as cash shortages, inability to deliver products on schedule, or
inadequate staff levels.
Financial Forecast
A financial forecast, sometimes referred to as a company budget, is produced during the
planning process. The forecast numbers are compared to actual results during the year.
Discrepancies are analysed to determine if a change of course is required, or if shifting
expenses may be necessary due to a changing economic environment.

THE ROLE OF STRATEGIC THINKING IN BUSINESS PLANNING

Focus on Productivity and Innovation to Reduce Economic Anxiety
Solving today’s productivity puzzle is the key to countering the big challenges facing many
organizations…
Strategic Planning for Operational Effectiveness
The process of developing a strategic plan seems onerous to many of us and of…
Overcoming a Competitive Threat
What happens when a competitive threat occurs that can dramatically harm your organization’s
market position?… Traditionally, Strategic Planning omits the step of innovative thinking that is
so critical to business success. Strategic Thinking is a more comprehensive planning model
that covers innovation, strategic planning and operational planning.
Introduction
Strategy has never been more challenging, or more important, than in today’s environment of
global competition, in which, corporate strategies must transcend the borders of nations and
markets. Too many organizations try to be everything to everyone, wasting resources in
markets that may never provide a worthwhile return on investment.
What is Strategic Thinking?
Strategic Thinking is a planning process that applies innovation, strategic planning and
operational planning to develop business strategies that have a greater chance for success.
More and more organizations are learning that past experience is not always the best basis for
developing future strategies. Executives need to thoughtfully consider how to create value for
customers. The exercise of strategic planning, while important, tends to answer the “how” and
“when” of business planning and rarely captures the essence of what it means to think
strategically. That’s where strategic thinking comes in. Strategic thinking is the “what:” and
“why” of the planning process. It answers the question, “What should we be doing, and why?”
Strategic Thinking requires innovation and creativity and includes a research phase to examine
the voice of the customer, the employee and industry best practices. It is a process of
examining everything we do in our various roles, understanding the needs of our customers
and ensuring that all of this is linked to clearly defined strategic imperatives.
If we compare strategic thinking with strategic planning and operational planning we see that:
Strategic Thinking – is the “What” and the “Why”…that is what should we be doing and why.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 22
Learner Manual
Strategic Planning – is the “How” and “When” …at a very high level.
Operational Planning – is the specific details of the how and when.
Why is Strategic Thinking Important?
The purpose of Strategic Thinking is to create a strategy that is a coherent, unifying, integrative
framework for decisions especially about direction of the business and resource utilization. To
do it, Strategic Thinking uses internal and external data, qualitative synthesis of opinions and
perceptions. It is conscious, explicit, and proactive and defines competitive domain for
corporate strategic advantage.
Strategy is a key outcome of a relevant strategic thinking process. Tregoe and Zimmerman
outlined the relationship between strategy and operations in their work on strategy, “Top
Management Strategy: What It Is and How to Make It Work”.
The Strategic Thinking Process
Strategic Thinking is the combination of Innovation, Strategy Planning, and Operational
Planning.
The process begins with Innovation. We try to create the ideal future and consider the plans
needed to achieve them and to see them through. Innovation helps us to move outside our
comfort zone into the possibilities of exceeding customer and organizational requirements and
expectations.
Innovations are then articulated into a series of strategies. This is a part of the entire Strategic
Planning process. However, in Strategic Thinking, we incorporate the needs of our customers,
the organization and our staff in the process. We incorporate Benchmarking to ensure that
industry best practices are included in our vision of the future.
Employee Involvement at each stage of the Strategic Thinking process is key to ensuring that
they stay involved in the execution of the Operational plans. This is where Operational Planning
comes to play. It is the process of taking the strategies (the outcomes of the Strategic Planning
process) and developing them into action plans that are achievable and involve staff throughout
the organization in ensuring that the needs of the customer and the organization are met.
The last part of Strategic Thinking is Measurement. There must be an on-going process of
measuring the effectiveness of the plans and verifying that they are implemented as planned.
Measurement is also used to benchmark the original needs against the implemented actions.
To successfully implement strategic change, initiated through the strategic thinking process, it
is important for all levels of employees to fully incorporate the change in everything they do.
We do this by identifying and establishing Values and Principles to ensure the organization is
successful at achieving its strategic goals.

Conclusion

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 23

Learner Manual
Senior managers and leaders in organizations have a responsibility to make the required time
to undertake Strategic Thinking in their business planning. It won’t just happen-nor can it be
done in a quick half-day meeting.
Without comprehensive Strategic Thinking the organization risks making quick decisions that
lack the creativity and insights derived through a Strategic Thinking process. Executives may
find out later that their organization is going in directions that they likely didn’t want it to go. This
is not something that can be delegated away.
Strategic Thinking can be done for the organization as a whole and for each department or
division within the organization. The goal is to out-think, out-plan and out-manoeuvre other
forces or competitors. The notion of combat implies a central premise of competition in the
pursuit of “fulfilment”.
Sun Tzu in his book, “The Art of War,” defines the peak efficiency of knowledge and strategy
as being, to make conflict altogether unnecessary-to overcome other’s armies without fighting.
Similarly, the role of the leader embodying the essential elements of Strategic Thinking is well
described in this passage:
“A general must see alone and know alone, meaning that he must see what others do not see
and know what others do not know. Seeing what others do not see is called brilliance, knowing
what others do not know is called genius. Brilliant geniuses win first, meaning that they defend
in such a way as to be unassailable and attack in such a way as to be irresistible.”

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 24

Learner Manual
KT0103 EXPLAIN WHAT IS MEANT BY: STRATEGY, VISION, MISSION AND
BUSINESS OBJECTIVES;

STRATEGY
A method or plan chosen to bring about a desired future, such as achievement of a goal or
solution to a problem.
The art and science of planning and marshalling resources for their most efficient and effective
use. The term is derived from the Greek word for generalship or leading an army.
Strategy has been studied for years by business leaders and by business theorists. Yet, there
is no definitive answer about what strategy really is.
One reason for this is that people think about strategy in different ways.
For instance, some people believe that you must analyse the present carefully, anticipate
changes in your market or industry, and, from this, plan how you'll succeed in the future.
Meanwhile, others think that the future is just too difficult to predict, and they prefer to evolve
their strategies organically.
Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes, authors of "Exploring Corporate Strategy," say that strategy
determines the direction and scope of an organization over the long term, and they say that it
should determine how resources should be configured to meet the needs of markets and
stakeholders.
Michael Porter, a strategy expert and professor at Harvard Business School, emphasizes the
need for strategy to define and communicate an organization's unique position, and says that
it should determine how organizational resources, skills, and competencies should be
combined to create competitive advantage.
While there will always be some evolved element of strategy, at Mind Tools, we believe that
planning for success in the marketplace is important; and that, to take full advantage of the
opportunities open to them, organizations need to anticipate and prepare for the future at all
levels.
For instance, many successful and productive organizations have a corporate strategy to guide
the big picture. Each business unit within the organization then has a business unit strategy,
which its leaders use to determine how they will compete in their individual markets.
In turn, each team should have its own strategy to ensure that its day-to-day activities help
move the organization in the right direction.
At each level, though, a simple definition of strategy can be: "Determining how we are going to
win in the period ahead."
We'll now look more deeply at each level of strategy – corporate, business unit, and team.
Corporate Strategy
In business, corporate strategy refers to the overall strategy of an organization that is made up
of multiple business units, operating in multiple markets. It determines how the corporation as
a whole supports and enhances the value of the business units within it; and it answers the
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 25
Learner Manual
question, "How do we structure the overall business, so that all of its parts create more value
together than they would individually?"
Corporations can do this by building strong internal competences, by sharing technologies and
resources between business units, by raising capital cost-effectively, by developing and
nurturing a strong corporate brand, and so on.
The organization's design is another important strategic factor that needs to be considered at
this level. How you structure your business, your people, and other resources – all of these
affect competitive advantage and can support your strategic goals.
Business Unit Strategy
Strategy at the business unit level is concerned with competing successfully in individual
markets, and it addresses the question, "How do we win in this market?" However, this strategy
needs to be linked to the objectives identified in the corporate level strategy.
Competitive analysis, including gathering competitive intelligence is a great starting point for
developing a business unit strategy. As part of this, it's important to think about your core
competencies and how you can use these to meet your customers' needs in the best possible
way. From there you can use USP Analysis to understand how to strengthen your competitive
position.
Your business unit strategy will likely be the most visible level of strategy within each business
area. People working within each unit should be able to draw direct links between this strategy
and the work that they're doing. When people understand how they can help their business unit
"win," you have the basis for a highly productive and motivated workforce. As such, it's
important to have a clear definition of the business unit's mission, vision and values.
Team Strategy
To execute your corporate and business unit strategies successfully, you need teams
throughout your organization to work together. Each of these teams has a different contribution
to make, meaning that each team needs to have its own team-level strategy, however simple.
This team strategy must lead directly to the achievement of business unit and corporate
strategies, meaning that all levels of strategy support and enhance each other to ensure that
the organization is successful.
This is where it's useful to define the team's purpose and boundaries using, for example, a
team charter and to manage it using techniques such as Management by Objectives and use
of key performance indicators.

VISION STATEMENT
An aspirational description of what an organization would like to achieve or accomplish in the
mid-term or long-term future. It is intended to serves as a clear guide for choosing current and
future courses of action.
Vision statements are often confused with mission statements. Some organizations provide
one or the other, and some provide a single message that combines elements of both. Strictly
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 26
Learner Manual
speaking, both messages communicate the organization's values and purpose but a mission
statement focuses on current operations and a vision statement on the future. The value of
both communications lies in their ability to foster positive public relations
Here are a few examples of vision statements:
Gateway Computers: To be the leading marketer of personal computer products in the world.
Amazon: Our vision is to be earth's most customer-centric company; to build a place where
people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.
Microsoft: Our vision is to provide experiences for our customers and partners, across all of
their interactions with Microsoft, that they value and recognize, and enable them to realize their
full potential.
A vision statement is a company's road map, indicating both what the company wants to
become and guiding transformational initiatives by setting a defined direction for the company's
growth. Vision statements undergo minimal revisions during the life of a business, unlike
operational goals which may be updated from year-to-year. Vision statements can range in
length from short sentences to multiple pages. Vision statements are also formally written and
referenced in company documents rather than, for example, general principles informally
articulated by senior management.
A vision statement is "An aspirational description of what an organisation would like to achieve
or accomplish in the mid-term or long-term future. It is intended to serve as a clear guide for
choosing current and future courses of action."
A consensus does not exist on the characteristics of a "good" or "bad" vision statement.
Commonly cited traits include:
concise: able to be easily remembered and repeated
clear: defines a prime goal
Time horizon: defines a time horizon
future-oriented: describes where the company is going rather than the current state
stable: offers a long-term perspective and is unlikely to be impacted by market or
technology changes
challenging: not something that can be easily met and discarded
abstract: general enough to encompass all of the organization's interests and strategic
direction
inspiring: motivates employees and is something that employees view as desirable
Purpose
Vision statements may fill the following functions for a company:
Serve as foundations for a broader strategic plan
Motivate existing employees and attract potential employees by clearly categorizing the
company's goals and attracting like-minded individuals
Focus company efforts and facilitate the creation of core competencies by directing the
company to only focus on strategic opportunities that advance the company's vision
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 27
Learner Manual
Help companies differentiate from competitors. For example, profit is a common business goal,
and vision statements typically describe how a company will become profitable rather than list
profit directly as the long-term vision

MISSION STATEMENT
A written declaration of an organization's core purpose and focus that normally remains
unchanged over time. Properly crafted mission statements serve as filters to separate what is
important from what is not, clearly state which markets will be served and how, and
communicate a sense of intended direction to the entire organization.
A mission is different from a vision in that the former is the cause and the latter is the effect; a
mission is something to be accomplished whereas a vision is something to be pursued for that
accomplishment. Also called company mission, corporate mission, or corporate purpose.
A mission statement is a short statement of an organization 's purpose, identifying the goal of
its operations: what kind of product or service it provides, its primary customers or market , and
its geographical region of operation. It may include a short statement of such fundamental
matters as the organization's values or philosophies, a business's main competitive
advantages, or a desired future state—the "vision".
A mission is not simply a description of an organization by an external party, but an expression,
made by its leaders, of their desires and intent for the organization. The purpose of a mission
statement is to focus and direct the organization itself. It communicates primarily to the people
who make up the organization—its members or employees—giving them a shared
understanding of the organization's intended direction. Organizations normally do not change
their mission statements over time, since they define their continuous, on-going purpose and
focus.
According to Chris Bart, professor of strategy and governance at McMaster University , a
commercial mission statement consists of three essential components:
1. Key market: the target audience
2. Contribution: the product or service
3. Distinction: what makes the product unique or why the audience should buy it over another
Bart estimates that in practice, only about ten percent of mission statements say something
meaningful. For this reason, they are widely regarded with contempt.
Purpose
The sole purpose of a mission statement is to serve as a company's goal/agenda, it outlines
clearly what the goal of the company is. Some generic examples of mission statements would
be, "To provide the best service possible within the banking sector for our customers." or "To
provide the best experience for all of our customers." The reason why businesses make use of
mission statements is to make it clear what they look to achieve as an organization, not only to
themselves and their employees but to the customers and other people who are a part of the
business, such as shareholders. As a company evolves, so will their mission statement. This
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 28
Learner Manual
is to make sure that the company remains on track and to ensure that the mission statement
does not lose its touch and become boring or stale.

WHAT IS A BUSINESS OBJECTIVE?

Business objectives allow an organization to define its goals and direction. A company uses
strategy and tactics at every level of its operation to achieve its objectives. These define the
way a company allocates its resources and the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities it may
have. Companies usually do not alter their objectives once they are implemented, unless
changes in circumstances arise. Setting a clear course for the organization is key to its success.
Business Goal Setting
A business objective defines the course an organization intends to take, often started with
writing a business plan. But before that can happen, a company must detail its current situation,
what it does, who its clients are and how it intends to excel in its field. For most businesses,
this takes place during a strategic planning session. When creating a strategic plan, the
company also must analyze its competition and outline the way in which it sets itself apart.
Business objectives are usually laid out in a vision plan for the upcoming year.
Writing Business Goals
Business objectives use strategies and tactics to achieve its stated goals as a proactive
measure, not as a reactive one. Strategic planning sessions focus on establishing an internal
plan to detail action steps and benchmarks that measure progress in relationship to the desired
outcome and act as a guide for each function within the organization. Every division within the
company remains focused on the same outcome, establishing individual department functions
and plans to attain company goals.
Objective Considerations
To establish a business objective, a company must first understand its current situation and
marketplace in relationship to where it started. It then establishes goals and objectives and the
means to attain them. Companies generally create a strategic plan that analyzes these factors
and lays the groundwork for its goals. All members and divisions of the organization are taken
into account during planning. This also allows the company to realize where it can cut costs
and areas where it can improve operations.
Goal Setting Misconceptions
Business objectives are tools that also require the awareness of the marketplace's evolution
and how that can affect the company's overall plans. No organization can foresee future events
and issues that arise outside of its control, such as an economy recession, for example. This
is where innovation and modification have become commonplace practices when establishing
goals and objectives. Companies must assume a certain amount of risk in the undertaken
venture and be prepared for setbacks that may occur. These events are worked into the
timeline and cost of a company's goals and objectives by defining its contingency plans.
Planning Significance
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 29
Learner Manual
One major process undertaken by a company when deciding its goals and objectives is to
establish a set of fundamental themes by which it operates. A vision statement defines the
organization's main objectives and targets its intended future outcome. A mission statement
gives the organization its fundamental purpose. It establishes a reason for the company to
exist. Usually this includes some sort of motto that each individual within the organization
focuses on while working for the company. Part of this process also entails defining company
values. These prioritize the shared beliefs among the stakeholders of the company. The
organization's values help establish its identity and culture among its different divisions,
employees and management.

KT0104 DESCRIBE HOW THE FUNDAMENTAL BUSINESS PROCESSES ARE

APPLIED WITHIN THE OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
ENVIRONMENT.

The safety function is most successful when it is considered and treated as a business partner.
A partnership requires integration and alignment of safety considerations with business
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 30
Learner Manual
processes, goals and decisions. In order for this partnership to be successful, four actions are
needed:
1. A complete safety strategy, which includes culture;
2. A well-defined culture approach, which includes business alignment and integration,;
3. An organization which understands and embraces its roles in driving safety; and
4. A logical implementation plan to engage the organization and drive the change.
This paper will describe a proven and effective partnership approach, which accomplishes the
four points above. The result is pro-active business ownership and engagement to drive safety,
and is equally applicable to broader health and environmental matters.
Defining the Safety Strategy and Culture
A strategy defines what is to be achieved. Whether for safety alone or for safety, health and
environment (SHE), a strategy provides a high-level roadmap for the organization. It clarifies
and guides what actions are to be taken and which behaviours are expected. Possible actions
that are inconsistent with the strategy are not pursued, and such actions are not tolerated.
Three Elements of a Safety Strategy
Experience and abundant benchmarking information have identified three elements of an
effective safety strategy, which have all been repeatedly proven to be clear and effective. These
three elements are:
1. Safety Culture:
• Safety is a company value, beyond a top priority because priorities may shift over time;
• An organization understands and accepts its roles and responsibilities for safety; and
• All people are enabled and empowered to be success in achieving those roles and
responsibilities.
2. Safety Talent:
• OHS leaders possess both technical and leadership skill sets to assume their roles as leaders
and coaches;
• OHS leader’s reporting structure is best aligned with operations, and at the highest level of
the location or business, which will help to create the needed visibility and impact; and
• OHS leaders strive to have the right people with the right skills in the right role in the right
structure.

3. Safety Processes:
• Sound programs and procedures form a foundation to pro-actively identify risks, prevent
injuries and illnesses, and facilitate compliance;
• Leading metrics are designed to measure key aspects of the process and culture; and
• Programs and procedures are systematic, integrated and preventative.
The most crucial element of a safety strategy is culture, because it is responsible for superior
and sustainable safety performance. In a company with a mature safety culture, safety is
considered a company value, is highly visible and well-communicated, and the organization
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 31
Learner Manual
has clear and specific roles, responsibilities and ownership regarding safety. A strong culture
will ensure that the right decisions are made, and actions and behavioUrs are taken, every
time.
The four key elements of a superior safety culture are:
1. Visible leadership drive, commitment and personal involvement:
• Actively and personally demonstrates commitment to safety
• Provides vision, education, tools and processes to guide and facilitate safety progress
• Sets expectations, roles, and responsibilities for everyone to be involved in safety
2. Active employee participation and ownership:
• Employees are actively engaged in safety improvements and activities
• Employees genuinely care about their own safety and that of peers and co-workers
3. Systemic safety integration into and alignment with business processes, tools, and
decisions:
• Safety considerations and issues are integrated into all business processes, tools and
decisions
• Safety vision and goals are aligned with company, business, site and personal goals
• Functional leaders know and understand their roles in facilitating and driving safety
improvements within their functional areas of expertise
4. Relentless drive to eliminate risks using systematic tools (like Six Sigma and lean
approaches)
• Disciplined analysis of all incidents to identify and remove system-based root causes
• Statistical analysis to provide details of incidents and performance trends
Note the third element of a successful culture is “systemic safety integration into and alignment
with the business.” Integrating and aligning safety, and in fact health and environment matters,
into the business is arguably the most important aspect of driving a new lasting culture.
Examples of successful integration and alignment of safety into seven business
processes
Human Resources Processes
1. New employee hiring
2. New/transferred employee orientation (at all levels)
3. Third party employee selection, retention and management
4. Discipline
5. Recognition and reward
6. Leadership skill development (business, plants, sites, team leaders/supervisors) and
employees
7. Leadership personal performance reviews
8. Labour management, negotiation and agreements
9. Organizational design
10. Health benefits and wellness
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 32
Learner Manual
11. Communications
Other Business Processes
12. Critical raw material and supplier selection and retention
13. Operations
14. New product development and changes
15. New processes and changes
16. Six sigma/lean processes, projects and training
17. Sales and Marketing
18. Facilities/work environment management
19. Contractor selection, retention and management
20. Business Development and Mergers/Acquisitions
21. Risk Management
22. Security
Business Process Examples of Effective Safety Integration and Alignment
Actions
Leadership roles, Safety performance is reviewed in detail at all senior leadership
responsibilities and and local site leadership meetings. Safety topics include
accountabilities (from accidents and serious incidents: root causes, corrective actions
CEO and senior and closure of corrective actions; future operational activities or
leadership to changes with possible safety impacts; Incident and root cause
supervisory levels) trends; Safety improvement projects, status, sharing of results
across business and recognition for team members. Safety
discussions are led by business leaders or management leaders,
not safety.
Safety performance (both lagging indicator of rates and leading
indicators) is included in personal objectives and performance
reviews of leadership..
Business planning Safety projects are included in capital expenditure (CAPEX),
operating expenses (OPEX), appropriation request system,
departmental budgets; and staffing (headcount) planning.
Safety reviews and considerations are factored into the business
timelines of new product, process and equipment purchases,
installations and start-ups.
Recognition and reward Criteria for recognition of safety performance includes both
– all employees lagging indicators ( rates, costs, days away), and leading
indicators of processes, activities and personal actions
Recognition and reward criteria are designed to reinforce and
promote desired behaviours of all leadership levels and

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 33

Learner Manual
employees: participation in safety programs, committees and
improvement activities; identification and resolution of safety
risks; timely reporting of accident, incidents and near misses.
Discipline-all employees Unacceptable safety actions are clearly defined in the local and
company discipline policies.
Safety violations receive the same thorough investigation and
discipline consequences for knowing violations of safety rules,
consistent with other policy violations.
Organizational Changes Safety is informed of organizational redesigns like plant
consolidations, restructurings to address possible implications to
safety roles and culture.
Safety is informed of impending lay-offs or reduction-inforce, to
pro-actively implement awareness programs and incorporate
safety messages into local communications, to remain focus on
safety despite changes underway.
Process Changes Safety is involved in assessing and addressing safety (SHE)
impacts of changes in process rates, equipment and layout.
• Process change checklist exists to include all possible SHE
impacts, and is required to be completed with all issues
addressed prior to process start-up.
Product Changes Safety is involved in assessing safety (SHE) impacts of changes
in product chemical composition, physical configurations and
packaging.
• Product change checklist exists to include all possible SHE
impacts, and is required to be completed with all issues
addressed prior to product launches. Product literature (MSDS,
labelling) is created and product clearances are obtained to
support timely product launch.

KT0105 DESCRIBE THE CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES OF INTEGRATED

VALUE CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Supply Chain (Value chain) Management Concepts

Shortly after your alarm clock goes off and the coffee maker kicks on, the aroma of your
favourite coffee fills the air. The supply chain is responsible for getting those coffee beans
across the world and to your kitchen. Something so common in every household, takes a great
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 34
Learner Manual
deal of planning, demand forecasting, procurement, and logistical expertise to move those
beans to local sellers while still fresh. Without a strong supply chain in place, your caffeine-fix
options would be severely limited.
SCM involves a series of key activities and processes that must be completed in an efficient
(fuel-conserving, cost-reducing, etc.) and timely manner. Otherwise, product will not be
available when needed by consumers like you.
The Seven Rights of Fulfilment
The ability to meet customer requirements, for everything from coffee beans to Crocs, is built
upon the expectation that everything is done correctly in the supply chain. And that means
doing it right the first time – no mulligans, no mistakes are allowed. In the quest to provide
quality service and satisfy customers, world-class companies along the supply chain are guided
by the Seven Rights of Fulfilment.
If you think about it, every order needs to be executed according to these seven goals. You
must attempt to deliver a “perfect order” to every customer every time. Doing it right the first
time makes the customer happy, saves the cost of fixing errors, and doesn't require extra use
of assets. Thus, every part of the organization has a vested interest in pursuing perfection.
A “perfect order” delivery is only attained when all Seven Rights of Fulfilment are achieved. To
accomplish a perfect order fulfilment, the seller has to have your preferred product available
for order, process your order correctly, ship the entire order via the means that you request,
provide you with an advanced shipping notification and tracking number, deliver the complete
order on time and without damage, and bill you correctly. A seller’s ultimate goal is to make the
customer happy by doing the job right, which gives them a good reason to use the seller’s
services again in the future.
SCM Flows
If the goal of SCM is to provide high product availability through efficient and timely fulfilment
of customer demand, then how is the goal accomplished?
Obviously, you need effective flows of products from the point of origin to the point of
consumption. But there’s more to it. Consider the diagram of the fresh food supply chain. A
two-way flow of information and data between the supply chain participants creates visibility of
demand and fast detection of problems. Both are needed by supply chain managers to make
good decisions regarding what to buy, make, and move.
Other flows are also important. In their roles as suppliers, companies have a vested interest in
financial flows; suppliers want to get paid for their products and services as soon as possible
and with minimal hassle. Sometimes, it is also necessary to move products back through the
supply chain for returns, repairs, recycling, or disposal.
Because of all the processes that have to take place at different types of participating
companies, each company needs supply chain managers to help improve their flows of
product, information, and money. This opens the door of opportunity to you to to a wide variety
of SCM career options for you!
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 35
Learner Manual
SCM Processes
Supply chain activities aren't the responsibility of one person or one company. Multiple people
need to be actively involved in a number of different processes to make it work.
It's kind of like baseball. While all the participants are called baseball players, they don't do
whatever they want. Each person has a role – pitcher, catcher, shortstop, etc. – and must
perform well at their assigned duties – fielding, throwing, and/or hitting – for the team to be
successful.
Of course, these players need to work well together. A hit-and-run play will only be successful
if the base runner gets the signal and takes off running, while the batter makes solid contact
with the ball. The team also needs a manager to develop a game plan, put people in the right
positions, and monitor success.
Winning the SCM “game” requires supply chain professionals to play similar roles. Each supply
chain player must understand his or her role, develop winning strategies, and collaborate with
their supply chain teammates. By doing so, the SCM team can flawlessly execute the following
processes:
Planning – the plan process seeks to create effective long- and short-range supply chain
strategies. From the design of the supply chain network to the prediction of customer demand,
supply chain leaders need to develop integrated supply chain strategies.
Procurement – the buy process focuses on the purchase of required raw materials,
components, and goods. As a consumer, you're pretty familiar with buying stuff!
Production – the make process involves the manufacture, conversion, or assembly of
materials into finished goods or parts for other products. Supply chain managers provide
production support and ensure that key materials are available when needed.
Distribution – the move process manages the logistical flow of goods across the supply chain.
Transportation companies, third party logistics firms, and others ensure that goods are flowing
quickly and safely toward the point of demand.
Customer Interface – the demand process revolves around all the issues that are related to
planning customer interactions, satisfying their needs, and fulfilling orders perfectly.

SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SCM

More than ten years ago, a research study of 100+ manufacturers, distributors, and retailers
uncovered some widely used supply chain strategies and initiatives. These ideas and practices
were distilled down to seven principles and presented in an article in Supply Chain
Management Review, a magazine widely read by SCM professionals.
Principle 1: Segment customers based on the service needs of distinct groups and adapt the
supply chain to serve these segments profitably.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 36

Learner Manual
Principle 2: Customize the logistics network to the service requirements and profitability of
customer segments.
Principle 3: Listen to market signals and align demand planning accordingly across the supply
chain, ensuring consistent forecasts and optimal resource allocation.
Principle 4: Differentiate product closer to the customer and speed conversation across the
supply chain.
Principle 5 : Manage sources of supply strategically to reduce the total cost of owning materials
and services.
Principle 6: Develop a supply chain-wide technology strategy that supports multiple levels of
decision making and gives clear view of the flow of products, services, and information.
Principle 7: Adopt channel-spanning performance measures to gauge collective success in
reaching the end-user effectively and efficiently.
In today’s global automotive industry, supply chains function most efficiently when all the major
elements are integrated from end-to-end. Because so much of the modern supply stream
consists of disparate production networks, complex partnerships, and markets and customer
pools spread out across the globe, the ability to coordinate the people, processes, and products
critical to effective supply chain management is key in such a variant-rich industry.
Of course, as with any principle or concept, it’s important to understand what supply chain
integration truly means. Full supply chain integration means much more than simply managing
the movement of materials and resources and addressing logistical issues thereof. Rather,
supply chain integration means an acknowledgement that production stages of the supply chain
must exchange data, and analytics, and time-sensitive information in real-time with other points
in the supply network.
Whether it’s the sourcing of raw materials, assignment of planned production programs,
transportation and warehousing, or delivery and customer management, companies in today’s
automotive industry have realized the value-added in integrating their supply chain across all
touch points in order to fully control their overall supply situation and gain valuable insight into
the functionality and efficiency of their value chain. This is due to more and more companies
taking a holistic view of their supply pipeline and understanding how sales, planning,
production, reporting, and analysis are more interconnected than ever before, especially with
the deployment of intelligent planning solutions that continue to break down functional silos and
encourage collaboration across platforms.
But for companies who have realized the importance of an integrated supply chain in fostering
lean principles and long-term, sustainable growth, what are the benefits? What competitive
advantages have these companies experienced? With this in mind, here are 5 benefits of an
integrated supply chain for automotive companies in a complex, global landscape.
1). End-to-end collaboration of dynamic supply networks. As we’ve discussed before, a
common fixture for OEMs in today’s supply stream consists of production facilities and hubs
spanned out across the globe, creating an increasingly difficult network of production platforms
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 37
Learner Manual
to manage. End-to-end (E2E) visibility is critical in overseeing these networks and ensuring the
right products are being produced at the right time at the right facility given various rules or
restrictions. A fully-integrated supply chain allows planners and managers to make adjustments
or modifications to planned production programs - often while component parts are in-transit or
even during the pre-production stage - in real-time to secure on-time delivery, efficiency, and
cost-effectiveness.
2). Transparency of materials supply, flow, and inventories. Because of a number of
intelligent planning software solutions and strategies such as BOM management, Plan for
Every Part (PFEP), Every Part Every Interval (EPEI) , and container management strategies,
a fully-integrated supply chain allows planners and managers to view, track, and modify the
movements of parts, inventories levels, and container pull strategies based on demand or
production levels. The sharing of information between the sales and planning stages of the
value chain also allows for OEMs to create more accurate forecasting based on previous
performance to ensure coverage levels are met and productions can continue as scheduled.
3).The nimble orchestration of production networks.
It’s no secret that one of the most important bottom lines in today’s automotive supply stream
is the ability to adapt to changing parameters of production, fluctuations in inventory or material
levels, and bottlenecks or disruptions. If we think of an integrated supply chain as a game of
telephone where there’s no variation in what is said between the players, it’s easy to
understand how the sharing of valid, up-to-date, and detailed information is critical in promoting
a robust production platform capable of withstanding on-the-spot modifications and alterations.
Accuracy of data and information is perhaps at the core of creating a nimble, responsive
production network .
4). Real time communication about product information. Imagine a planned production
program calls for X number of parts to be pulled from a container in the yard; however, after
the pull has been order, the customer requests an alteration to the order requiring fewer parts
from the container. In a time before intelligent planning solutions and integrated supply chain
concepts, this modification could mean a significant disruption as more time and resources
would be needed to make the adjustment. But with a fully-integrated supply chain where
players can communicate data or product information in real-time, planners and managers can
adapt to this order fluctuation the moment it happens to pull the right quantities of parts from
the right container in the right fashion. This means an overall reduction in costs and increased
efficiency as OEMs will have fewer special handling situations to address to meet changing
customer needs

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 38

Learner Manual

KM-05-KT02: LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS AND

CYCLE AND HOW THIS IS USED TO IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

KT0201 EXPLAIN THE TYPICAL LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT LIFE

CYCLE ADDI
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 39
Learner Manual

The Employee Life Cycle

The employee lifecycle is an on-going process that starts and ends with competent employees
in your organization. Training, in one form or another, is essential for every aspect of this
lifecycle. Unfortunately, too many organizations view training as isolated events or particular
sets of educational materials that are designed with a specific learning goal in mind.
To be most effective, however, your L&D programs need to be re-conceptualized as a
continuous process of exploration, discovery, and development that leads to learning
throughout the entire employee lifecycle. Let’s take a look at each stage of this lifecycle, and
how training and development can contribute to the success of each one.
Stage 1: Outreach & Pre-Employment
In the outreach and pre-employment stage, training and development can take the following
forms:
Helping candidates understand the 3 R’s of employment: roles, responsibilities, and risks. This
can be accomplished through realistic job previews and online simulations of on-the-job
experiences.
Offering internships and pre-employment training, posting job descriptions, along with the
company’s mission, vision, and core values on the company’s external website.
Pre-employment orientation and training can be effectively delivered through eLearning, which
does not require candidates to physically visit the organization’s facilities. Another key to
effective outreach and pre-employment is to involve organizational experts and other
stakeholders, who can use their knowledge and expertise to guide the development process.
Stage 2: Recruitment
Once suitable candidates have been located that align with an organization’s vision, mission,
and culture, a more specific recruitment process needs to take place. This is all part of your
talent management effort, which involves:
• Developing behaviour and competency-based interview questions.
• Preparing up-to-date and detailed job descriptions that capture relevant competencies
and skills required for specific jobs and/or organizational practices
• Effective recruitment will set up potential employees for quick assimilation into their new
roles since they will know exactly what to expect.
Stage 3: On-Boarding
On-boarding is far more than merely conducting an employee orientation. It is an entire process
by which new employees acquire the skills, knowledge, and behaviours that will permit them to
become effective contributors within an organization.
For successful on-boarding of employees, you will need:
A formal on boarding framework
Procedures in place that will ensure regular evaluation of on-boarding effectiveness
Oversight of the process, to ensure consistency of your on-boarding and training programs
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 40
Learner Manual
A recent study concluded that employees are 69% more likely to stay with a company for at
least three years if they experience great on-boarding. It should start immediately, and provide
new hires with multiple sources of information, as well as two-way communication with
management.
Stage 4: Performance Management
Employees will continue to learn, develop, and grow throughout their tenure with your
organization. So naturally, it’s important to provide them will tools and resources to support
them. These include, but are not limited to:
Performance goals, evaluations, and assessments
High potential and high performer programs
Rotational assignments
Special projects
Leadership eLearning development programs
Mentoring programs
Networking
Career-pathing
Succession planning
Recognition and awards
These activities all support your learning development program and will enhance retention. It
is through these activities that companies can begin identifying where they are at risk for the
loss of information and experience by identifying employees who possess the most critical
knowledge.
Stage 5: Training & Development
Traditional training and development programs will always be an essential component of the
employee lifecycle. Developing new skills and abilities, as well as updating existing knowledge
will be continuously required just to keep pace with new developments in technology as well
as new processes and procedures.
One exciting new development in the area of training and development is the advent of
eLearning. This delivery method has freed organizations from the inaccurate belief that learning
can only occur in classroom settings when it’s officially administered by Human Resources.
Some of the benefits of eLearning include:
Consistent distribution of high-quality content
Anytime, anywhere learning
Learner-driven and just-in-time lessons
Simulations, where completing tasks look like the real thing
Immediate insights, assessments, and feedback
Resource materials that are available at the point of trial and error
Stage 6: Off-boarding

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 41

Learner Manual
Off-boarding typically consists of exit interviews and evaluations. But before seasoned and
experienced employees leave, it is important to put in place mechanisms where they can share
or distribute their knowledge, skills, and behaviours with the employees who replace them. This
process ultimately mitigates organizational knowledge loss and completes the employee
lifecycle, with exiting employees contributing to the development of new employees.
With more and more baby boomers retiring and taking their expertise with them, it is important
to systematically capture their knowledge and make it available to new hires. This process
should become routine and easy because, without a systematic process to document changes
and updates to job tasks, procedures, and processes, there will be no knowledge to transfer.
Continuous Organizational Knowledge
Acquiring and maintaining organizational knowledge is not something that has a beginning and
an ending. It is a continuous process. That is why Learning and Development professionals
must develop knowledge management strategies and tactics for each aspect of the employee
lifecycle.

IAC0201 GIVEN VARIOUS ORGANISATIONAL OHS LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

NEEDS, COMPETENCY PROFILES AND DESCRIPTIONS OF DIFFERENT LEARNING
AND DEVELOPMENT STRUCTURES, STRATEGIES AND RESOURCES. BE ABLE TO: A.
IDENTIFY POSSIBLE DEFICIENCIES IN THE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
PROCESSES; B. DESCRIBE ACTIONS TO DEAL WITH THE GIVEN LEARNING AND
DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES

Although some type of training for employees is essential for almost any business, employers
must consider the potential drawbacks or disadvantages that training employees can have on
the company, existing staff and bottom line. Companies can use a variety of ways to train
employees, such as on-the-job training or classroom training, but all of them present a few
problems for employers. Before you choose a training method, explore the disadvantages --
and a couple of advantages -- of training and development in human resource management.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 42
Learner Manual
Training Cost
One of the biggest potential problems with employee training is the cost of the process. If you
handle the training internally, it costs money because you have to pay one of your employees
for training instead of doing productive work. If you use an outside trainer, you have to pay him
for his time. You could send your employees to a seminar or training conference in another
location, which also can represent a substantial cost for the company.
Qualifications of the Trainer
If an employee is very talented at her job, you might think that she would make a good trainer
for new employees. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Being able to train employees
is a special skill and not everyone has this ability. When it comes to using an employee to train
other employees, you might move someone out of her comfort zone and she may be unable to
train the new employees as you need them to be trained. On the other hand, if she's not just a
talented worker, but also enthusiastic about the company and a great communicator, she may
pass the interview stage. For high-level positions, you're better off hiring a corporate trainer
with a bachelor or graduate degree.
Time Requirements
Another potential problem with training employees is that you may not have enough time to do
so adequately. Many companies only devote a small amount time to training new employees,
and it could result in the employees not knowing everything they need to know to be successful.
The trainer may have to rush through the important parts of the job and skip over some of the
other tasks that also need to be understood by the employee.
Control of the Training
When you delegate the training of new employees to a particular employee or trainer, you have
to be very careful with regard to what the new employees are learning. If the trainer does not
do the job as you want it to be done, your new employees might end up picking up some bad
habits along the way. This could make your entire business perform at a level that is less than
acceptable from your point of view, but the employees would not know it.
Using traditional training methods, such as manuals or videos may not be effective, if they're
dated, uninteresting or not engaging. Consider blending updated, online interactive training
models with in-person training to achieve better results, save time and cut costs.
Internal training adds extra burden to company administration. The company must
accommodate suitable training facilities and training materials as well as select suitable
candidates for the training. This may be difficult to execute in addition to being inefficient in
comparison to outsourcing.
Some of the employees may feel that balancing their work and training is an added pressure
or distraction. This may lead to a temporary degrade of performance at work. Although, some
find this a perfect excuse for their improper work.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 43

Learner Manual
Internal training can go stagnant if they are not improved from time to time. Again, many
employees may not take the training seriously and if that happens, such training will fail to
benefit the company.
The companies need to motivate their employees that take the training otherwise the
employees may not efficiently utilise the knowledge they receive during the training to improve
their workplace performance.
In conclusion we can say that internal training can be beneficial to companies only if they can
yield benefits from the training and derive solutions to get over the drawbacks. If they can
efficiently train their existing employees, it can lead them to achieve increased productivity
without having to increase the number of skilled employees and turn out to be economically
beneficial.

DEALING WITH WORKERS DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES

Using several methods for each training session may actually be the most effective way to help
employees learn and retain information. In this article, we take a close look at each of the
myriad techniques, and examine their advantages and disadvantages. We also explain how
you can combine the various methods into an effective blended learning approach.
Overall Considerations
Before considering specific training techniques, ask yourself these questions:
What are your training goals for this session? New skills New techniques for old skills Better
workplace behaviour A safer workplace A fair and equal workplace free of discrimination and
harassment Who is being trained? New employees Seasoned employees Upper management
What is your training budget? How much time has been allocated for training within your
organization? What training resources and materials do you have at your disposal?
Your answers to these questions begin the narrowing process for your training choices. Now
let’s examine those training methods, their pros and cons, and where they best fit in a training
program.
The Choices
Even with the many technological advances in the training industry, traditional formats remain
viable and effective.
Classroom or Instructor-Led Training
Instructor-led training remains one of the most popular training techniques for trainers. There
are many types including:
Blackboard or whiteboard. This may be the most “old- fashioned” method, but it can still be
effective, especially if you invite trainees to write on the board or ask for feedback that you write
on the board.
Overhead projector,This method is increasingly being replaced with PowerPoint presentations,
which are less manually demanding, but overheads do allow you to write on them and
customize presentations easily on the spot.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 44
Learner Manual
Video portion, Lectures can be broken up with video portions that explain sections of the
training topic or that present case studies for discussion.
PowerPoint® presentation. Presentation software is used to create customized group training
sessions that are led by an instructor. Training materials are provided on CDROM and
displayed on a large screen for any number of trainees. Employees can also use the programs
individually, which allows for easy make-up sessions for employees who miss the group
session. This method is one of the most popular lecture methods and can be combined with
hand-outs and other interactive methods.
Storytelling, Stories can be used as examples of right and wrong ways to perform skills with
the outcome of each way described. This method is most effective with debriefing questions,
such as: How does this story relate to training? How did the main character’s choices make
you feel? What assumptions did you make throughout the story? Were they correct? What
would you have done differently?
This technique makes communication easier since it is nonthreatening with no one right
answer. It is cost effective, especially if trainers have their own stories to tell. Stories can also
make sessions more personal if they involve people trainees know. You can also find many
training stories online.
Advantages
Instructor-led classroom training is an efficient method for presenting a large body of material
to large or small groups of employees. It is a personal, face-to-face type of training as opposed
to computer-based training and other methods we will discuss later. It ensures that everyone
gets the same information at the same time. It is cost-effective, especially when not outsourced
to guest speakers. Storytelling grabs people’s attention.
Disadvantages
Sometimes it is not interactive. Too much of the success of the training depends on the
effectiveness of the lecturer. Scheduling classroom sessions for large numbers of trainees can
be difficult—especially when trainees are at multiple locations.
You can use lectures effectively by making sure your audience is engaged throughout the
session. Here are several ways to achieve this:
Train your trainers in theatre and science of public speaking. Give your trainers the materials
they need. Use with interactive methods.
Interactive Methods
There are many ways that you can break up training sessions and keep trainees attentive and
involved, including:
Quizzes, for long, complicated training, stop periodically to administer brief quizzes on
information presented to that point. You can also begin sessions with a pre-quiz and let
participants know there will also be a follow-up quiz. Trainees will stay engaged in order to
improve their pre-quiz scores on the final quiz. Further motivate participants by offering awards
to the highest scorers or the most improved scores.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 45
Learner Manual
Small group discussions, Break the participants down into small groups and give them case
studies or work situations to discuss or solve. This is a good way for knowledgeable veteran
employees to pass on their experience to newer employees.
Case studies, Adults tend to bring a problem-oriented way of thinking to workplace training.
Case studies are an excellent way to capitalize on this type of adult learning. By analysing real
job-related situations, employees can learn how to handle similar situations. They can also see
how various elements of a job work together to create problems as well as solutions. Active
summaries, Create small groups and have them choose a leader. Ask them to summarize the
lecture’s major points and have each team leader present the summaries to the class. Read
aloud a prewritten summary and compare this with participants’ impressions.
Q & A sessions, Informal question-and-answer sessions are most effective with small groups
and for updating skills rather than teaching new skills. For example, some changes in
departmental procedure might easily be handled by a short explanation by the supervisor,
followed by a question- and-answer period and a discussion period. Question cards, During
the lecture, ask participants to write questions on the subject matter. Collect them and conduct
a quiz/review session.
Role-playing, by assuming roles and acting out situations that might occur in the workplace,
employees learn how to handle various situations before they face them on the job. Role-
playing is an excellent training technique for many interpersonal skills, such as customer
service, interviewing, and supervising.
Participant control, Create a subject menu of what will be covered. Ask participants to review it
and pick items they want to know more about. Call on a participant to identify his or her choice.
Cover that topic and move on to the next participant.
Demonstrations, Whenever possible, bring tools or equipment that are part of the training topic
and demonstrate the steps being taught or the processes being adopted.
Other activities, Create a personal action plan Raise arguments to issues in the lecture
Paraphrase important or complex points in the lecture
Advantages
Interactive sessions keep trainees engaged in the training, which makes them more receptive
to the new information. They make training more fun and enjoyable. They provide ways for
veteran employees to pass on knowledge and experience to newer employees. They can
provide in-session feedback to trainers on how well trainees are learning.
Disadvantages
Interactive sessions can take longer because activities, such as taking quizzes or breaking into
small groups, are time- consuming. Some methods, such as participant control, can be less
structured, and trainers will need to make sure that all necessary information is covered.
Hands-On Training
Experiential, or hands-on, training, offers several more effective techniques for teaching
employees, including:
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 46
Learner Manual
Cross-training, This method allows employees to experience other jobs, which not only
enhances employee skills but also gives companies the benefit of having employees who can
perform more than one job. Cross- training also gives employees a better appreciation of what
co-workers do and how their own jobs fit in with the work of others to achieve company goals.
Demonstrations, Demonstrations are attention-grabbers. They are an excellent way to teach
employees to use new equipment or to teach the steps in a new process. They are also
effective in teaching safety skills. Combined with the opportunity for questions and answers,
this is a powerful, engaging form of training.
Coaching, The goal of job coaching is to improve an employee’s performance. Coaching
focuses on the individual needs of an employee and is generally less formal than other kinds
of training. There are usually no set training sessions. A manager, supervisor, or veteran
employee serves as the coach. He or she gets together with the employee being coached when
time allows and works with this employee to:
Answer questions Suggest more effective strategies Correct errors Guide toward goals Give
support and encouragement Provide knowledgeable feedback
Apprenticeships, Apprenticeships give employers the opportunity to shape inexperienced
workers to fit existing and future jobs. These programs give young workers the opportunity to
learn a trade or profession and earn a modest income. Apprenticeship combines supervised
training on the job with classroom instruction in a formal, structured program that can last for a
year or more.
Drills, Drilling is a good way for employees to practice skills. Evacuation drills are effective
when training emergency preparedness, for example.
Advantages
Hands-on training methods are effective for training in new procedures and new equipment.
They are immediately applicable to trainees’ jobs. They allow trainers to immediately determine
whether a trainee has learned the new skill or procedure.
Disadvantages
They are not good for large groups if you do not have enough equipment or machines for
everyone to use. Personal coaching can be disruptive to the coach’s productivity.
Apprenticeship can be expensive for companies paying for employees who are being trained
on the job and are not yet as productive as regular employees.
Computer-Based Training (CBT)
Computer-based training is becoming increasingly prevalent as technology becomes more
widespread and easy to use. Though traditional forms of training are not likely to be replaced
completely by technological solutions, they will most likely be enhanced by them. Human
interaction will always remain a key component of workplace training.
Nonetheless, it is a good idea to look more closely at what training technologies have to offer
and how they might be used to supplement existing training programs or used when developing

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 47

Learner Manual
new ones. Computer-based training formats vary from the simplest text-only programs to highly
sophisticated multimedia programs to virtual reality. Consider the following types:
Text-only. The simplest computer-based training programs offer self-paced training in a text-
only format. These programs are similar to print-based, individualized training modules with the
addition, in most cases, of interactive features. While simple in format, these programs can be
highly effective and present complicated information and concepts in a comprehensible and
easily accessible way. CD-ROM.A wide variety of off-the-shelf training programs covering a
broad range of workplace topics are available on CD-ROM. Programs can also be created by
training consultants for the specific needs of the particular organization or individual
departments.
Multimedia, These training materials are an advanced form of computer-based training. They
are much more sophisticated than the original text-only programs. In addition to text, they
provide stimulating graphics, audio, animation, and/or video. Multimedia tends to be more
provocative and challenging and, therefore, more stimulating to the adult mind. Although costs
are higher than text-only software, the benefits in terms of employee learning may well be worth
it. Multimedia training materials are typically found in DVD format.
Virtual reality, Virtual reality is three-dimensional and interactive, immersing the trainee in a
learning experience. Most virtual reality training programs take the form of simulation, which is
a highly effective form of training. It is hands-on experience without the risks of actual
performance. Flight simulators, for example, have been used successfully for years to train
airline and military pilots in critical flying skills, as well as to prepare them for emergency
situations in a safe and forgiving environment.
Advantages
Computer-based training programs are easy to use. They can often be customized or custom
designed. They are good for helping employees develop and practice new skills. They are
useful for refresher training. They are applicable to self-directed learning. They can be cost-
effective because the same equipment and program can be used by large numbers of
employees. They are flexible because trainees can learn at their own pace and at a time that’s
convenient for them. Computer- based programs are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
No matter which shift an employee works, training is always available. Some programs are
interactive, requiring trainees to answer questions, make choices, and experience the
consequences of those choices. This interaction generally results in greater comprehension
and retention. They are uniform, which makes it possible to standardize training. They are
measurable. When computers are used for training, it is possible to track what each employee
has learned right on the computer. Most programs have post-tests to determine whether the
employee has understood the training. Test scores give trainers statistics for training
evaluations.
Disadvantages

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 48

Learner Manual
These programs require trainees to be computer literate. They require trainees to have
computer access. There is little or no interaction with a trainer; if trainees have questions,
there’s no one to ask. These programs are not effective at teaching “soft-skills,” such as
customer service, sales, or sensitivity training. They are not the best choice for new or one-
time training. Trainers need live interaction to ensure new skills or concepts are being
communicated. Trainees need to be able to ask questions and receive feedback. Some poorly
designed programs are “boring” and result in trainees having a poor retention rate of the
material as well as a lowfinish rate.
Online or E-Learning
In addition to computer-based training, many companies with employees in a variety of
locations across the country are relying on other technologies to deliver training. According to
the ASTD “State of the Industry” report, companies are using a record level of e-learning, and
ASTD predicts that number will continue to rise. This method is becoming more and more
popular as access to the Web becomes more widely available. Some examples include:
Web-based training, This method puts computer-based training modules onto the Web, which
companies can then make available to their employees either on the company’s intranet or on
a section of the vendor’s website that is set up for your company. There are many courses
available on the Internet in many different topic areas. These courses provide a hands-on,
interactive way for employees to work through training presentations that are similar to CD-
ROM or PowerPoint, on their own. Training materials are standardized because all trainees will
use the same program. Materials are also easy to update, so your training is always in step
with your industry. Web-based training programs are also often linked with software (a learning
management system, or LMS) that makes trainees’ progress track-able, which makes
recordkeeping very easy for the training administrator.
Tele- or video conferencing, These methods allow the trainer to be in one location and trainees
to be scattered in several locations. Participants are networked into the central location and
can usually ask questions of the trainer via the telephone or by a web chat feature. Lectures
and demonstrations can be effective using this method.
Audio conferencing, This method is similar to videoconferencing but involves audio only.
Participants dial in at the scheduled meeting time and hear speakers present their training.
Question and answer sessions are frequently held at the end of sessions in which participants
can email questions or call in and talk to a presenter.
Web meetings, or webinars, This method contains audio and visual components. Participants
dial in to receive live audio training and also follow visual material that appears on their
computer screens. These presentations are similar to CD-ROM or PowerPoint presentations
and sometimes offer minimal online interactivity. Q & A sessions may also be held at the end
of sessions.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 49

Learner Manual
Online colleges and universities, This method is also known as distance learning, and many
schools now offer certificates or degrees through online programs that require only minimal on-
campus residency.
Collaborative document preparation, This method requires participants to be linked on the
same network. It can be used with coaches and trainees to teach writing reports and technical
documents.
E-mail, You can use e-mail to promote or enhance training. Send reminders for upcoming
training. Solicit follow-up questions for trainers and/or managers. Conduct training evaluations
through e-mail forms.
Advantages
Online or e-learning programs are effective for training across multiple locations. They save
the company money on travel expenses. They can be a less expensive way to get training from
expert industry professionals and consultants from outside the company. They are useful for
refresher training. They are good for self-directed learning. They can be easy to update with
new company policies or procedures, federal regulations ,and compliance issues. They offer
trainers a growing array of choices for matching training programs to employee knowledge and
skill levels.
Disadvantages
These programs require trainees to be computer literate. They are usually generic and not
customized to your company’s needs. Some employees may not like the impersonal nature of
this training. Employees may be too intimidated by the technology or the remoteness of the
trainer to ask questions. Lack of computer terminals or insufficient online time may restrict or
preclude access to training. Inadequate or out-dated hardware devices (e.g., sound cards,
graphics accelerators, and local area networks) can cause programs to malfunction. Your
company’s Internet servers may not have enough bandwidth to receive the materials. Self-
instruction offers limited opportunities to receive context-specific expert advice or timely
response to questions
How to Use a Blended Learning Approach
Blended learning is a common sense concept that results in great learning success. The
blended learning approach is simply acknowledging that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes
to training. In a nutshell, blended learning means using more than one training method to train
on one subject. Here are several good reasons to use a blended learning approach:
A University of Tennessee study showed that a blended learning program reduced both the
time and the cost of training by more than 50 percent. The same study showed a 10 percent
improved result in learning outcomes compared with traditional training. Learning experts
believe that a big advantage of blended learning is that it more closely replicates how people
actually learn on the job, through experience and interaction with co- workers.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 50

Learner Manual
This approach works well because the variety of approaches keeps trainers and trainees
engaged in training. Blended learning simply makes a lot of sense. Consider the many factors
that affect training:
Subject matter Audience make-up Types of learners Budget considerations Space constraints
Compliance issues
Any or all of these considerations affect your choices for training and may even necessitate
that you use a blended learning approach. Chances are you already use this method perhaps
without even realizing it. Have you ever:
Used a PowerPoint training session and incorporated written quizzes, small group discussions,
and role plays at various points in the training? Broken a complex subject into parts and used
a different training method to teach each section or step? Used alive trainer with hands-on
demonstrations for initial training and aCD-ROM or online course for refresher training?
If you have done any of the above methods, you are already using a blended learning
approach. Here’s how to plan a blended learning training program.
Once you’ve identified training needs, answer these questions about each situation:
What are the training conditions? Do you have a classroom? How many people will it hold?
How many computers do you have access to? What resources are available? What are the
characteristics of the training content? Is it soft or hard? Who is your target audience? What
are its demographics? How many languages do you need to accommodate? Which ones? How
many employees need this training? How quickly do you need to accomplish this training?
Your answers will direct you to the optimal delivery method. However time consuming this
process may seem, blended learning offers trainees a well-planned session that is custom-
designed for them, the subject, and the learning environment. In the long run, blended learning
saves time and money since this training process is an efficient use of resources to help
employees develop sufficient levels of knowledge retention.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 51

Learner Manual

KT0202 DESCRIBE THE IMPACT OF EACH ELEMENT OF THE LEARNING

AND DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE ON OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND
SAFETY;

When it comes to your employees, you are legally obligated to provide them with a safe work
environment. But it takes more than just saying you're committed to safety in order to actually
have a safe workplace. And even if you have good safety programs on paper, with manuals,
forms, trainings, and meetings, these activities may not lower your employee accident
frequency or workers’ compensation insurance costs. You have to put actions behind your
words, and don't wait for a serious injury or a safety visit to put the focus back on safety. It
should always be a focus. Never be complacent when it comes to your employees' safety at
work. Cultivate a culture of safety, where both management and employees are aware of and
involved in the day-to-day safety operations of the company.
A conversation about safety in the workplace can't happen without mentioning OSHA. That's
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an agency of the South Africa Department
of Labour that provides guidelines for workplace health and safety as well as enforces safety
regulations, in order to protect workers through the inspection of workplace environments and
to ensure employers comply with a series of safety and health standards. These requirements
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 52
Learner Manual
typically include workplace safety and health management actions, such as identifying and
eliminating workplace hazards; taking all measures possible to protect employees from illness
or injury; and making safety expectations clear by educating employees on workplace health
and safety measures.
It's worth noting that sometimes simple inexpensive fixes can resolve a potentially dangerous
and costly issue down the road, such as lighting a dark stairwell. OSHA also gives no warning
before they call or visit your business. And if they find anything wrong, noncompliance penalties
can add up fast, especially if they find that your business has wilfully violated OSHA regulations.
That's why a safety program that is in place and up-to-date can help prevent surprise penalties
from disrupting your finances. You may also consider using an experienced and knowledgeable
safety and loss control representative to help with your compliance and training needs. It also
can't be stressed enough that safety rules should be implemented and followed by all
employees at every level of the organization. Management sets the example for employees. If
you follow the rules, they will, too.
Safety culture is a critical topic for OHS leaders across high risk industries right now. It’s no
secret that organizations with the strongest cultures have more engaged employees, superior
safety performance and most importantly, fewer workplace incidents. But when it comes to
building and fostering a safety culture that sticks, many organizations still struggle.
The truth is, safety culture isn’t just providing workers with PPE, hosting toolbox talks and
walking through a job site telling people what to do. Your safety culture is a branch of your
company’s overarching culture that sets the tone for how employees should behave in your
unique working environment. And when it comes to getting employees to embrace your safety
culture, think of it as a top-down ideological shift that needs to happen across the company—
starting with your executive team, all the way to your frontline workforce.
To make your culture stick, everyone must first share the same mind set and approach to safety
across the company, which involves embracing the core value that safety comes first, above
everything else. The most effective way to ensure employees are bought into your safety belief
system is to induct them into your safety culture early—starting during day one of the on-
boarding process.
Safety Starts at On-boarding
Orientation and on-boarding is one of the most crucial stages of the employee life cycle. The
knowledge you impart upon workers during this formative window will be carried with them
throughout the rest of their tenure at your company. A new worker’s first few days on the job is
your greatest opportunity to familiarize them with your safety culture, shape their views and
attitudes towards safety and set them up for long-term success.
While there are a number of ways to get employees invested in your safety culture, we’ve found
that the most effective approach involves following the PART method, outlined below.
Using the PART Method to Strengthen Safety Culture
Participation
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 53
Learner Manual
Ultimately, getting direct worker participation in safety activities is the most important element
of an effective safety culture. What safety participation looks like will differ across organizations,
but to run a best-in-class EHS program, you must ensure everyone is a part of the safety
process, at every level of your organization. Encourage and ask workers to participate
regularly, starting during their first on-boarding session. If your new workers see company
executives talking about and participating in safety, they will do it too. If they witness their peers
participating in safety, they will do it too.
Affirmation
To make sure everyone’s on the same page when it comes to cultural values and beliefs, make
sure your company’s executives and your EHS team are aligned and delivering a unified
message that assets that the core principals around your safety culture are true and absolute.
There is no room for doubt when it comes to the safety culture and if executives, employees
and the safety team deliver a consistent message that leaves no room for doubt, new
employees will do the same. The more this message is shared across the enterprise, the more
it will resonate and the more it will encourage the right type of behavior among frontline workers.
Repetition
The power of affirmation lies in repetition. Making your culture stick starts with frequently
communicating your key safety message. Everyone needs to be repeating the same message.
The best message is like the flu because it’s easy to catch, easy to give and hard to shake. Try
brainstorming a few short and easy safety messages that describe your culture and test them
out by saying them a few times to certain people. Are those people repeating them? If they are,
you might have found yourself a winning message. Take every opportunity available to engage
at-risk workers in conversations about safety to drive your point across—during toolbox talks,
joint health and safety committee sessions and all-hands meetings. Repeat, repeat, repeat!
Transparency
Lastly, safety performance needs to be completely transparent across the organization to drive
continuous improvement. Set safety goals on a quarterly and annual basis and make sure
these goals are being shared with both frontline workers and executives. When everyone is
aware of goals and are working to achieve them together, it fosters a sense of community,
strengthens culture and motivates everyone to contribute and participate more.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 54

Learner Manual

KT0203 DESCRIBE THE CRITERIA FOR EFFECTIVE LEARNING MATERIAL

What is Quality?
What does a Quality Material Look Like?
How do I Know that What I've Got is Quality Material?
Quality is a characteristic defined by the user. In the case of a learning material, it is defined
by the learner who uses the material to learn new facts, new skills, new attitudes or new
behaviours. A learner at the basic level has a different set of requirements from the neo-literate
learner, just as a learner from one age group or locality may have another set of requirements.
There are common characteristics of learners in literacy classes but there are also unique
characteristics that a material developer should consider.
To be considered of quality, a learning material must fulfil at least four requirements. First and
foremost, a learning material must be able to achieve its instructional objectives. It must be
able to do what it is intended to do. It must be effective.
Secondly, a learning material must be able to attract learners and sustain their interest. It must
be presentable. Its approach should be user-friendly. It must contain creative ways of teaching
and evaluating learning performance to avoid boredom. It must engage the learner's prior
knowledge, experience and current thinking. It must involve the learner's participation.
Thirdly, a learning material must be reliable. It must be error-free because it is a crime to teach
an inaccuracy. Information must be accurate and up-to-date.
Lastly, the cost of producing it must be reasonable.
2. What's in It for Me to Have Quality Materials?
What's in It for Learners?

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 55

Learner Manual
There are a number of reasons for subscribing to quality. A major reason is that quality is the
expected. Government expects it, funding agencies expect it, learners expect it. As a matter of
fact all our
Stakeholders expect it. Anyone at all involved in the development and use of learning materials
should therefore be committed to quality at every step of the material development process. If
the materials being used are quality materials, learning is more or less assured. You, as
material developer, would have the satisfaction of providing a material that works. Learners
would be delighted at using a material that is highly acceptable to them. They will enjoy what
they are doing; consequently, learning is facilitated. The overall literacy or continuing education
program is enhanced.
3. Is This the Reason for Evaluating Learning Materials?
Yes. There are many good reasons why you should evaluate the learning material you have
developed.
First, you owe it to the users of your material to provide them with a quality product. Secondly,
you owe it to your funding agency to utilize their money most wisely, especially if costs were
extensive.
Thirdly, you owe it to the general public to provide them with a validated material, especially if
it is going to be used in one or more sites.
We evaluate an educational material mainly to gather information about it. The material might
be a leaflet, booklet, study guide, handbook, poster, module, audiotape, videotape or some
other kind of instructional or learning material for literacy or continuing education.
We evaluate to be able to make intelligent decisions about the material. What is its quality?
(1) Is it ready for adoption in its entirety?
(2) Does it need some form of adaptation?
(3) Does it need further improvement?
(4) Or is it better terminated... thrown away, relegated to the trash can?
What do I Evaluate?
For our purposes, we focus on the literacy or continuing education material used either for
teaching or learning. We evaluate in order to measure and predict its success. In this regard,
the question to which we would be interested in having some answers is the following:
Who learns what under which conditions and in how much time?
(1) WHO is the target user of the literacy material?
Identify the target user population. Test your material on a representative sample. If a literacy
material is targeted for a certain literacy group, it should be effective for that group. Go easy
on generalizing its effectiveness with other age or ability groups. It does not automatically follow
that what works with one group type works with another group type.
(2) WHAT does the literacy material teach?
Check the aims and purposes for which the material was prepared. The instructional objectives
will tell you what it is supposed to teach. Measure to what extent learners achieve the
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 56
Learner Manual
objectives. If there is a pretest and a post test, a comparison of scores can indicate the amount
of learning obtained; so can written exercises or any performance tasks the learner is able to
do.
Additionally, you can ask: Are the learners' needs met?; What are their reactions to the
material?; Did they find it stimulating? You can ask verbally a few learners for their opinions or
you may use a form which can be easily scored, analysed and interpreted.
(3) UNDER WHICH CONDITIONS does the literacy material function best?
Find out how the literacy material should be administered. Is it designed to be taught by a
literacy teacher or facilitator? Will learning take place at home or at the Literacy Centre? Will
the learner use the material by himself or with others? Does the material require equipment or
adjunct materials? These are some questions that should be posed.
(4) HOW LONG will it take a learner to successfully complete the learning material?
Approximately how much time is needed to learn the material? The time estimate is very
important especially since most learners are working to earn a living. Scheduling becomes very
crucial.

5. When do I Evaluate?
The answer to this question certainly takes into consideration the purpose or intent of the
evaluation. If the purpose is to influence decision, the evaluation information should come at
the time it is needed. You evaluate at every stage of the material development process.
Evaluation is a built-in or integral part of any educational development project. At every stage
of the way, there pops up the need to evaluate a certain component. Below is an example of
what you might evaluate when:
A. Planning Stage
Formulating goals Do the instructional objectives meet the and objectives, needs and concerns
of the learners?
B. Developmental Stage
Writing the How is the quality of the materials trial materials, in terms of the following:
Formulating the model intended to address learners' needs and concerns
• Logical sequences,
• Comprehensiveness,
• Relevance to user's experience,
• Relevance to real life situation,
• Language appropriateness
C. Try-out Stage
Validating the materials with representative samples before implementation with the target
population
Formative Evaluation:
• Can the users follow all tasks and activities as planned?
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 57
Learner Manual
• What is the result of the performance? Is it as was expected?
• Is there anything of difficulty which needs modification?
6. How do I Evaluate or Check for Quality?
A simplified way of evaluating a learning material utilizes two major steps, as follows. A third
and a fourth step can be added for materials that are intended for use in many different sites:
a. Prepare a rating scale for the evaluation of the qualities of the learning material M inventory
such as the one shown at the end of this chapter should be developed for the use of your peers
or colleagues who will conduct the expert appraisal of the learning material. The rating scale
helps to assess the experts' views on specified qualities of the learning material. Not all
characteristics or elements of a component may appear in one learning material. Include only
those quality factors particularly relevant to the material.
You may use this 4-point rating scale as follows:
3 = VS (Very Satisfactory)
2 = S (Satisfactory)
1 = U (Unsatisfactory)
0 = VU (Very Unsatisfactory)
In addition to accomplishing the scale, ask the experts to do the following:
1) List three strong points of the learning material.
2) List three major points needing improvement.
3) Give any general remarks you consider to be appropriate.
b. Ask three or more of your colleagues or peers who you deem experts at material
development to read through the draft and give general comments
Give each one a copy of the material to facilitate time and to make sure of independent
judgments. Ask your 'judges" to actually go through the material as though they were learners
themselves, following all instructions, undertaking all activities, answering all questions, and
completing the post test.
Ask them to provide feedback on the relevance of the material; suitability of the objectives;
language appropriateness; level of difficulty; accuracy of content and information; up-to-
datedness; suitability of methodologies in relation to experience and maturation levels of
learners; and likely overall effectiveness.
c. Request your peers to write marginal notes and provide qualitative comments on the material
itself. The intention is to get as much valuable comments and suggestions for improvement as
possible, not only on the text but also on the illustrations. Your peers should go page by page
and make notations; editorial comments on style and wording; suggestions for alternative
activities or exercises; suggestions for improving instructions, visuals, questions and test items,
etc.
d. Transfer all notations, comments, and suggestions on a master copy of the draft Write down
on the appropriate pages all notations, comments and suggestions given by the experts. For

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 58

Learner Manual
easy reference, using colour coding or some other identification mark to refer to the source. Be
sure to have all their suggestions recorded.
e. Analyse the qualitative comments.
Where two or more experts agree on certain suggested changes, it is highly likely that there is
indeed a need for the change. Go to the end of the inventory scale. Do not forget about the
qualitative comments you have asked. The answers to those open-ended questions provide
supplementary information and pinpoint to you where exactly revision needs to be done.
It is important for you to remember that not everything that may have been suggested is for
you to follow. The author/developer is the final judge of the modifications, considering his/her
professionalism, expertise and experience as a writer, and his/her knowledge of the project or
program where the material is going to be used. As a rule, if in doubt, ask for clarifications.
f. Analyse the quantitative data.
Tally the responses on each quality statement. The total frequencies per column (degree of
satisfaction on the 4-point scale) indicate how the raters feel about the material. There is no
need to compute for central tendencies. An ocular inspection of your summary will tell you
about their ratings.
g. Interpret the data.
All items given low ratings by majority of the raters are noted as potential problem areas and
must be carefully considered. Those with very unsatisfactory ratings get double attention.
These kinds of data tell the author or developer exactly where to look at and how to revise it.
h. Revise accordingly
The author/developer now makes modifications on the original according to the feedback
provided by experts or by peers.
Learning Is Not Necessarily an Outcome of Teaching
Cognitive research is revealing that even with what is taken to be good instruction, many
students, including academically talented ones, understand less than we think they do. With
determination, students taking an examination are commonly able to identify what they have
been told or what they have read; careful probing, however, often shows that their
understanding is limited or distorted, if not altogether wrong. This finding suggests that
parsimony is essential in setting out educational goals: Schools should pick the most important
concepts and skills to emphasize so that they can concentrate on the quality of understanding
rather than on the quantity of information presented.
What Students Learn Is Influenced by Their Existing Ideas
People have to construct their own meaning regardless of how clearly teachers or books tell
them things. Mostly, a person does this by connecting new information and concepts to what
he or she already believes. Concepts—the essential units of human thought—that do not have
multiple links with how a student thinks about the world are not likely to be remembered or
useful. Or, if they do remain in memory, they will be tucked away in a drawer labeled, say,
"biology course, 1995," and will not be available to affect thoughts about any other aspect of
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 59
Learner Manual
the world. Concepts are learned best when they are encountered in a variety of contexts and
expressed in a variety of ways, for that ensures that there are more opportunities for them to
become imbedded in a student's knowledge system.
But effective learning often requires more than just making multiple connections of new ideas
to old ones; it sometimes requires that people restructure their thinking radically. That is, to
incorporate some new idea, learners must change the connections among the things they
already know, or even discard some long-held beliefs about the world. The alternatives to the
necessary restructuring are to distort the new information to fit their old ideas or to reject the
new information entirely. Students come to school with their own ideas, some correct and some
not, about almost every topic they are likely to encounter. If their intuition and misconceptions
are ignored or dismissed out of hand, their original beliefs are likely to win out in the long run,
even though they may give the test answers their teachers want. Mere contradiction is not
sufficient; students must be encouraged to develop new views by seeing how such views help
them make better sense of the world.
Progression in Learning Is Usually From the Concrete to the Abstract
Young people can learn most readily about things that are tangible and directly accessible to
their senses—visual, auditory, tactile, and kinaesthetic. With experience, they grow in their
ability to understand abstract concepts, manipulate symbols, reason logically, and generalize.
These skills develop slowly, however, and the dependence of most people on concrete
examples of new ideas persists throughout life. Concrete experiences are most effective in
learning when they occur in the context of some relevant conceptual structure. The difficulties
many students have in grasping abstractions are often masked by their ability to remember and
recite technical terms that they do not understand. As a result, teachers—from kindergarten
through college—sometimes overestimate the ability of their students to handle abstractions,
and they take the students' use of the right words as evidence of understanding.
People Learn to Do Well Only What They Practice Doing
If students are expected to apply ideas in novel situations, then they must practice applying
them in novel situations. If they practice only calculating answers to predictable exercises or
unrealistic "word problems," then that is all they are likely to learn. Similarly, students cannot
learn to think critically, analyse information, communicate scientific ideas, make logical
arguments, work as part of a team, and acquire other desirable skills unless they are permitted
and encouraged to do those things over and over in many contexts.
Effective Learning by Students Requires Feedback
The mere repetition of tasks by students—whether manual or intellectual—is unlikely to lead to
improved skills or keener insights. Learning often takes place best when students have
opportunities to express ideas and get feedback from their peers. But for feedback to be most
helpful to learners, it must consist of more than the provision of correct answers. Feedback
ought to be analytical, to be suggestive, and to come at a time when students are interested in
it. And then there must be time for students to reflect on the feedback they receive, to make
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 60
Learner Manual
adjustments and to try again—a requirement that is neglected, it is worth noting, by most
examinations—especially finals.
Expectations Affect Performance
Students respond to their own expectations of what they can and cannot learn. If they believe
they are able to learn something, whether solving equations or riding a bicycle, they usually
make headway. But when they lack confidence, learning eludes them. Students grow in self-
confidence as they experience success in learning, just as they lose confidence in the face of
repeated failure. Thus, teachers need to provide students with challenging but attainable
learning tasks and help them succeed.
What is more, students are quick to pick up the expectations of success or failure that others
have for them. The positive and negative expectations shown by parents, counselors,
principals, peers, and—more generally—by the news media affect students' expectations and
hence their learning behavior. When, for instance, a teacher signals his or her lack of
confidence in the ability of students to understand certain subjects, the students may lose
confidence in their ability and may perform more poorly than they otherwise might. If this
apparent failure reinforces the teacher's original judgment, a disheartening spiral of decreasing
confidence and performance can result.

KT0204 EXPLAIN THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF ADULT LEARNING

As professionals in the training and education space, it is essential that we understand the
unique learning requirements of our adult learners to ensure that our training interventions are
effective.
The process of engaging adult learners in a learning experience is known as Andragogy.
The term was originally used by Alexander Kapp (a German educator) in 1833, but was later
developed into an adult education by the American educator, Malcolm Knowles who arguably
stands as one of the most influential writers in this field.
Knowles distinguishes adult learning from the ‘pedagogical’ approach of child learning in a
number of theoretical ways.
It is believed that we take on the components of an adult learner between the ages of twelve
to fifteen years old.
Therefore, variations of these principles of adult learning have become prevalent talking points
in the development of training and curricula in recent years and are increasingly becoming
more widely used in the goals of schools, colleges, training organisations, universities and,
slowly, businesses to enable students and staff to become effective lifelong learners.
In order for adults to learn effectively, training needs to be designed in a way that meets the
following core principles of adult learning:
Self-Directing

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 61

Learner Manual
The first difference Knowles proposes is that adults are autonomous and self-directing,
meaning that they live under a large degree of self-governance and to their own laws, beliefs
and values.
They need to know the benefits, values and purposes of a learning program. They need to
know why they are learning what they’re learning. If they cannot appreciate the purpose or
value, they will be reluctant to engage in the learning intervention.
Learn by doing
Adults learn through direct experience; therefore, their training and learning interventions must
include active and practical participation and offer implementable techniques and
methodologies that will immediately improve their everyday lives.
Relevance
The content of a training program must be meaningful and relevant to the adult learners, their
lives and their business. They have to very clearly see why and how this is important to them
personally and how it applies to their life.
The immediate use of the learning needs to be clearly understood by the learner. If they can’t
see how they personally can apply the learning to their own life and roles, it is suggested that
motivation towards the training intervention will be significantly reduced.
Experience
Adult learners need to be able to draw upon their past experiences to aid their learning. Training
needs to be contextualised to use language that they are familiar with. We need to select case
scenarios and examples that they can relate to, as well as refer to their direct past life, work
and social experiences to bring the meaning of the learning into their world as they understand
it.
All of the Senses
Adult learners need multi-sensory learning and teaching methodologies. We must ensure that
our learning interventions have appropriately proportioned delivery techniques that meet the
needs of audio, visual, reading/writing, kinaesthetic, dependent and independent learning
preferences.
Practice
Adult learners are often engaged in learning because a problem needs to be solved. Practicing
skills in a controlled environment allows them to grow self-efficacy in new tasks that prepare
them to act autonomously outside of the learning environment. The more an adult learner can
practice new skills, competencies or the application of knowledge, the more transformational
impact the learning intervention will have.
Personal Development
The intrinsic, personal desires and ambitions of an adult learner need to be considered when
planning and delivering adult learning programs. As learners get older, their cause for
participation in learning programs often moves from external drivers (such as getting a

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 62

Learner Manual
promotion), to internal drivers, like simply learning out of pure pleasure or interest in learning
something new.
Involvement
Effective adult learning programs have planned for learner feedback and consultation. Adults
need to feel as though they have a sense of responsibility, control and decision-making over
their learning. They need to be involved in the planning, evaluation and consultation of their
own learning process to be fully on board with its successful execution.
In terms of education, this requires the flexibility of the learning situation, the learning program
and most importantly, the educator to actively involve the participant in a way that allows them
to have a degree of control over what they do, or, in fact, how much they learn
The need to know
Adults want to know why they need to learn something. They may ask: ‘Why do I need to know
this? or ‘Why is this important?’ Adults want to understand the value. They want their learning
experiences to:
meet their needs
be relevant
help them achieve their goals.

Learner’s self-concept
Adult learners want respect and to be seen as capable learners. They should be offered choice
and be encouraged to set their own learning goals. Adult learners:
are self-motivated and self-directed
are independent
like to find their own way
can make their own decisions
want to manage their own learning.
Self-directed learning is one of the more contentious aspects of Knowles’ theories. There are
various definitions of self-directed learning.
Role of the learner’s experience
Adult learners are a valuable resource because they bring the richness and diversity of their
lives with them. They should be given the opportunity to use their existing knowledge and
experience, which they can apply to new learning experiences. Adult learners:
have diverse experience and knowledge
may have ingrained ideas about things
apply their life experience and knowledge to new learning
use their problem-solving, reflecting and reasoning skills.
Readiness to learn

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 63

Learner Manual
Adults are ready to learn when they identify something they want to know or become proficient
at, or when they experience something that connects with their life situations. They become
ready to learn things in order to cope effectively with real-life situations. Adult learners:
❖ are goal focused
❖ want timely learning
❖ seek meaningful learning experiences
❖ need clear learning goals.
Orientation to learning
Adult learners want to be engaged in life-centred or problem-centred learning experiences.
They want to learn what will help them perform tasks or deal with problems they see in their
lives now. Adult learners:
❖ are practical – their learning should apply to their lives, job, etc.
❖ want to be involved in planning their learning
❖ focus on the aspects that are most useful to them.
Motivation
Adults are responsive to external motivators such as a better job or increased salary. However,
the best motivators are internal; for example:
• increased job satisfaction
• heightened self-esteem
• better quality of life
• personal growth and development.
Motivation can be diminished by learning experiences that do not embrace adult learning
principles.
Adult learning highlights practicality
Placement is a means of helping students to apply the theoretical concepts learned inside the
classroom into real-life situations. It is very important for educators to identify appropriate ways
and convert theoretical learning to practical activities! Learning is facilitated when appropriate
ways of implementing theoretical knowledge in real life situations are made clear.
Adult learning encourages collaboration
Adult learners thrive in collaborative relationships with their educators. When learners are
considered by their instructors as colleagues, they become more productive. When their
contributions are acknowledged, then they are willing to put out their best work

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 64

Learner Manual

KM-05-KT03: CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES OF CHANGE

MANAGEMENT AND HOW TO APPLY THESE PRINCIPLES WHEN
IMPLEMENTING NEW SYSTEMS.

KT0301 DEFINE CHANGE AND GIVE REASONS WHY THE

IMPLEMENTATION OF CHANGES IN AN ORGANISATION MUST BE
MANAGED;

In business, things rarely stay the same for an extended period. Companies must be willing to
change and adjust operations for various factors, from a decrease in economic resources to a
shift in consumer demand and production process changes.
Identification
Change in business often means a company must engage in a process in which they alter their
company for a structured purpose. Rather than making change just to do so, companies must
have a plan for change that improves current processes or maximizes profit.
Features

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 65

Learner Manual
Change management can involve defining new business values or behaviours, generating an
agreement to better meet the needs of stakeholders involved in the business or transitioning
the company’s organizational structure to a different type to improve operations.
Considerations
Companies may have an internal change management team for this process or hire an outside
consultant to help. Hiring an outside individual or firm can bring an objective opinion to the
situation and help smooth over any conflicts from the change.
Types of change
There are many issues to consider in managing business change - whether the changes you're
planning are minor or major. The first step in managing your people through change is
identifying the type of changes you are making to your business. This step will help you decide
how to plan your change process and support your people effectively. There are 3 major types
of change.
Developmental change
Developmental changes are those you make to improve current business procedures. As long
as you keep your staff well informed of changes, and give them the training they need to
implement process improvements, they should experience little stress from development
change.
Examples of developmental change include:
• improving existing billing and reporting methods
• updating payroll procedures
• refocusing marketing strategies and advertising processes.
Developmental change may be your first step to making further changes to your business that
will help you meet the demands of your market. Managing these small steps well demonstrates
to your team that you are taking a sensible, measured approach to change. When making
developmental changes, it's important for you to:
explain to staff your rationale for the changes
skill your staff to use new processes and technology
show your staff your commitment to minimising the impacts of change on your business.
Transitional change
Transitional changes are those you make to replace existing processes with new processes.
Transitional change is more challenging to implement and can increase your employees'
discomfort.
Examples of transitional change include:
❖ experiencing corporate restructures, mergers or acquisitions
❖ creating new products or services
❖ implementing new technology.
The 'transitional' phase of dismantling old systems and processes and implementing new ones
can be unsettling for staff. When making transitional changes, you need to:
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 66
Learner Manual
clearly communicate the impacts and benefits you foresee as a result of your changes
reinforce to staff that their jobs are secure
capture the views and contributions of your staff in making your changes
regularly update your staff on the steps you are taking to support them through the
change and train them in new systems.
Transformational change
Transformational changes are those you make to completely reshape your business strategy
and processes, often resulting in a shift in work culture. These changes may be a response to
extreme or unexpected market changes. Transformational change can produce fear, doubt and
insecurity in staff, and needs to be very well managed.
Examples of transformational change include:
• implementing major strategic and cultural changes
• adopting radically different technologies
• making significant operating changes to meet new supply and demand
• reforming product and service offerings to meet unexpected competition and dramatic
reductions in revenue.
Transformational changes will usually involve both transitional and developmental change -
where businesses recognise that they need to overhaul the way they do business. When
making transformational changes, it's crucial that you:
❖ develop and communicate a well-defined strategy that explains the approaches you are
taking to change and the goals you are setting
❖ continually reinforce your rationale for the changes
❖ plan and methodically implement new business systems and approaches
❖ involve your staff in all phases of change discussions and planning and communicate
regularly throughout the process.

Why Is Change Important in an Organization?

Any business in today's fast-moving environment that is looking for the pace of change to slow
is likely to be sorely disappointed. In fact, businesses should embrace change. Change is
important for any organization because, without change, businesses would likely lose their
competitive edge and fail to meet the needs of what most hope to be a growing base of loyal
customers.
Technology
Without change, business leaders still would be dictating correspondence to secretaries,
editing their words and sending them back to the drawing board, wasting time for all involved.
Change that results from the adoption of new technology is common in most organizations and
while it can be disruptive at first, ultimately the change tends to increase productivity and
service

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 67

Learner Manual
Technology also has affected how we communicate. No longer do business people dial a rotary
phone, get a busy signal, and try again and again and again until they get through. No longer
do business people have to laboriously contact people, in person, to find out about other people
who might be useful resources - they can search for experts online through search engines as
well as through social media sites. Today's burgeoning communication technology represents
changes that allow organizations to learn more, more quickly, than ever before.
Customer Needs
Customers who were satisfied with conventional ovens many years ago are sometimes
impatient with the microwave today. As the world evolves, customer needs change and grow,
creating new demand for new types of products and services -- and opening up new areas of
opportunity for companies to meet those needs.
The Economy
The economy can impact organizations in both positive and negative ways and both can be
stressful. A strong economy and increasing demand for products and services will mean that
companies must consider expansion that might involve the addition of staff and new facilities.
These changes offer opportunities for staff, but also represent new challenges. A weak
economy can create even more problems as companies find themselves needing to make
difficult decisions that can impact employees' salaries and benefits and even threaten their
jobs. The ability to manage both ends of the spectrum are critical for organizations that want to
maintain a strong brand and strong relationships with customers as well as employees.
Growth Opportunities
Change is important in organizations to allow employees to learn new skills, explore new
opportunities and exercise their creativity in ways that ultimately benefit the organization
through new ideas and increased commitment. Preparing employees to deal with these
changes involves an analysis of the tools and training required to help them learn new skills.
Training can be provided through traditional classroom settings or, increasingly, through online
learning opportunities. Importantly, organizations need to do a good job of evaluating
employees' capabilities and then taking steps to fill the gaps between current skills and the
skills required to respond to growth.
Challenging the Status Quo
Simply asking the question "Why?" can lead to new ideas and new innovations that can directly
impact the bottom line. Organizations benefit from change that results in new ways of looking
at customer needs, new ways of delivering customer service, new ways of strengthening
customer interactions and new products that might attract new markets. New employees joining
an organization are especially valuable because they can often point to areas of opportunity
for improvement that those who have been long involved in the company might have
overlooked. But even existing employees should be encouraged to question why things are
done a certain way and look for new ways to get work done faster, better and with higher levels
of quality and service.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 68
Learner Manual

IMPORTANCE OF MANAGING CHANGE

Change within a business is not only an inevitable step in the process of growth, but can also
serve as a catalyst for further growth, if managed effectively. In today’s dynamic and fast-paced
environment, businesses must adapt or risk becoming obsolete. However, managing change
effectively must be viewed as an opportunity to improve rather than a chore.
This is according to Claire Simon, Consulting Psychologist at Work Dynamics – a leading HR
consultancy in the country, who says that any change experienced by businesses, whether big
or small, is often viewed as turbulent. “Therefore, it is important to shift focus from change
management to change leadership – with a strong emphasis on change readiness. While
implementing changes in business can come at a risk, it can come with great rewards too.”
These ‘risk changes’ can include mergers, acquisitions, Broad-Based Black Economic
Empowerment (BBBEE), technological developments and changes in leadership, she says.
“As unsettling as these events may sound, they are crucial for growth and becoming more
accessible as an organisation.”
With regards to the nature of change within an organisation, Simon points to the recent fall of
the highly respected and reputable mobile company, Nokia, as a prime example of how change
effects business development. “Nokia did not necessarily make any grand mistakes, but did
not make any grand leaps to adapt to the ever evolving mobile technologies either. As a result,
their competitors indisputably became too powerful for them to compete with. This is a prime
example of the importance of change for organisations to remain current and competitive.”
She adds that organisations going through a significant change should partner with a qualified
HR consultancy that is able to provide guidance on the psychology of change, especially in
terms of the impact on employees. “Change is inevitable and affects the employees the most,
as they have to adapt their daily processes to accommodate the change. Many organisations
tend to focus primarily on keeping up with their competitors and other commercial elements of
business, meaning that the human factor may be neglected. This is problematic, because a
dedicated and motivated team of workers forms the backbone of most organisations.”
When it comes to ensuring that change progresses efficiently and smoothly, communication is
imperative, explains Simon. “Preparing for and transitioning through change can be
overwhelming and organisations have to provide an open platform for employees to express
their concerns prior to the changes.”
She suggests the following change communication model to ensure that staff members remain
in the loop. “Firstly, employees must be informed timeously of change to ensure everyone is
aware of the process. Secondly, a transparent approach to involve employees is required to
stimulate engagement across all levels of the business. Finally, the change must be integrated
into the organisation without hindering the commitment and attitudes of the employees.”
This can be accomplished if leaders within the organisation act as the change agents and assist
with transparency and honesty during the progression of change, says Simon. “Sound
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 69
Learner Manual
leadership will demonstrate an inordinate level of care on the part of senior management, in
turn resulting in high levels of trust and compliance from the employees.”
She explains that while there is no general rating system available to measure change
readiness within an organisation, the level thereof can be assessed through a change
readiness survey that is tailor-made to suit the unique attributes of the organisation.
“A continuous change readiness assessment plan must be implemented within organisations
to measure and adapt existing processes, thereby ensuring the organisation is resilient and
prepared enough to continue its growth during periods of change,”

IAC0301 GIVEN VARIOUS OCCUPATIONAL SCENARIOS WHERE NEW SYSTEMS

AND/OR PROCESSES ARE BEING INTRODUCED, USE THE CHANGE MANAGEMENT
PRINCIPLES TO DEVELOP AN APPROPRIATE PROGRAMME TO ENSURE THE SMOOTH
IMPLEMENTATION OF THESE PROCESSES.

Change management deals with how changes to the system are managed so they don't
degrade system performance and availability. Change management is especially critical in
today's highly decentralized, network-based environment where users themselves may be
applying many changes. A key cause of high cost of ownership is the application of changes
by those who don't fully understand their implications across the operating environment.
In effective change management, all changes should be identified and planned for prior to
implementation. Back-out procedures should be established in case changes create problems.
Then, after changes are applied, they are thoroughly tested and evaluated. This article
describes the process steps for change management and factors critical to its success.
Step 1: Define change management process and practices
As you would with other systems management disciplines, you must first craft a plan for
handling changes. This plan should cover:
Procedures for handling changes —how changes are requested, how they are processed and
scheduled for implementation, how they are applied, and what the criteria are for backing out
changes that cause problems
Roles and responsibilities of the IT support staff —who receives the change request, who tracks
all change requests, who schedules change implementations, and what each entity is
supposed to do

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 70

Learner Manual
Measurements for change management—what will be tracked to monitor the efficiency of the
change management discipline
Tools to be used
Type of changes to be handled and how to assign priorities—priority assignment methodology
and escalation guidelines
Back-out procedures —Actions to take if applied changes do not perform as expected or cause
problems to other components of the system
Step 2: Receive change requests
Receive all requests for changes, ideally through a single change coordinator. Change
requests can be submitted on a change request form that includes the date and time of the
request.
Step 3: Plan for implementation of changes
Examine all change requests to determine:
Change request prioritization
Resource requirements for implementing the change
Impact to the system
Back-out procedures
Schedule of implementation
Step 4: Implement and monitor the changes; back out changes if necessary
At this stage, apply the change and monitor the results. If the desired outcome is not achieved,
or if other systems or applications are negatively affected, back out the changes.
Step 5: Evaluate and report on changes implemented
Provide feedback on all changes to the change coordinator, whether they were successful or
not. The change coordinator is responsible for examining trends in the application of changes,
to see if:
Change implementation planning was sufficient.
Changes to certain resources are more prone to problems.
When a change has been successfully made, it is crucial that the corresponding system
information store be updated to reflect them.
Step 6: Modify change management plan if necessary
You may need to modify the entire change management process to make it more effective.
Consider re-examining your change management discipline if:
Changes are not being applied on time.
Not enough changes are being processed.
Too many changes are being backed out.
Changes are affecting the system availability.
Not all changes are being covered.
Monitor and Manage Risk

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 71

Learner Manual
One of the major risks to change management is resistance to change. Often resistance occurs
due to a fear of the unknown. People may also resist change because of the risks associated
with a new process or product.
Resistance is a normal reaction to change, but it can threaten the success of a project if not
dealt with directly. Anticipating and preparing for resistance by arming leadership with the
training and tools they need to address the concerns of reluctant participants, keep the lines of
communication open, and be as transparent as possible, can mitigate this risk and aid in a
smooth transition.
Celebrate Success
Take time to recognize and celebrate the successes of teams and individuals involved in driving
change at each key milestone. Not only does celebrating milestones encourage and motivate
those undertaking the change, it also helps them associate the changes with positive feelings.
Acknowledging successes along the way can also help drive adoption of your change
management process, as well as of the change itself.
Continuously Review and Improve Your Process
Managing change is an on-going process. In addition to having a plan in place to address
changes within your organization, creating a feedback loop where you can continue to review
and improve the steps you’re taking toward change can help you identify challenges, remove
obstacles, and adjust your roadmap as needed.
Change Doesn’t Happen in a Vacuum
Even when we expect and plan for change, roadblocks and setbacks can arise, making it
difficult to move forward with a new endeavour. But having a plan that involves people early
on, defines the process and outcomes of implementing change, and allows for flexibility as
needed, is a powerful tool to give you the framework you need to help to ensure success for
your change initiative.
Other process issues
Other process-related issues are also critical to the success of change management. Changes
are evaluated and tested prior to implementation. It is practically impossible to predict the
outcome of all changes, especially in a complex, interrelated system architecture. You must
carry out a thorough evaluation of all changes, especially those dealing with critical system
resources. We also highly recommend that you test all changes prior to full-scale deployment.
For minimum impact on the system, test with a user not on the critical path, with test data,
during off hours, and on a test system.
All changes, big and small, should be covered. Minor changes can have major effects on
system performance and availability. A simple change in a shared database's file name could
cause all applications that use it to fail. An additional software utility installed in the user's
workstation could cause the user's system to become unstable. Or a move of a user's
workstation from one department to another could prevent it from properly accessing the
network. You might occasionally need to bypass certain change management processes, like
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 72
Learner Manual
emergency changes required to recover from a fault condition. But, even in these cases,
document the change thoroughly, and have it approved after implementation, to ensure that
system records are updated.
Document all changes. Perhaps the hardest part of change management is documenting all
actions performed before, during, and after the change has been applied. Technical people
often fail to document changes, and we have seen many problems caused because not
everyone knew about earlier changes. Many IT organizations are familiar with the Monday
Morning Crisis—that most problems occur on Monday mornings because someone
implemented a change over the weekend without following correct change management
procedures.
Communicate the benefit
Many people mistakenly view change management as more IT red tape. They fail to realize
that good change management acts like a traffic light that regulates the smooth flow of changes
and does not stop all change from happening. With a well-planned and well-deployed process,
you can ensure that changes do not negatively affect system performance as a whole.

KT0302 EXPLAIN THE TYPICAL RESPONSES OF PEOPLE TO CHANGE AND

HOW THEY IMPACT ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF IMPLEMENTING
CHANGES IN ORGANISATIONS.

Ways People React to Change

Are you non-active, reactive or proactive? Plus, we tell you how to take charge of inevitable
change.
I can still remember sitting around the dinner table at 15, hearing my mother say, “What do you
think about moving?” as she casually passed me the mashed potatoes.
What do I think? I think it’s a horrible, terrible, unbearable idea. I love this house, my friends,
my school, and the thought of moving again just three years after the last time makes me want
to burst into tears! “Because we’ve bought a new house and will be relocating in a couple of
weeks!” she continued, dribbling gravy over her plate.
Even as adults, most of us don’t choose change. We get comfortable with our routines, our
lives, our friends, our cocktail of choice, even our routes to work, and any detour can be a
source of frustration, fear and stress—we prefer the security of what we know. But change is
unavoidable, and how we react to it determines the outcome, good or bad.
For example, let’s say you have a 30-year-old shake shingle roof on your home, and during a
home inspection you are told your roof has a slim to none chance of holding up through the
winter rain. (Why am I using this example? Because I just wrote a big fat check to the roofing
company!) What would you do?
There are usually three ways that people react to change:
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 73
Learner Manual
• Be non-active.
These are the type of homeowners who find out they have a leaky roof but just sit back, singing
the song, “It Never Rains in Southern California,” hoping that will make it so. Basically, they
resist the change and choose to remain in denial. If I don’t address the issue, it’s not really
there. It won’t happen to me, so I’m just going to continue to go about my business. Or they
cop an attitude and say, It’s not fair. Why me? Either way, they don’t move forward and stay
stuck. They are choosing the pay later versus now, approach—and pay they will.
• Be reactive.
The homeowner frantically starts calling the local roofers and feels the pressure to make a fast
decision. They don’t have all the necessary facts but make a decision anyway to eliminate their
immediate stress and worry. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. It’s the individual who finds out they may
lose their job, freaks out, visits 30 placement agencies, and the following Monday they have a
new job—but not really one that fits their skill set or talent.

• Be proactive and positive.

A few months back, the homeowners accepted how old the original roof was and started to do
their homework. They asked all their friends and neighbors for recommendations, did research
on the Internet about roof materials during their spare time and started interviewing roofers
suggested by others. They prepared a budget and started saving for the new roof, which is
scheduled to be put on before the rainy season begins. They put their focus on what they could
do, focused on the positive outcomes and took action
Fear
Fear is a common human reaction to any sort of change. However, for employees, fear about
organization change can manifest into questions about job security and satisfaction, demotions
or pay cuts. In addition, when their fear is severe, some employees may refuse to believe they
are capable of making the change or develop health concerns due to panic or stress, according
to the Peter Barron Stark Companies.
Anger
Changes to the status quo can spark hostility from employees. This anger may be visible, such
as an emotional outburst, or repressed, such as a long-time employee who unexpectedly quits,
according to the Peter Barron Stark Companies. Frustration may also cause employees to
publicly question company leadership, especially if an already angry employee is assigned to
a new boss. Gossip and backstabbing, which can sabotage change efforts, can also result if
employee anger is ignored or mismanaged.
Ambivalence
Not all employee reactions to change are negative. Some employees may remain neutral or
even slightly positive to change. If a small-business leader manages change effectively, this
group of employees may become willing participants in new procedures or policies, especially
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 74
Learner Manual
if they observe commitment from management, receive regular communication from company
leaders and feel that they are part of the change process.
Enthusiasm
Some employees may warmly embrace a leader's call for change, as this group may see
opportunity for themselves or perceive the change as a natural next step in the life of the
company, according to the Peter Barron Start Companies. Others may understand that the
change is necessary for the company's survival. A small-business leader should acknowledge
and support this type of employee. In addition, he should delegate some of the change
management tasks to supportive employees because this group can help positively influence
undecided co-workers.
CHANGE
Nothing is as upsetting to your people as change. Nothing has greater potential to cause
failures, loss of production, or falling quality. Yet nothing is as important to the survival of your
organization as change. History is full of examples of organizations that failed to change and
that are now extinct.
The secret to successfully managing change, from the perspective of the employees, is
definition and understanding.
Resistance to change comes from a fear of the unknown or an expectation of loss. The front-
end of an individual's resistance to change is how they perceive the change. The back-end is
how well they are equipped to deal with the change they expect.
An individual's degree of resistance to change is determined by whether they perceive the
change as good or bad, and how severe they expect the impact of the change to be on them.
Their ultimate acceptance of the change is a function of how much resistance the person has
and the quality of their coping skills and their support system.

RESPONSE IMPACT TO CHANNGE IMPLEMANTION

Sometimes employees encounter barriers when implementing changes.
Barriers can be with other employees, other departments, inadequate training, lacking
equipment or supply needs.
Sometimes management also needs to deal with resistant or difficult employees.
It is management’s responsibility to ensure that employees can implement change without
obstacles and resistance.
It is unfortunate but there are times when employees simply can’t accept a change. In these
rare cases employees simply need to move on in order to successfully implement a needed
change. These are difficult but necessary decisions.

Organizational growth, while considered a very positive change, can have a negative effect on
the environment and employee attitude. Company’s culture, current leadership styles, and
business systems may no longer suit the organization in its new form. It is important for a
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 75
Learner Manual
manager to understand the nature of change and proactively get involved. The more human
side of change is understood, the more affective change will be and positive work environment
created.
Recent survey by McKinsey 2006 shows that only 6 per cent of change management projects
were successful (with 32% mostly successful). During that change mood of the organization
was characterized by the following:
Successful projects (%) Unsuccessful projects (%)
Anxiety 44 51
Confusion 22 43
Frustration 23 44
Fatigue/ Resistance 24 34

It is obvious now that in order for change to be successful sense of focus, enthusiasm, feeling
of momentum, hope and confidence in organization are needed. When mood of organization
is not taken care of during change it has negative effect on motivation, morale, sense of job
security etc.
While managing change focus needs to be pointed on how to keep motivation and loyalty of
workers up. Several researches and observations have shown that well motivated employees
are more productive and creative. On the other hand less motivated employees do not want to
contribute into work.
Employees feel insecure about their job while going through change. Those anxious employees
typically feel insecure and lose self-confidence and are not best performers and team players.
They become reluctant to express their useful opinions and ideas or to develop innovative
approaches to their everyday work
Worker’s willingness for change is highly dependent on knowing and acknowledging the
reasons and benefits of the change. Only after understanding these factors an employee will
accept to consider the new responsibilities that change brings
When employees are only told what to do and not listened they become unhappy and anxious,
it is due to what psychologists call a loss of „‟perception of control.‟‟ As Herzberg, Mausner
and Snydermann (1959) suggest „individual should have some measure of control over the
way in which the job is done in order to realize a sense of achievement and of personal growth‟.
Job satisfaction and motivation are overviewed as an outgrowth of achievement, recognition,
the challenging work itself, responsibility and advancement. When these all are present in a
job, positive feeling and improved performance will be noticed. Workers need basic needs as
personal growth and self-actualization to remain satisfied and motivated.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 76

Learner Manual

KT0303 DESCRIBE A TYPICAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND

GIVE EXAMPLES OF WHAT MUST BE DONE TO HELP PEOPLE
UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT CHANGE.

Essential Steps for an Effective Change Management Process

Your organization is constantly experiencing change. Whether caused by new technology
implementations, process updates, compliance initiatives, reorganization, or customer service
improvements, change is constant and necessary for growth and profitability. A consistent
change management process will aid in minimizing the impact it has on your organization and
staff.
Below you will find essential steps to ensure your change initiative is successful.
Identify What Will Be Improved
Since most change occurs to improve a process, a product, or an outcome, it is critical to
identify the focus and to clarify goals. This also involves identifying the resources and
individuals that will facilitate the process and lead the endeavour. Most change systems
acknowledge that knowing what to improve creates a solid foundation for clarity, ease, and
successful implementation.
Present a Solid Business Case to Stakeholders
There are several layers of stakeholders that include upper management who both direct and
finance the endeavour, champions of the process, and those who are directly charged with
instituting the new normal. All have different expectations and experiences and there must be
a high level of "buy-in" from across the spectrum. The process of on-boarding the different
constituents varies with each change framework, but all provide plans that call for the time,
patience, and communication.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 77
Learner Manual
Plan for the Change
This is the "roadmap" that identifies the beginning, the route to be taken, and the destination.
You will also integrate resources to be leveraged, the scope or objective, and costs into the
plan. A critical element of planning is providing a multi- step process rather than sudden,
unplanned "sweeping" changes. This involves outlining the project with clear steps with
measurable targets, incentives, measurements, and analysis. For example, a well-planed and
controlled change management process for IT services will dramatically reduce the impact of
IT infrastructure changes on the business. There is also a universal caution to practice patience
throughout this process and avoid shortcuts.
Provide Resources and Use Data for Evaluation
As part of the planning process, resource identification and funding are crucial elements. These
can include infrastructure, equipment, and software systems. Also consider the tools needed
for re-education, retraining, and rethinking priorities and practices. Many models identify data
gathering and analysis as an underutilized element. The clarity of clear reporting on progress
allows for better communication, proper and timely distribution of incentives, and measuring
successes and milestones.
Communication
This is the "golden thread" that runs through the entire practice of change management.
Identifying, planning, on-boarding, and executing a good change management plan is
dependent on good communication. There are psychological and sociological realities inherent
in group cultures. Those already involved have established skill sets, knowledge, and
experiences. But they also have pecking orders, territory, and corporate customs that need to
be addressed. Providing clear and open lines of communication throughout the process is a
critical element in all change modalities. The methods advocate transparency and two-way
communication structures that provide avenues to vent frustrations, applaud what is working,
and seamlessly change what doesn't work.
Monitor and Manage Resistance, Dependencies, and Budgeting Risks
Resistance is a very normal part of change management, but it can threaten the success of a
project. Most resistance occurs due to a fear of the unknown. It also occurs because there is a
fair amount of risk associated with change –the risk of impacting dependencies, return on
investment risks, and risks associated with allocating budget to something new. Anticipating
and preparing for resistance by arming leadership with tools to manage it will aid in a smooth
change lifecycle.
Celebrate Success
Recognizing milestone achievements is an essential part of any project. When managing a
change through its lifecycle, it’s important to recognize the success of teams and individuals
involved. This will help in the adoption of both your change management process as of the
change itself.
Review, Revise and Continuously Improve
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 78
Learner Manual
As much as change is difficult and even painful, it is also an on-going process. Even change
management strategies are commonly adjusted throughout a project. Like communication, this
should be woven through all steps to identify and remove road blocks. And, like the need for
resources and data, this process is only as good as the commitment to measurement and
analysis.
Readiness Assessments
Assessments are tools used by a change management team or project leader to assess the
organization's readiness to change. Readiness assessments can include organizational
assessments, culture and history assessments, employee assessments, sponsor assessments
and change assessments. Each tool provides the project team with insights into the challenges
and opportunities they may face during the change process. What to assess:
Assess the scope of the change:
❖ How big is this change?
❖ How many people are affected?
❖ Is it a gradual or radical change?
Assess the readiness of the organization impacted by the change:
You will also need to assess the strengths of your change management team and change
sponsors, then take the first steps to enable them to effectively lead the change process.
Communication and Communication Planning
Many managers assume that if they communicate clearly with their employees, their job is
done. However, there are many reasons why employees may not hear or understand what their
managers are saying the first time around. In fact, you may have heard that messages need to
be repeated five to seven times before they are cemented into the minds of employees.
Three components of effective communication
Effective communicators carefully consider three components:
1. The audience
2. What is being communicated?
3. When it is communicated
For example, the first step in managing change is building awareness around the need for
change and creating a desire among employees. Therefore, initial communications are typically
designed to create awareness around the business reasons for change and the risk of not
changing. Likewise, at each step in the process, communications should be designed to share
the right messages at the right time.
Communication planning, therefore, begins with a careful analysis of the audiences, key
messages and the timing for those messages. The change management team or project
leaders must design a communication plan that addresses the needs of frontline employees,
supervisors and executives. Each audience has particular needs for information based on their
role in the implementation of the change.
Sponsor Activities and Sponsor Roadmaps
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 79
Learner Manual
Business leaders and executives play a critical sponsor role in times of change. The change
management team must develop a plan for sponsor activities and help key business leaders
carry out these plans. Research shows that sponsorship is the most important success factor.
Avoid confusing the notion of sponsorship with support
The CEO of the company may support your project, but that is not the same as sponsoring
your initiative. Sponsorship involves active and visible participation by senior business leaders
throughout the process, building a coalition of support among other leaders and communicating
directly with employees. Unfortunately, many executives do not know what this sponsorship
looks like. A change manager or project leader's role includes helping senior executives do the
right things to sponsor the project.
Change Management Training for Managers
Managers and supervisors play a key role in managing change. Ultimately, the manager has
more influence over an employee’s motivation to change than any other person. Unfortunately,
managers can be the most difficult group to convince of the need for change and can be a
source of resistance. It is vital for the change management team and executive sponsors to
gain the support of managers and supervisors. Individual change management activities should
be used to help these managers through the change process.
Once managers and supervisors are on board, the change management team must prepare a
strategy to equip managers to successfully coach their employees through the change. They
will need to provide training and guidance for managers, including how to use individual change
management tools with their employees.
Training Development and Delivery
Training is the cornerstone for building knowledge about the change and the required skills to
succeed in the future state. Ensuring impacted people receive the training they need at the
right time is a primary role of change management. This means training should only be
delivered after steps have been taken to ensure impacted employees have the awareness of
the need for change and desire to support the change. Change management and project team
members will develop training requirements based on the skills, knowledge and behaviours
necessary to implement the change. These training requirements will be the starting point for
the training group or the project team to develop and deliver training programs.
Resistance Management
Resistance from employees and managers is normal and can be proactively addressed.
Persistent resistance, however, can threaten a project. The change management team needs
to identify, understand and help leaders manage resistance throughout the organization.
Resistance management is the processes and tools used by managers and executives with
the support of the change team to manage employee resistance.
Employee Feedback and Corrective Action
Managing change is not a one way street; employee involvement is a necessary and integral
part of managing change. Feedback from employees as a change is being implemented is a
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 80
Learner Manual
key element of the change management process. Change managers can analyse feedback
and implement corrective action based on this feedback to ensure full adoption of the changes.
Recognizing Success and Reinforcing Change
Early adoption, successes and long-term wins must be recognized and celebrated. Individual
and group recognition is a necessary component of change management in order to cement
and reinforce the change in the organization. Continued adoption needs to be monitored to
ensure employees do not slip back into their old ways of working.
After-Project Review
The final step in the change management process is the after-action review. It is at this point
that you can stand back from the entire program, evaluate successes and failures, and identify
process changes for the next project. This is part of the on-going, continuous improvement of
change management for your organization and ultimately leads to change competency.
These elements comprise the areas or components of a change management program. Along
with the change management process, they create a system for managing change. Good
project managers apply these components effectively to ensure project success, avoid the loss
of valued employees and minimize the negative impact of the change on productivity and a
company's customers.
Readiness assessments
Communication and communication planning
Sponsor activities and sponsor roadmaps
Coaching and manager training for change management
Training and employee training development
Resistance management
Data collection, feedback analysis and corrective action
Celebrating and recognizing success
What is the value-system and background of the impacted groups?
How much change is already going on?
What type of resistance can be expected?

The following are eight suggestions that will help managers and supervisors guide
employees through organizational change.
1. Involve employees in the change process. Employees are not so much against change
as they are against being changed. Any time managers are going to implement organizational
change, there is always a lag between the time the change has been discussed at the
management level and the time the change is going to be implemented. Managers like to play
like an ostrich and believe that they are the only ones who know about the changes that are
going to take place. Unfortunately, while their heads are stuck in the sand believing that no one
else knows, employees are effectively undermining the future changes with negative informal
communication…the company grapevine. The sooner you involve employees in the process,
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 81
Learner Manual
the better off you will be implementing the change. A formal communication channel is more
effective at implementing change than a negative informal one.
2. Interview employees regarding their feelings. It is critical that managers and supervisors
understand what employees are feeling regarding the change. It is only when you accurately
understand their feelings that you know what issues need to be addressed. Implementing
change requires the ability to market and to sell. It is difficult to effectively sell without
understanding your buyer’s needs, concerns, and fears.
3. Concentrate on effective delegation. Too often managers and supervisors feel they must
use self-protective measures, especially during organizational change. They start by trying to
police all activities. Don’t try to cover all the bases yourself. You should concentrate on effective
delegation during the early stages of the change process. Effective delegation is particularly
good for two reasons: first, it helps you manage and maintain your workload, and second, it
gives your employees a sense of involvement. Involvement positions employees to share
responsibility for change.
4. Raise levels of expectations. Now more than ever, you should ask more from your
employees. It is expected that more work needs to be done during the change process. While
it may be most practical to expect less in terms of performance, raise your levels of expectations
and theirs. During change, employees are more likely to alter their work habits, so reach for
the opportunity and push them to try harder and work smarter. Require performance
improvements and make the process challenging, but remember to keep goals realistic in order
to eliminate frustration and failure.
5. Ask employees for commitment. Once the change has been announced, it is important
that you personally ask for each employee’s commitment to successfully implement the
change. It is also important that you assure the employee that if there are problems, you want
to hear about them. If a negative employee does not tell you, they will tell other employees why
the change will not work.
6. Expand communication channels. The change process usually means that normal
communication channels in the firm need to be enlarged. At this time, your employees will be
hungrier than ever for information and answers. You can “beef up” communication. First, give
employees an opportunity to give you input. Start by becoming more available and asking more
questions. Get employees’ opinions and reactions to the changes. Maintain your visibility and
make it clear that you are an accessible boss. More importantly, be a careful listener. Second,
keep employees updated on a regular basis. Just letting your employees know that you have
no new information is meaningful information to them. Strive to be specific; clear up rumours
and misinformation that clutter the communication channels. Remember, it is almost impossible
to over communicate.
7. Be firm, committed, and flexible. As you introduce a change, it is important that you see
the change through to completion. Abandoning it halfway through the change process
accomplishes two negative impacts. First, it destroys your credibility. Second, it tells every
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 82
Learner Manual
employee that if you take the stance of a dinosaur, the change will pass by, even if you lose
your job and become extinct in the process. Remain flexible, because you will have to adapt to
situations to successfully implement the changes.
8. Keep a positive attitude. Your attitude as a manager or supervisor will be a major factor in
determining what type of climate is exhibited by your employees. Your attitude is the one thing
that keeps you in control. Change can be stressful and confusing. Try to remain upbeat,
positive, and enthusiastic. Foster motivation in others. During times of transition and change,
try to compensate your employees for their extra effort. Write a brief note of encouragement
on their pay-checks; leave an affirming message on their voice mail; take them aside and tell
them what a great job they are doing; listen to their comments and suggestions. Last, try to
instil organizational change as a personal challenge that everyone can meet…with success!

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 83

Learner Manual

KT0304 GIVE EXAMPLES OF THE USE OF CHANGE OF MANAGEMENT IN

RELATION TO OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY ISSUES.

What is Change Management? Change management is a methodical process that should

enable the establishment of the new change, assure the alignment of all employees and
resources required, and ensure that the change is properly implemented. All change,
regardless of size and scope should be managed. Change management is usually not
considered part of the day-to-day activities but is an essential part of any process. Many day-
to-day activities involve some degree of change, such an employee re-assignment,
maintenance schedules for downtime, as well as various policies, procedures, and protocols
that must be modified.
Basic Change Management Checklist
The following is a basic change management checklist that provides insights to a management
team during a process change endeavour. This can be modified to meet specific scope and
depth of the nature of the change you intend to manage.
1. Has the problem that identifies the need for change been clearly identified?
2. Has the current condition requiring change been identified and analysed?
3. Is the desired final condition (vision of what is expected) clearly determined and stated
4. Do any new values, attitudes, and beliefs needed to accommodate the change need to be
determined. Habits, old methods, ingrained attitudes may need to be addressed (“We don’t
need, do; it won’t work here, etc. attitudes).
5. Designated person(s) have been assigned the responsibility to ensure the change is properly
managed to improve the potential for success
6. The process to achieve the desired change, including consulting with all the people affected
by the change has been defined, reviewed, approved and communicated
7. All affected managers and supervisors have been identified, understand the need for change
and are on board with the change
8. All affected personnel have been identified, understand the need for change and are on
board with the change
9. Potential “collisions” with other departmental or organizational changes and endeavours
have been identified and adjusted.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 84

Learner Manual
10. The schedule for implementation has been developed, approved and communicated.
11. Positive reinforcement methods have been developed and communicated for new
behaviours by supervision and management
12. Follow-up actions have been planned and scheduled to verify that the change has been
successful.
Effective change management can reduce the potential of error by managers, supervisors and
employees. Consider the use of a structured approach to planning and implementing change
to reduce error potential to achieve a successful and long term continuous improvement of your
OHSMS process.
Safety Management Is Change Management
A safety system may seem like a plan that any organization can put in practice just by drafting
one up. Many of the safety practices and procedures are already familiar to the team. So why
does this approach to safety fail?
Safety management involves everyone on the team, and requires that individuals change their
behaviours to prevent incidents. Changing behaviours is a complex challenge, and your
organization should consider a change management approach to overcome this hurdle.
Change management requires that you consider the steps and deliverables needed to develop
a high functioning program. As part of the plan, you will need to include communications
strategies, accountability, risk planning, measurement, and transparency. The reward is a
program that works.
Communicating the New Safety Plan
A large part of implementing a new safety management system is just getting the word out
effectively. While key stakeholders will have insight into the planning process, the rest of the
team will need clear, effective communications to get on-board.
The best way to detail your new plan is to keep it at the team level. Task supervisors,
stakeholders, and other leaders with gathering up their team and sharing the new plan, and
help them get it done by drafting great communications that they can use. Be transparent about
the plan and show the entire team how they can be involved in creating a safe, efficient work
environment.
Designing Accountability with Safety Leaders
While everyone in the organization is accountable for safety, responsibility ultimately falls to
designated safety leaders. Leaders can be assigned or elected, but a clear system of
accountability ensures that the safety management system stays effective.
These leaders are responsible for several tasks that usually fall out of their direct
responsibilities. Safety leaders monitor the health of the program, identifying non-compliance
or gaps. They run tests and drills to keep training fresh, and keep equipment like PPE, fire
extinguishers, and emergency cut-offs in working order. This direct eye on the process builds
long-term compliance.
Planning for Risk
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 85
Learner Manual
Part of the challenge of implementing a new safety management program is tracking risk and
performance. Risk is part of doing business, but the goal of safety is to understand these risks
and set strategies in place to mitigate them.
Your new system should generate a risk management plan that profiles risks, mitigations, and
metrics across every function. You will need to review risks across each department, ranking
them by severity and impact. While the task can be huge, listing general and specific risks for
each department shows you where to focus.
Measuring Change to Improve
Profiling risk only gets you halfway. You will also need to track key metrics to show continuous
improvement, whether in reducing risks or cutting the number of safety incidents.
Some metrics can be measured often, by tracking days without incidents or by counting the
number of unmitigated risks. Others will take time to profile, especially when measuring
worker’s comp costs or production downtime. Tracking metrics and acting on results ensures
that your costly new safety management system is active and responsive to change.
Enforcing Transparency
Safety management systems are not corporate policies that your team only sees when they
mess up. Safety requires team buy-in and clear guidelines for what to expect and where to
reduce risk.
Everyone on the team should have access to the details of the safety management system.
Your team needs to see what policies are in place, where there are risks, and what role they
play in the plan. Your team cannot be safe when they cannot see how to prevent incidents.
Implementing a new safety management system is a challenge that any organization can
overcome. By implementing a change management strategy that accounts for risk,
transparency, and responsibility, your new safety management plan will be successful for years
to come.
Three Basic Learning Exchanges
The Small Group Activity Method (SGAM) is based on the idea that every training is a place
where learning is shared. With SGAM, learning is not a one-way street that runs from trainer to
worker. Rather SGAM is a structured procedure that allows us to share information. It is based
on three learning exchanges:
• Worker-to-Worker
• Worker-to-Trainer
• Trainer-to-Worker

Worker-to-Worker: Most of us learn best from each other. SGAM is set up in such a way as
to make the worker-to-worker exchange a key element of the training. The worker-to-worker
exchange allows participants to learn from each other by solving problems in their small groups.
Worker-to-Trainer: Lecture-style training assumes that the trainer knows all the answers. With
SGAM it is understood that the trainers also have a lot to learn and this is the purpose of the
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 86
Learner Manual
worker-to-trainer exchange. It occurs during the report-back and it is designed to give the
trainer an opportunity to learn from the participants.
Trainer-to-Worker: This is the trainer’s opportunity to clear up any confusion and make points
they think are key. By waiting until the summary section, trainers know better what people need
to know.
OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM) standard requires companies to perform MOC’s
(Management of Change) when changes are made that could affect how safely a process runs.
Unless the equipment or chemical is being replaced by the same equipment or chemical, an
MOC must be performed.
MOC’s establish and implement written procedures to manage changes made to:
1. Process chemicals;
2. Technology;
3. Equipment;
4. Procedures;
5. Facilities; and
6. Change in the number of employees required to run a process.

For example, the operating procedures detail safe pressure limits, temperature ranges and flow
rates and the importance of operating within these limits. Any operation outside of these
parameters requires review and approval by a written management of change procedure.
The operator must have the flexibility to maintain safe operation within the established
parameters, and they must also be trained on emergency procedures. The operator must also
have the authority to shut down a process if it becomes dangerous.
Examples of changes:
Changes in process technology can result from changes in production rates, raw materials,
experimentation, equipment unavailability, new equipment, new product development, change
in catalyst and changes in operating conditions to improve yield or quality.
Equipment changes include, among others, change in materials of construction, equipment
specifications, piping pre-arrangements, experimental equipment, computer program revisions
and changes in alarms and interlocks. Employers need to establish means and methods to
detect both technical changes and mechanical changes.
When making changes, facilities must:
Provide technical basis for the proposed change.
Assess the impact of change on health and safety.
Address modifications to operating procedures.
Provide updated training to employees and contract workers prior to startup.
Establish written procedures and authorization requirements to manage
changes.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 87

Learner Manual
If change is significant or requires an update to process safety information, then
a pre-start up review is required.
Update process safety information.
Update operating procedures.
Determine the amount of time required for the change.

What’s in an Action Plan?

Companies may wish to develop an action plan to facilitate the processing of changes through
the management of change procedures. The action plan should include a description of the
change that is being made, the purpose and technical basis of the change, a timeline for
completion, the departments involved and steps necessary to make the change.
A typical action plan may include some or all of these:
• A description and the purpose of the change,
• The technical basis for the change,
• Safety and health considerations,
• Documentation of changes for the operating procedures,
• Maintenance procedures,
• Inspection and testing,
• Piping and Instrument Diagrams,
• Electrical classification,
• Training and communications,
• Pre-start up inspection,
• Duration if a temporary change,
• Updated risk management plan,
• Approvals and authorization.
Teamwork is the Key
Where the impact of the change is minor and well understood, a check list may be sufficient.
However, for a more complex or significant design change, a hazard evaluation procedure
should be developed by the health and safety committee.
Everyone from engineers to production managers to operators and maintenance should be
involved when developing new procedures for a process change. Hourly workers run the
equipment day in and day out and have the best understanding of the safety hazards involved
in a process and can identify potential problems.
Copies of process changes, health and safety information and emergency procedures need to
be kept in an accessible location to ensure the health and safety of all employees.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 88

Learner Manual

KM-05-KT04: CONCEPTS, PRINCIPLES AND LEADING PRACTICES

ASSOCIATED WITH CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

KT0401 DESCRIBE WHAT IS MEANT BY CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT AND

HOW IT MANIFESTS IN THE PLAN, DO, CHECK, ACT CYCLE: A.
COMPARISON WITH THE MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS (POLC); B. DISCUSS
THE PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE CONTROLS WITHIN THE MANAGEMENT
FUNCTIONS

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Continuous improvement, sometimes called continual improvement, is the ongoing
improvement of products, services or processes through incremental and breakthrough
improvements.
A broader definition is that of the Institute of Quality Assurance who defined "continuous
improvement as a gradual never-ending change which is: '... focused on increasing the
effectiveness and/or efficiency of an organisation to fulfil its policy and objectives. It is not
limited to quality initiatives. Improvement in business strategy, business results, and customer,
employee and supplier relationships can be subject to continual improvement. Put simply, it
means ‘getting better all the time
Continuous improvement is an on-going effort to improve products, services or processes.
These efforts can seek “incremental” improvement over time or “breakthrough” improvement
all at once.
Among the most widely used tools for continuous improvement is a four-step quality model—
the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle, also known as Deming Cycle or Shewhart Cycle:
Other widely used methods of continuous improvement — such as Six Sigma , Lean, and Total
Quality Management — emphasize employee involvement and teamwork; measuring and
systematizing processes; and reducing variation, defects and cycle times.
Continuous or Continual?

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 89

Learner Manual
The terms continuous improvement and continual improvement are frequently used
interchangeably. But some quality practitioners make the following distinction:
Plan: Identify an opportunity and plan for change.
Do: Implement the change on a small scale.
Check: Use data to analyse the results of the change and determine whether it made a
difference.
Act: If the change was successful, implement it on a wider scale and continuously assess your
results. If the change did not work, begin the cycle again.
Continual improvement: a broader term preferred by W. Edwards Deming to refer to general
processes of improvement and encompassing “discontinuous” improvements—that is, many
different approaches, covering different areas.
Continuous improvement: a subset of continual improvement, with a more specific focus on
linear, incremental improvement within an existing process. Some practitioners also associate
continuous improvement more closely with techniques of statistical process control .

MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS
The principles of management have been categorized into the four major functions of planning,
organizing, leading, and controlling popularly known as the P-O-L-C framework.
Planning
• Planning Defining Organization Vision & Mission
• Setting Goals & Objectives
• Strategizing
• Plan of Action to Achieve Goals
• Organizing Formulate Organizational Structure
• Resource Allocation
• Job Design
• Leading Leadership & Direction
• Motivation
• Coordination & Communication
• Controlling Process & Standards
• Review & Evaluation
• Corrective Action
Planning is the first and the most important function of management that involves setting
objectives and determining a course of action for achieving those objectives. Planners are
essentially the managers who are best aware of environmental conditions facing their
organization and are able to effectively analyse and predict future conditions. It also requires
that managers should be good decision makers.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 90

Learner Manual
Planning involves selecting missions and objectives and the actions to achieve them, it requires
decision making, i.e. choosing future courses of action from among alternatives.
Planning means determining what the organization’s position and situation should be at some
time in the future and deciding how best to bring about that situation. It helps maintain
managerial effectiveness by guiding future activities.
Planning as a process typically involves the following steps −
Selection of goals for the organization
Establishment of goals for each of the organization’s sub-units
Establishment of programs for achieving goals in a systematic manner
Strategic planning involves analysing competitive opportunities and threats, as well as the
strengths and weaknesses of the organization. It also involves determining how to position the
organization to compete effectively in their environment.
Tactical planning is creating the blueprint for the larger strategic plan. These plans are often
short term and are carried out by middle-level managers.
Operational planning generally covers the entire organization’s goals and objectives and put
into practice the ways and action steps to achieve the strategic plans. They are very short terms
usually less than a year.
Once a manager has created a work plan, the next phase in management cycle is to organize
the people and other resources necessary to carry out the plan. Organizing should also
consider the resources and physical facilities available, in order to maximize returns with
minimum expenditure.
Organizing
Organizing may be referred to as the process of arranging and distributing the planned work,
authority and resources among an organization’s members, so they can achieve the
organization’s goals.
Organizing involves the following steps −
Creating the organizational structure − The framework of the organization is created
within which effort is coordinated allocating human resources to ensure the
accomplishment of objectives. This structure is usually represented by an
organizational chart, which is a graphic representation of the chain of command within
an organization.
Making organizational design decisions − Decisions are made about the structure of an
organization.
Making job design decisions − Roles and responsibilities of individual jobs, and the
process of carrying out the duties is defined.
Organizing at the level of a particular job involves how best to design individual jobs so as to
most effectively utilize human resources. Traditionally, job design was based on principles of
division of labour and specialization, which assumed that the more narrow the job content, the
more proficient the individual performing the job could become.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 91
Learner Manual
Organizations as they grow develop complex structures with an increasing need for co-
ordination and control. To cope and manage such situations, leadership is necessary to
influence people to cooperate towards a common goal and create a situation for collective
response.
Leading
Leading entails directing, influencing, and motivating employees to perform essential tasks. It
also involves the social and informal sources of influence to inspire others. Effective managers
lead subordinates through motivation to progressively attain organizational objectives.
Personality research and study of job attitudes in Behavioural Science provides important
insight on the need for coordination and control. Thus it becomes important for leadership to
create harmony among individual efforts to collectively work towards organizational goals.
Controlling
Managers at all levels engage in the managerial function of controlling to some degree. Two
traditional control techniques are budget and performance audits. An audit involves a physical
examination and verification of the organization’s records and supporting documents. A budget
audit provides information about where the organization is with respect to procedures followed
for financial planning and control, whereas a performance audit might try to determine whether
the figures reported are a reflection of actual performance.
Controlling involves measuring performance against goals and plans, and helping correct
deviations from standards. As a matter of fact, controlling facilitates the accomplishment of
plans by ensuring that performance does not deviate from standards.
Controlling is not just limited to organization’s financial state, but also spans across areas like
operations, compliance with company policies and other regulatory policies, including many
other activities within the organization.
The management functions thus most effectively cover the broad scope of a manager’s duties
and responsibilities. Though the nature and complexities faced by businesses have undergone
a vast change over the years, the functions of management remain the same.
Effective controls within management functions
The control function of management can be a critical determinant of organizational success.
Most authors discuss control only through feedback and adjustment processes. This article
takes a broader perspective on control and discusses the following questions: What is good
control? Why are controls needed? How can good control be achieved? If multiple control
strategies are feasible, how should the choice among them be made?
After strategies are set and plans are made, management's primary task is to take steps to
ensure that these plans are carried out, or, if conditions warrant, that the plans are modified.
This is the critical control function of management. And since management involves directing
the activities of others, a major part of the control function is making sure other people do what
should be done.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 92

Learner Manual
The management literature is filled with advice on how to achieve better control. This advice
usually includes a description of some type of measurement and feedback process:
The basic control process, wherever it is found and whatever it is found and whatever it
controls, involves three steps:
(1) Establishing standards.
(2) Measuring performance against these standards.
(3) Correcting deviations from standards and plans.
A good management control system stimulates action by spotting the significant variations from
the original plan and highlighting them for the people who can set things right.
Controls need to focus on results.
This focus on measurement and feedback, however, can be seriously misleading. In many
circumstances, a control system built around measurement and feedback is not feasible. And
even when feasibility is not a limitation, use of a feedback-oriented control system is often an
inferior solution. Yet, good controls can be established and maintained using other techniques.
What is needed is a broader perspective on control as a management function: this article
addresses such a perspective. The first part summarizes the general control problem by
discussing the underlying reasons for implementing controls and by describing what can
realistically be achieved. In the second part, the various types of controls available are
identified. The last part discusses why the appropriate choice of controls is and should be
different in different settings.
Why Are Controls Needed?
If all personnel always did what was best for the organization, control — and even management
— would not be needed. But, obviously individuals are sometimes unable or unwilling to act in
the organization's best interest, and a set of controls must be implemented to guard against
undesirable behaviour and to encourage desirable actions.
One important class of problems against which control systems guard may be called personal
limitations. People do not always understand what is expected of them nor how they can best
perform their jobs, as they may lack some requisite ability, training, or information.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 93

Learner Manual

IAC0401 GIVEN A RANGE OF ORGANISATIONAL OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND

SAFETY SCENARIOS DESCRIBE THE LEADING PRACTICES THAT CAN BE APPLIED
TO ENSURE CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Sadly, the disciplines associated with the quality revolution – relentless elimination of waste,
improved workplace organization, standardization of work, high quality training, and reduced
process variability – were rarely applied to the world of worker safety. Recently, a handful of
quality and safety professionals began applying Continuous Improvement (CI) methodologies
to safety. Under the branding of “lean safety”, “systems thinking” and a handful of other names,
safety approaches based on continuous improvement are growing in popularity.
Lean safety systems share many common roots with process safety. The major drivers of both
are the stabilization of processes and the elimination of waste. A stable process is essential to
a safer workplace. When seeking to stabilize a process, engineers try to anticipate the things
that could go wrong and reconstruct these “failure modes” out of the final process design in an
exercise known as a Failure Modes Effects Analysis (FMEA).
Because all process designs assume that no one wants to get hurt and that injuring workers is
inefficient and wasteful, a principle goal of an FMEA is to make workers safer. But even the
best FMEA cannot prevent every hazard condition. In those cases where a hazard can’t be
eliminated, countermeasures such as personal protective equipment (PPE) or machine
guarding are put in place to reduce the severity of a worker injury.
Unlike process safety, however, continuous improvement doesn’t treat worker safety as
external from a business system. Instead, these safety systems see efforts to reduce workplace
risks of injuries as indistinguishable from other efforts to make the work processes more
efficient.
One of the primary methods used to improve the efficiency of a process is a Kaizen (the
Japanese term for improvement or change for the better) event. In these activities, workers
participate in exercises focused on (a) making the job safer, (b) eliminating waste, (c) reducing
unnecessary steps, and (d) improving efficiency (in roughly that order). Because of the priority
placed on safety, most lean practitioners see little use for an external safety department.
Another component of lean practices that has profound implications for the safety function is
5S. In broad strokes, 5S is an activity focused on organizing the workplace so that it is
standardized, shined, sorted, set in order, and sustained. The emphasis on a clean and orderly
workplace – where there is a place for everything and everything is in its place – greatly reduces

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 94

Learner Manual
the probability that a something could go wrong that might injure a worker. In many locations,
activities like 5S audits and safety observations are being combined into a single activity.
Identifying the absolute safest way to complete a task and create a disciplined approach where
that process is always followed is paramount to many safety activities, from Job Safety
Analyses (JSAs) to safety observations. Standard Work takes a broader approach to identifying
the most efficient way to complete a task. Safety is treated as non-negotiable, under the belief
that the most efficient way to complete a task is (by definition) the safest way.
Unlike many traditional safety approaches, continuous improvement management systems
integrate Quality Operating Systems (QOS) into their standard operations. QOS uses highly
visual scoreboards to track progress toward their goal. Scoreboards display key metrics
generated from measurables associated with Safety, Quality, Delivery, Costs, and Morale (and
sometimes Environment).
The review of these SQDCM elements become a central focus in making the workplace more
efficient. The safety measurements are ideally a blend of leading and lagging indicators.
Leading indicators allow the organization to respond to changing trends, while lagging
indicators help the organization to gauge the effectiveness of these efforts.
There are significant barriers to implementing a continuous improvement-based safety system.
The primary hurdle is that the move to a lean workplace involves a complete transformation of
the basic philosophy under which a business operates. A lean transformation can take years
to implement and can be a daunting effort. If done correctly, the move to a lean workplace will
involve the entire management team and will touch virtually every department.
Perhaps the hottest point of contention is the practice by lean practitioners of categorizing all
activities as either value added (those tasks that increase the intrinsic value of a product or
service), necessary non-value added (those steps or activities in a process that are a necessary
business function but do not increase the value of a product or service) and non-value added
(waste; those activities that cost money but provide no business benefit.)
Most lean practitioners functionally view safety as either non-value added or, at best, necessary
non-value added activity. As can be expected, most safety professionals bristle at the idea that
much (if not all) of their activities are a waste of time or a necessary evil. Many safety
professionals also find themselves philosophically at odds with the continuous improvement
team because of their perception that continuous improvement approaches over-simplify
worker safety and pay insufficient attention to behavioural elements associated with worker
safety. Conversely, lean practitioners believe that traditional approaches to safety are fraught
with pointless redundancies and process wastes.
Both sides often feel that increased participation with the other will lead to decreased power
and influence in the organization. The inter-departmental bickering is destructive and short-
sighted. Given the very different backgrounds of safety professionals from those of lean
professionals, this makes it highly unlikely that either side will willingly make the move toward
common ground.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 95
Learner Manual
As companies evaluate the effectiveness of their organizational structures, more now question
the value of departments by expecting a clear and demonstrable return on investments. This
process is all but certain to eliminate redundant efforts between quality, lean, and safety
groups. As more safety initiatives consume precious resources while producing a diminishing
return, some consolidation between these disciplines is inevitable.
The 30-Inch View
In their own words, Powell and Ohno are talking about what I refer to as the “30-inch view” of
people and performance. At 30 inches – roughly the length of a worker’s arm, or the distance
between a worker and his or her workstation – issues are dealt with conclusively on a one-by-
one basis. At 30 inches, people converse, reach for tools and sit at computers. Unfortunately,
many employees face multiple barriers to productivity, quality and safety within their 30-inch
range of control.
Beyond 30 inches, people have difficulty reading, hearing, speaking and working. At more than
30 inches away, problems become less intimate and appear to be someone else’s
responsibility.
With a 30-inch view on continuous improvement, the value of ergonomics to safety, quality,
production and the ability to meet customer needs is evident.
When everyone in a company understands that value is added on the shop floor, not around
fancy meeting tables, then that company is able to leverage its continuous improvement effort
over an entire plant population and the 220-plus days that people work in a year. This is how
Toyota, widely regarded as one of the world’s best companies with world-class facilities and
processes, still implements more than 1 million improvements every year.
To be successful on such a scale, companies must overcome significant hurdles. But the good
news is that when implemented correctly, continuous improvement becomes self-sustaining.
When the shop floor drives and achieves visible gains (visible from 30 inches away, for
example) on a daily basis, it is motivating and builds teamwork, resulting in even more
improvement activities. Shop floor employees drive continuous improvement in numerous
organizations in North America and companies benefit from the effort every day.
A 30-inch view of people and performance can accelerate a transformation to a continuous
improvement culture. Three key elements to consider are:
• Eliminate pain and fatigue as a barrier to engagement.
• Design for human performance.
• Establish shop floor ownership with respectful engagement.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 96

Learner Manual

KT0402 GIVE EXAMPLES OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PROCESSES IN

VARIOUS WORK PLACES.

Well-run businesses strive to find examples of continuous improvements in the workplace. As

these improvements increase the bottom line, managers look for methods to find a measurable
gain that can serve as a foundation to future business decisions. Continuous improvements
are favourable to stakeholders including potential investors, current investors and stockowners.
Monthly Training Programs
Cross-training employees to work in a range of positions creates a continuous workplace
improvement as it allows for a more smoothly run operation. Having trained staff members to
step in when someone calls out sick or takes a leave of absence prevents a production
slowdown. Schedule monthly cross-training programs, in which rotating employees move into
new positions for the day and learn how to do the job.
On-going training is a smart choice for inclusion in on-going process improvement. When you
cross-train employees to work in multiple positions, you’re protecting your processes from
bottlenecks that occur as a natural result of people-centric processes. Anything from a sick day
to a vacation can have a negative impact on production.
Having trained staff that can rotate and fill a position helps to avoid any slowdown in production.
For this reason, schedule monthly training programs that continually educate your staff.
Time Study
Time studies provide measurable benchmarks with regard to the time it takes to perform work
tasks. A qualified researcher observes work being performed and records the time needed to
complete each task. Study data is then analysed to determine standards protocol. Implemented
changes target task efficiency so that cost of production is improved. It is useful for setting
realistic production quotas and forecasting budgetary needs, which saves money. Time studies
also provide the ability to identify issues that can be resolved by designing more efficient
methods.
Once this data is recorded, a study can be run to examine the data and establish the standards
by which that process or task should be completed in the future. While the primary focus should
always be on the effectiveness of process improvements, you should still target task efficiency
to better control the costs involved in the production.
Surveys to Gauge Success
Customer and vendor surveys can provide a gauge of the success of efforts for continuous
improvements in the workplace. Surveys should focus on three questions: What are you doing
that is satisfactory? What needs to be changed to improve the quality of your products or

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 97

Learner Manual
services? What changes would customers like to see in the future? Such surveys give you an
inside look at how you look from the outside. Data from surveys is used by management to
constantly improve the business process.
The people who work directly within your processes have the best insight into the root cause
of errors, and where things could potentially be improved. The savviest and watchful employees
could likely give you a list, right now, of improvements that could be made.
Introduce surveys that go out to your vendors as well as your employees and customers, each
with unique questions, to help you understand the impact of your process improvement efforts.
The surveys can also provide a great deal of insight into things you didn’t even realize were a
problem – or potential issue. There are some key questions your surveys should include:
What are you doing that they believe to be satisfactory – how do you delight them?
What could be done to improve the quality of products and services?
What changes would they like to see in the future (let them prioritize what is most important to
them.)
Think Tanks
Brainstorming sessions or think tanks open the door to continuous workplace improvements
by bringing members of management together to resolve problems. Invite key members of
management as well as floor supervisors to participate to have an accurate representation
present. Provide a schedule of topics to discuss to keep the session running smoothly and to
ensure that it is productive. When a topic is on the table, each participant proposes a solution,
and each solution is examined, analysed and discussed for feasibility and cost to implement.
Annual brainstorming sessions can consistently improve business operations.
Product
An engineering team that continually finds ways to improve a figure of merit such as the energy
conversion rate of solar panels.
Service
A retail banking website continually improves its infrastructure and service management
processes to decrease its downtime and increase availability.
Experience
Improving the intangible elements of a service such as the taste of food on a flight, typically
measured with a process of quantification of customer surveys.
Environments
Improving physical environments such as buildings, interior design and landscapes. For
example, a large restaurant chain that is continually experimenting with new interior concepts.
Processes
Improving processes by eliminating wasted effort or resources. For example, a farmer who
bags fruit as opposed to spraying it with chemicals once a month.
Assets

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 98

Learner Manual
Asset improvements such as upgrading a machine that is a bottleneck . For example, a rail line
does an analysis and finds that a particular legacy model of signal equipment has caused an
usual number of delays due to their high maintenance requirements. The signals are replaced
with more reliable models.
Policy & Procedure
Identifying counterproductive or inefficient policies and replacing them. For example, a airline
that chooses a passenger to be removed from an overbooked flight using a complex algorithm
that can't be explained to the passenger resulting in dissatisfied customers and potential public
relations issues. A more efficient policy might be to incrementally increase compensation offers
until a passenger volunteers.
Information
Improving communication and information. For example, if a customer service team gets the
same question 200 times a day, they might contact a marketing team about updating product
packaging to make things more clear.
Information Technology
Improving software and related machines such as robots . For example, a robot that sorts
recycling has its error rate improved on a regular basis with tweaks to its machine learning
algorithm.
Risk
Seeking ways to further reduce managed risks. For example, a farmer reduces risks related to
the price fluctuations of commodities with incremental strategies to diversity and differentiate
their crop .
Quality
Improving quality such as a manufacturer that investigates quality control defects to determine
root cause and identify improvements to designs, parts, processes, materials, methods and
controls.
Culture
Efforts to improve organizational culture on an on-going basis using techniques such as sharing
corporate stories to build a sense of team identity.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 99

Learner Manual
KT0403 DESCRIBE THE ADVANTAGES AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE
EFFECTIVE USE OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PROCESSES.

Imagine a workplace where productivity was constantly optimized, innovation was always
pursued, and new opportunities were frequently discovered! A continuous improvement
approach can assist manufacturers to operate on a higher level.
The continuous improvement process is one of on-going incremental improvements, where a
business continues normal business activities, while constantly seeking out new opportunities
to add value to their products, services and processes. Continuous quality improvement can
accomplish major change over time; however, it is completely driven by the input of employees,
as its effectiveness relies on the team’s dedication to the process.
The Positive Impact of Continuous Improvement
With practice and time, companies learn internally how to work in an organized efficient
manner, identify opportunities, and make changes accordingly. They also learn how to pinpoint
areas where value is added, where value is absent, and how to dispose of invaluable waste.
A manufacturer that adopts the continuous improvement approach will see immeasurable
benefits, including:
Increased productivity
Improved quality
Lowered costs
Decreased delivery times
Improved employee satisfaction/morale
Reduced employee turnover rate
CASE STUDY
How a California Manufacturer used Continuous Improvement
For Waterstone Faucets, adopting a Lean and continuous improvement approach has made a
positive impact on their business. Waterstone Faucets is a full line manufacturer and distributor
of high quality kitchen faucets located in Murrieta, CA. The company of 110 employees
specializes in various types of faucets and accessories, including side sprays, soap dispensers,
cabinet pulls and knobs, and under sink systems.
As the company began experiencing an increase in demand, quality control problems and
additional challenges were developing. Employees struggled to meet demand and fulfill orders
adequately, leading to mistakes, wasted materials and client retention challenges.
The new level of demand additionally created workforce problems. “Our challenges were
leading to employee turnover and we were having difficulty identifying and training skilled
employees. Recruiting and training new team members were increasing our costs,” says Chris
Kuran, Owner of Waterstone Faucets.
In an effort to mitigate the situation, Waterstone Faucets collaborated with CMTC to engage in:
Lean and continuous improvement training
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 100
Learner Manual
The company’s employees began learning numerous Lean methodologies, such as Six Sigma
and 5S, and learned how to identify and eliminate waste, minimize scrap, and streamline main
production areas.
A “check system” was also implemented to ensure quality throughout the production process.
Management also established a standardized on-boarding training process to address work
issues. “The process helped us focus on improving leadership skills, reducing errors, and
maximizing productivity from all employees,” says Kuran.
Changes Result in Sales Growth and Cost Savings
Due to the implemented changes and improved communication among employees,
Waterstone Faucets was able to improve quality, reduce mistakes and ensure that orders were
completed on time and correctly.
Continuous improvement is not a destination, but a journey of on-going processes.
Manufacturers that practice the Lean philosophy can achieve “breakthrough” improvements
within their organization on a daily basis!
OTHER BENEFITS OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
➢ reduced waste through lean production
➢ improved product quality
➢ reduced rework time
➢ faster response times, giving more customers their orders on time
➢ becoming more competitive by driving down costs
➢ retaining/gaining customers through innovative products and services.
Acknowledgement of Problems
A company that believes in continuous improvement is constantly seeking ways to make its
services, products, staff and marketing even better than they already are. These companies
are open to suggestions and turn criticism into constructive criticism. They are aware of their
setbacks and problems, and instead of staying stagnant or refusing to believe that there’s
nothing wrong, they view it as an opportunity to improve.
Worker Confidence and Motivation
Continuous improvement shows workers that their work actually means something to the
company. Employees are taught to improve their performance, which in turn motivates them.
Also, employees are expected to work together as a team in order to come up with new ideas
for the company. Even negative work serves a purpose -- to show the business where its
problems lie and to strive to make things better moving forward.
When those you work with know they are empowered to observe, analyze and improve the way
they work, they’re more motivated than if they’re expected to simply apply the same old
methods and ways of working. They’ll be more excited about their career future when they
know they can have a positive impact on it.
Success

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 101

Learner Manual
Continuous improvement methods often lead to great success for the company that utilizes this
philosophy. It’s extremely rare that any type of business will be booming overnight. Instead,
successful business endeavours take time and patience to grow and succeed. A solid
foundation and plenty of hard work will build a thriving business, and a large part of that is
recognizing the areas that need improvement and actually making the changes. Continuous
improvement both recognizes and acts on developing and bettering business. Also, companies
that listen to and respond to customer feedback are trusted by clients -- they feel that they are
heard and that the business will actually implement change.
More engaged employees
A Gallup poll of US workers in 2015 showed that 32% of employees were engaged in their job.
The poll also showed that the majority (50.8%) of employees were “not engaged” and 17% of
employees were “actively disengaged”. The numbers show a vast opportunity for improvement
as there are many financial as well as social benefits to having employees care about their
work. A study by Towers Perrin in 2009 showed that companies with highly engaged
employees earned 19.2% more operating income than their baseline peers.
A Lean and continuous improvement program hits directly at this problem. At its core,
continuous improvement is designed to empower employees to solve problems that bugs them
and gradually improve the efficiency of their work processes. Lean lets employees know that
their ideas are important. When an employee makes a suggestion for improvement, the idea
can be carefully tested; and if successful implemented company-wide. This changes the
employee’s role and responsibilities from being a passive actor to being an active participant
of the business processes.
Lower employee turnover
Turnover in organizations is very expensive. In addition to severance, the company must pay
for recruiting, hiring, and training someone new to do the job. In many jobs, it can take several
years of on-the-job training for an employee to gain the necessary experience to excel at his
job. A continuous improvement culture has been shown to boost employee engagement and
reduce turnover rates. Employees who actively participate in the betterment of the company
gain a sense of pride and accomplishment. This leads to a greater sense of belonging and
fewer reasons to leave the organization.
More competitive products & services
Continuous improvement drives both the improvement of processes and products. Companies
that actively look for ways to enhance their business will invariably increase the value of their
products and services. This will lead to more sophisticated and overall more economically
competitive offerings.
Better customer service
Customer service starts with understanding what the customer finds value and working to
deliver that value. Lean and continuous improvement provides a framework for identifying
customer values and for minimizing waste in the value delivery process. Organizations that
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 102
Learner Manual
apply Lean are better able to align their products and services to latent customer values. This
will lead to products and services that “anticipate” the needs of customers even before they
know the need themselves.
Having a proactive learning culture
Customer service starts with understanding what the customer finds value and working to
deliver that value. Lean and continuous improvement provides a framework for identifying
customer values and for minimizing waste in the value delivery process. Organizations that
apply Lean are better able to align their products and services to latent customer values. This
will lead to products and services that “anticipate” the needs of customers even before they
know the need themselves.
Better Morale
Your collaborators and employees will benefit from the improvements and increased dynamism
that continuous improvement provides. Continuous improvement projects are an opportunity
for employees to step outside the box and have a meaningful and rewarding impact on their
job.
Better Acceptance of New Ideas
When your organization is used to accepting the status quo, new projects and opportunities
can be seen in a negative light. With a continuous improvement strategy deployed, your teams
will get used to and appreciate working with the notion that change is positive.
Increased Motivation:

KT0404 EXPLAIN THE TYPICAL PRACTICES ASSOCIATED WITH

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PROCESSES: A. OCCURRENCE

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 103

Learner Manual
MANAGEMENT; B. DEVIATION AND NON-CONFORMANCE MANAGEMENT;
C. LESSONS LEARNT AND ORGANISATION WIDE IMPLEMENTATION; D.
MODIFICATION MANAGEMENT; E. PROPER COMMISSIONING AND
CHANGE MANAGEMENT

OCCURRENCE MANAGEMENT
Occurrence management is a central part of continual improvement. It is the process by which
errors, or near errors (also called near misses) are identified and handled. The goal of an
occurrence management program is to correct the errors in either testing or communication
that result from an event, and to change the process so that the error is unlikely to happen
again.
Occurrence cycle includes investigation
A cycle of events reflects the process of occurrence management. When occurrences are
found, they must all be investigated to find the causes of the problem. The investigation will
help to identify the actions needed to correct the problem and to ensure that it does not occur
again. All necessary communication must take place, including informing any health care
providers whose clients are affected.
Detecting occurrences
Occurrences are detected through a variety of investigative techniques. Monitoring of
complaints and satisfaction surveys will yield much information. Once this is established and
monitors quality indicators, deficits will be noted. The tools of external assessment, such as
proficiency testing, external quality assessment, accreditation and certification processes, will
be very useful in occurrence management. A very valuable tool is the use of the internal audit,
which can be performed at any time.
Root cause analysis
The most aggressive and complete approach to addressing occurrences is to seek the root
cause of the problem. This is more than just a thorough examination, but is a planned and
organized approach toward finding not only the superficial causes of a problem, but also the
deeper, or core problems. With some occurrences, they are likely to occur and reoccur until
such time as the true root causes are discovered, and addressed.
Correction of occurrences
As a reminder, an occurrence is any event that has a negative impact on an organization, which
includes personnel, product, equipment, or the environment.
There are several levels of action that may be undertaken to rectify occurrences, including the
following.
• Preventive actions involve a planned and organized evaluation of processes and procedures
to identify potential error points, so action can be taken to prevent the errors from ever
occurring. Preventive actions require planning and team participation.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 104

Learner Manual
• Remedial action, or remediation, is the fixing of any consequences that result from an error.
For example, if an erroneous result has been reported, it is essential to immediately notify all
persons concerned about this error, and to provide the correct result.
• Corrective actions address the cause of the error. If a test was done incorrectly, resulting in
an incorrect result, corrective actions sort out why the test was not performed properly, and
steps are taken so that the error does not happen again. As an example, a piece of equipment
may have been malfunctioning, and the corrective actions would be to recalibrate, repair, or
otherwise address the equipment problem.
Occurrence management process
The management process for dealing with errors or occurrences involves several steps.
The laboratory should develop a system for prompt investigation of every laboratory problem
and error.
1. Establish a process to detect all problems, using the tools that are available. Remember that
problems may go undetected unless there is an active system for looking for them.
2. Keep a log of all problem events that records the error, any investigation activities, and any
actions taken.
3. Investigate the causes of any problem that is detected, and carefully analyse the information
that is available.
4. Take the necessary action—remedial and corrective, and if the problem is detected before
the error actually occurs, preventive action.
5. Monitor and observe for any recurrence of the original problem, keeping in mind that there
may be a systemic problem.
6. Provide information to all those who need it, and to those who are affected by the error.

DEVIATION AND NON-CONFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Deviation Management enables you to quickly identify and respond to deviations and
unexpected events in all types of business processes. The system’s user-friendliness, flexible
architecture and high performance makes it reliable, adaptable and very easy to use. Your
organisation will quickly adopt the system, thereby enabling you to manage, follow up and
continuously improve everything from customer to production processes, effectively and with a
high clearance rate.
Process improvements in all their forms, auditing and inspection, quality and environmental
work, all require some type of deviation management. A system where changes or deviations
from the standard or the norm, or from what is planned and expected, can be reported and
followed up in an efficient manner. Deviation Management provides an easy-to-use and flexible
system that ensures that all faults, defects and changes are noted and addressed quickly. The
system’s customisable roles and case features also ensure that all the relevant people and
roles are involved and kept informed in every deviation process, so that no case is left
unattended, ignored or forgotten.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 105
Learner Manual
Higher levels of efficiency and better control
The solution gives you the opportunity to enhance oversight, control, management and follow-
up of all deviations on a single platform. All manual handling can be completely eliminated. The
system saves time and money, reduces the number of incorrect reports and also improves the
traceability, follow-up and transparency of deviation management.
Reporting is easy and fast
Deviation Management results in easier reporting, and faster lead times through a flexible, web-
based interface with a high degree of accessibility, on both desktop and mobile devices. The
mobile interface means that employees at every stage of a business process can report
deviations the very moment they occur.
During the life cycle of a case, it is important that the right people are informed. The person
who took the time to report a deviation must be able to follow it and obtain information when
an action has been taken. If feedback is missing, employees and other people reporting in the
system will feel that the reporting process is pointless. It is equally important that key people
receive information about cases that concern them. For example, a quality control manager
receives information about a quality deviation or a production manager is alerted about a shut
down.
The system’s analysis and statistics features also make it possible to quickly identify trends,
recurring problems and defects, or to find solutions. You can also find out what processes or
products have the highest number of reported deviations. Furthermore, you can ascertain if
there are actions for similar deviations that you can reuse. The built-in support tools offer
everything from standard reports to data warehousing export.
Areas of Application
Following up and checking the health of the quality and environmental control systems to
ensure compliance with the standards, is perhaps the most common application. Especially for
companies with certified management systems, such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. With
Deviation Management, a method can be established that ensures what is reported is taken
care of properly and that the agreed measures are implemented and followed up. The solution
also enables you to identify problem areas, eliminate defects and ultimately reduce the cost of
defects. Examples areas include: environmental, production, delivery, safety and patient
deviations.
Auditing deviations
Deviations identified in connection with various types of audits are recorded and managed as
cases. Audits can be conducted using various methods and can be customised and configured
to meet a variety of needs.
Customer service
Today, a lot of interaction with customers takes place online and Deviation Management can
be used to receive and follow up on customer feedback via the website.
Accident and Incident reporting
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 106
Learner Manual
Preventing incidents from becoming accidents, and preventing accidents from being repeated,
is important in all organisations. Deviation management makes work easier by facilitating
reporting and ensuring that the agreed measures are implemented and followed up.
Maintenance and service
Regardless of whether it concerns a broken photocopier or production downtime, most
companies need to quickly request assistance in order to alleviate the impact on production.
By making it easy to request maintenance, which is then automatically sent to the maintenance
department, lead times can be shortened from the initial request to corrective action. Deviations
may also be subject to investigation in order to prevent the problem from happening again.

LESSONS LEARNT AND ORGANISATION WIDE IMPLEMENTATION

A lesson learned is a recorded experience of value; a conclusion drawn from analysis of
feedback information on past and/or current programs, policies, systems and processes.
Lessons may show successes or innovative techniques, or they may show deficiencies or
problems to be avoided. A lesson may be:
1. An informal policy or procedure;
2. Something you want to repeat;
3. A solution to a problem, or a corrective action;
4. How to avoid repeating an error; or
5. Something you never want to do (again).
The most complete LL definition was jointly crafted and adopted by the American, European,
and Japanese space agencies:
A lesson learned is a knowledge or understanding gained by experience. The experience may
be positive, as in a successful test or mission, or negative, as in a mishap or failure. Successes
are also considered sources of lessons learned. A lesson must be significant in that it has a
real or assumed impact on operations; valid in that is factually and technically correct; and
applicable in that it identifies a specific design, process, or decision that reduces or eliminates
the potential for failures and mishaps, or reinforces a positive result (Secchi et al., 1999).
Lessons Learning Systems
Kotnour and Kurstedt (2000) defined a lesson learned as a knowledge-sharing mechanism that
incorporates a plan, recommendations, and results; more importantly, they recognized that
lessons learned are part of a larger system that serves Huber’s (1991) organizational learning
framework with three primary functions:
(a) Acquire and store information in organizational memory;
(b) Refine organizational memory; and
(c) Retrieve and distribute information to support a current decision-making or problem-solving
task.
Incident reports

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 107

Learner Manual
These explain the factors and context surrounding unsuccessful experiences, without offering
recommended solutions. The most common uses are for systems that track and monitor
safety/accident or security investigations.
Alerts
Reports of problems experienced with a particular item or technology that are shared with other
organizations, typically in the same industry, who may benefit from this knowledge. Note that
alerts may act as source material for a lesson learned.
Corporate memories
This is more of an abstract term to reflect both a process and repository of knowledge artifacts,
which may include alerts, incident reports, data warehouses, corporate stories (both in print
publications and video clips), best practices, and lessons learned.
Best practices
These describe previously successful ideas that are intended to address wider strategies within
the organization, though they may also target individual processes. They differ from lessons
learned in that they do not capture specific experiences and they only capture successful
stories.
Additionally, many organizations make use of case-based or rule-based systems to maintain
and disseminate knowledge. Each are defined with a different perspective on how knowledge
is represented:
Cases
These share the same assumptions as lessons, namely that problems are expected to recur
and similar problems can be solved using similar solutions (Leake, 1996). But whereas cases
are organized to accomplish a specific task, LL processes are tailored to reuse data for a variety
of tasks. Also, cases and lessons may not share the same grain size because there may be
multiple lessons (or other records) per case.
Rules
As with lessons, these associate a set of conditions with a response. But rules require a perfect
match of conditions, as well as consideration of any interrelations, before performing the
response. In contrast, lessons require the user to possess domain-specific knowledge in order
to apply the lesson’s response given the context of the set of conditions. This complicates the
lesson’s effective use by requiring additional data (or experience) before proceeding, though it
does allow for wider applicability because only a partial matching of conditions may be
necessary.

Integrating Lessons Learned Into Organizational Processes

The first step in implementing processes to support and embed lessons learned system is
simply awareness that the best way to learn and improve is to draw conclusions from past
experiences. Management must enable the transition to a different way of making decisions,

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 108

Learner Manual
but ultimately any LLS must support existing organizational processes (Davenport and Prusak,
2000; Aha et al., 1999; Leake et al., 2000; Reimer, 1998).
Werner and Perry (2004) suggest an integrated, common infrastructure with the following
characteristics:
➢ A structured process for incorporating lessons learned into existing organizational
processes;
➢ An easily accessible system where project-specific decisions are available to other
projects, including timely feedback to those already in service;
➢ A closed-loop process that ensures corrective actions are implemented, so that
underlying sources of problems are corrected system-wide;
➢ A process that includes periodic reviews and feedback;
➢ A disciplined, data driven approach to identify root causes and determine the best
actions to break the chain of events that lead to errors or incidents.
Root Causes, Context, and Precursor Events
The majority of lessons learned practices focus on negative events that undergo subsequent
in depth investigations and causal analyses. These investigations invariably search for the
underlying “root causes” of the incident, and care must be taken not to look at isolated events
but rather a complex system of conditions where only together are they sufficient to have
caused the incident. The linear chain-of-events thinking in which incidents are discrete and
instantaneous, called the “pinball” model, is often modelled by standard flow charts that fail to
take in an overall system viewpoint. Werner and Perry (2004) preferred that root causes be
considered “the first factor in a chain of events that can be controlled through a regulation,
policy or standard; it is the point in the chain of events at which internal control can be
exercised.”
Lessons Learned Processes
It bears repeating that the underlying motivation for implementing lessons learned processes
is to help an organization attain its own goals. These must be uniquely defined by the
organization itself, and any existing templates from other entities cannot completely match all
priorities for a particular organization. Nevertheless, many successful lessons learned practices
share common traits that can serve as guideposts for consideration
Collect
May be passive (organizational members submit their own lessons), reactive (members are
interviewed for collection), after action (typically by interview at the end of a project), proactive
(lessons are captured while problems are being solved), active (problems requiring solutions
are identified first and then solutions collected in a group setting; another method is to scan
existing document databases for lessons that require further sharing amongst group members),
or interactive (proposed for systems using artificial intelligence).
Note that focusing only on negative experiences reduces the potential effectiveness of an
LLS and misses opportunities to improve processes.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 109
Learner Manual
Verify
Typically performed by a team of experts that validate lessons for correctness, redundancy,
consistency and relevance. Many sources recommend the Gatekeeper role to validate criteria
or enforce rules, but Caldwell (2013) discourages this function out of concern about information
biases and the potential for censorship or prejudgment.
Store
Addresses issues related to the framework and structure such as formatting, representation of
data attributes, and indexing.
Disseminate
Potentially the most important technique for promoting lesson reuse, consisting of the following
options:
Passive dissemination: the most traditional (and ineffective) format in practice, users
must search (“pull”) a repository for lessons based on their own search criteria, often
by keyword search using a substandard tool.
Active casting: lessons are broadcast to potential users based on their self-defined
profiles that attempt to match the lesson’s content (targeted “push”).
Broadcasting: bulletins are sent to everyone in the organization, regardless of their
interest (indiscriminate “push”).
Active dissemination: users are notified of relevant lessons based on the context of
decisions that they are making elsewhere in the system (targeted “push”).
Proactive dissemination: the system predicts when to prompt the user with a relevant
lesson based on how the user interface is modelled.
Reactive dissemination: initiated by the user when they realize that they need additional
knowledge; popularly manifested by the “Help” option in most software systems.
Reuse. The ultimate purpose of the system; focuses on encouraging/promoting lessons
to be used by someone other than the submitter.
Organizational Innovation and Deployment (OID)
A process area within the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) methodology, this
identifies incremental and innovative improvements that will measurably improve an
organization’s processes and technologies. This could be characterized as both the process
and mechanism for the learning organization.

Proposed Lessons Learning System Attributes

Specifics on the shortcomings of many LL system attributes that result from poor planning of
the data structures:
Lesson formats are confusing and unstructured;
• Lessons and recommendations are reported in undisciplined natural language format;
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 110
Learner Manual
• Because of the undisciplined format, there is confusion and divergent views of whether
or not a lesson is being reported as a root cause, contributing factor, conclusion, finding,
issue, statement, recommendation, or scenario;
• Lesson relevancy or usefulness cannot be immediately determined but instead requires
perusal of extensive verbiage in the natural language reports;
• Assimilation of lessons by anyone other than an intended recipient is haphazard and
not measurable; and
• Lesson reporting suffers from proposing a response to causes and factors instead of
specifying behavioural changes that need to be made.

MODIFICATION MANAGEMENT
The pace of development of products and services has rapidly increased in the last two
decades. Enterprises are expected to respond to new market requirements with their products
and services in the shortest possible time. Expanding globalized markets makes response to
the changing demand for products and services even more imperative for
enterprises. Executives in companies have become aware that the saying, “Fail to keep pace
with time and time will pass you by,” applies more than ever. This situation has become a factor
to be reckoned with by all enterprises, causing a lot of headache to executives.
The existing organizational structure of companies was simply unable to cope with new and
fast changing market demands. The established way of doing things and classical
organizational structures (guidelines were described by Max Weber), which may have served
companies well for decades became too rigid and ill-suited for flexible adjustment to new
demands. The executives attempted to solve problems in companies, resulting from changing
demands, by staff reorganizations. However, it quickly became apparent that the selected
solution failed to deliver and soon new reorganizations were needed. The new organizational
structure was suitable only until new demands appeared on the market.
Organizational structures define responsibilities and competences, guide the flow of
information in an enterprise, and assist in work coordination. They represent a stable part of
an enterprise’s organization, designed for repeat activities. Organizational structures specify
the division of work of performers, work hierarchy and methods for achieving goals. However,
the business environment in the last decade is notable for its turbulence where the only
constant is change, as it is often said.
Experts in the field, both theoretical and practical, have, in the last few decades, paid special
attention to organizational structures. The emphasis was on finding the organizational structure
providing success and efficiency of enterprises in the new situation. The fact that companies
function on the basis of different processes taking place within them, which may be relatively
numerous, has eluded them for a long time. Of course not all processes are equally important,
some are of key importance, while others are less significant.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 111

Learner Manual
The majority of key processes run through several managerial positions, departments and
offices. Among the first ones to point out the new discovery of processes were Hammer and
Champy (1993), who also wrote the bestseller, “Re-Engineering the Corporation: A Manifesto
For Business Revolution,” which caused a revolution in the business world. Since the 1990s,
many companies have tried to solve their problems by reinventing their business processes
(Davenport, 1992). The most commonly used term in literature is business process
reengineering (BPR), which requires radical changes in work implementation and establishing
processes. In addition to business process reengineering, a number of other approaches to
reinventing business operations appear in that period, more than 20, for example, continuous
process improvement (Harkness, Kettinger, & Sagars, 1996), total quality management
(Deming, 1982), business process regeneration
(Kettinger & Teng, 2000), business process redesign (Davenport & Short, 1990), Kaizen and
others, supported by particular methodologies.
The entire range of approaches has more or less the same aim, namely to improve the
efficiency of business enterprises. The approaches differ in the methods proposed for achieving
the goal, ranging from fast and radical to slow and gradual changes.
The persons responsible in companies for the reinvention of business processes quickly
established that reinvented processes and the changed organizational structure of an
enterprise demand a changed and improved information system (Davenport & Beers, 2000).
Reinvention of business processes is often introduced together with the implementation of a
new integrated information system in the enterprise, the most commonly used term in literature
is enterprise resource planning (ERP), or some other partial solution (IDS Scheer, 2000). Both
the introduction of a new information
system and reinvention of business processes are usually one-off processes requiring
substantial input from companies. However, the market and customers’ demands change
virtually on a daily basis and require companies to continuously improve and adapt their
processes to new changes and demands. Company executives have realized that reinventing
business processes is not enough, processes need to be constantly adapted and improved
even after successfully implemented reengineering, if they want good results. In other words,
reinventing business processes does not mean that the job of establishing and adjusting
processes is completed, instead it represents a milestone, an actual start of changes, which
companies must take on if they want to retain their competitive edge.
FROM BPM TO BPE
Executives in companies, in which they have realized that their future can be successfully
planned only by constant adjustments to new situations, demands and conditions, follow the
guidelines set up in the last few years. Guidelines being a somewhat logical extension of
reengineering are business process management (BPM) (Holt, 2000;

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 112

Learner Manual

KT0405 EXPLAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF STANDARDS AND

SPECIFICATIONS IN ENSURING CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 113

Learner Manual
Standardization has been important to industrial progress since the dawn of mass production,
and it will continue to be so. Yet standardization is a widely misinterpreted function of
manufacturing. To gain the greatest manufacturing performance improvement leverage, we
need an understanding of related discipline and activities
Personal experience with other "standards" can be just as tiresome.
The term is applied very broadly:
Government standards:
• Regulations and codes.
Industry standards:
Fasteners, wire gages, containers, bar codes, and what seems like an infinite list of things
covered.
Company standards:
Nearly every aspect of life is referenced: materials, training, costs, and so forth. Bills of material
and lead-times are standards essential to both engineering systems and materials systems, for
instance, and product specifications are standards for both engineering and quality.
Choosing the Best Method
Difficulties in understanding the use of standardization are not new. Henry Ford discussed this
situation nearly 60 years ago: "To standardize a method is to choose out of many methods the
best one and use it. Standardization means nothing unless it means standardizing upward.
"What is the best way to do a thing? It is the sum of all the good ways we have discovered up
to the present. It therefore becomes the standard. To decree that today's standard shall be
tomorrow's is to exceed our power and authority. Such a decree cannot stand. We see all
around us yesterday's standards, but no one mistakes them for today's. Today's best, which
superseded yesterday's, will be superseded by tomorrow's best. That is a fact which theorists
overlook. They assume that a standard is a steel mould by which it is expected to shape and
confine all effort for an indefinite time. If that were possible, we should today be using the
standards of one hundred years ago, for certainly there was then no lack of resistance to
adopting what goes to make up the present standards.
Consistency and Quality
Standards promote consistency, and consistency is one of the major foundations of good
quality. Use of a standard assures that once a better method has been found, all in an
organization will use it until something better supersedes it. However, merely iSSUing a
standard in writing does not do this. Discipline in the development and use of standards does,
and that is part of progress.
For a lesson in the value of a good standardization in practice: visit a McDonald's restaurant
anywhere in the world. Compare one of their outlets to a franchise that "can't quite get its act
together." Personal appeal of a Big Mac is not the issue. Consistency is, and a Big Mac is a
Big Mac is a Big Mac -anywhere - like it or not.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 114

Learner Manual
Consistency is a major factor in quality performance and quality production. How do you know
if you have effective standardization? Watch a multi-shift operation, such as a plastic moulding
operation, at shift change. If the first action of a number of operators is to begin tweaking the
setup conditions of the previous shift, standardization has a way to go.
Why do the operators do that?
Because no one has a fixed idea what the proper operating conditions of each part on each
press should be. The quality specifications for acceptable parts also may be slightly
"adjustable." Everybody then has a different idea about it in practice, although the specifications
and standard sheets may have been around long enough to have turned yellow. The reasons
why operators alter running conditions vary. They may be attempting to touch up the quality of
the part, or make the machine run a little better, or just "Iay it in a groove" so they do not need
to check it for a while as they research the point spreads for the weekend ball games.
Unravelling this situation and arriving at "correct" operating conditions takes work picking
through many variables. Specifications, mould, maintenance, material – all should be free
enough of variance that every operator can set the equipment to the same settings and agree
that those are the best. Standardization is a disciplined company-wide practice as well as a
procedure. Operators need not only be aware that a standard exists, but must understand it
and agree with it. Otherwise, they will not follow it.
Practice is the backbone of detailed improvement. Without this discipline, improvements once
attained cannot be held.
Visibility and Operator Responsibility
When touring a top Just-In Time plant, one factor to look for is visibility of operator standards
and directions. Instructions for anything important should be out where operators can see them,
not filed away and forgotten.
Another important practice: Make operators (and supervisors) responsible for the correctness
and
currency of their instructions. They may not write them in the original, but they use them and
interpret them. Once they know that their work methods are correct, the instructions should
describe them clearly enough that another experienced operator can use the instructions to
perform the same job in a correct manner. Rotate workers in their positions from time to time
to try this out.
Writing Standards
Experience in doing this job well is not developed in a few days-the time frame is more like a
few years. It does not help if writing standards is considered by many to be "grub" work of
little consequence (both Ford and Ohno considered writing a standard of this kind to be
among their most valuable educational experiences.) The details are the bedrock of
manufacturing improvement.
In the Toyota system a standard consists of three parts:

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 115

Learner Manual
1. Cycle time: The lime allowed for performing one cycle of making the part derived from the
cycle time of use for the part (inverse of the frequency of use of the part at assembly). If the
cycle time of use substantially changes, the method for making it may substantially change, a
change in fabrication procedures roughly analogous to rebalancing an assembly line. The
objective is to come close to making parts at the rate they are needed.
2. Sequence and detail of work: Specifics of how to do it, and how to do it correctly. How to
accomplish each of the specifications required, failsafe methodology to be employed, and so
forth.
3. The standard WIP: This is related to the amount of time allowed to recover from a problem
should one occur, allow for possible changes in mix of parts required, and so forth.
Standards are also written for setups in order to perform them quickly. These standards are
very important to quality. The first piece made from a subsequent setup should be identical to
the last one made from the prior setup. If machine, tooling and procedure are developed to
this point, any extra tool wear from frequent setups should disappear, and the checking of
quality at setup times should add to the assurance of it. Well-done setup reduction is a
process very much like any other experimentation to be performed in production, subject to
the methods of standardization.

Figure 3 diagrams the way in which standardization fits into the overall approach to "Just-In-
Time manufacturing" in the repetitive case for companies which have the potential for it.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 116

Learner Manual
However, standardization is still important for companies whose potential for repetitive work is
somewhat limited.
Done well throughout an organization, standardization should clarify everyone's job, if not make
it easier. Improvements should be possible to prove, and one person's improvement not
undone by others. Standardization affects every aspect of manufacturing. It is part of the glue
holding things together. Some examples:
• Drawing methods
• Bills of material
• Engineering change methods
• Tooling development
• Specifications
• Gaging, test methods, test equipment
• Maintenance procedures
• Programming documentation
• Order entry
• Work-to-schedule discipline.
How Standards Work
Standardization is used with at least four kinds of understanding, and perhaps more:
1. Unification of concept -cohesive action. A single activity fulfils multiple objectives. Simplicity.
For instance, much of the detail of their quality system is packed together into one unified chart.
2. Documented, consistent procedures and conditions: quality, methods, maintenance, and so
forth; detail is provided.
3. Retaining one-time improvements in practice until better are found.
4. A step-by-step methodology for questioning old assumptions and developing new
improvements. In brief, this methodology is: Seek causes (Ask why five times, etc.). Solve.
Check solution. Standardize. Do it again.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 117

Learner Manual
What have you learnt in this study manual?

Copyright © All Rights Reserved 118