Powered by frontline people - Rolls-Royce Engine Services – Oakland

People, front and centre. That’s not just a catch phrase at Rolls-Royce – people are our most valuable asset, and how they engage with the business directly affects company culture and how they feel about coming to work every day. It’s simple really – the more engaged people feel, the higher the morale. So it goes without saying that Rolls-Royce is working to more effectively engage people with the business – it’s a priority throughout the company.

In 2004, we conducted our first Global Employee Engagement Survey. The results highlighted the need to improve employee engagement across the company.

In North America, a team was put in place to implement a new kind of engagement effort in Rolls-Royce – one owned by frontline, employee-led action teams. Called Winning Workplace, it was piloted at the company’s North America Rolls-Royce Engine Services, Oakland (RRESO) facility, and launched in December 2005.

Winning Workplace is a unique business improvement programme grounded in team-based problem solving, working partnerships between employees and leadership, and disciplined methodology and tools. The goals of the RRESO programme include: employees who are better informed about the business and involved in their jobs and teams; promoting honest dialogue through additional and better two-way communications; and, increasing trust and partnerships between departments, shifts and levels.

With the help of a third-party, change-management partner, L.M. Dulye & Co., 26 RRESO employees from all departments and shifts became the phase one Winning Workplace team. Rolls-Royce North America (corporate headquarters) fully supported the programme and had two representatives on the team – one from human resources and one from internal communications. Working together, their job would be to identify issues, develop solutions and work with leadership to implement solutions.

A dedicated budget was put in place to support the programme. Team members were given ten hours a week to devote to Winning Workplace meetings, on the understanding that their managers were responsible for providing work cover while they were engaged in such activities. A dedicated programme room was set aside for the team.

The journey wasn’t always easy and initial scepticism was high. Initiative burnout was a real problem – employees had heard it before and didn’t believe that an employee-led team would truly have the support of senior management. The team itself had the same concerns. Management had doubts as to whether an employee-led team would be able to develop realistic solutions that could be implemented. Everyone had a ‘wait and see’ attitude. Also, team members needed to be trained on several of the methodologies and tools that would be used in the programme – conducting research, identifying root causes, developing detailed improvement plans and creating a measurement system – a seemingly monumental task at the outset.

The process

Analysis of data from the 2004 Survey, follow-up focus group data and feedback received during all-hands meetings, highlighted two critical areas that required initial attention: mutual trust – between all levels and departments; and, increased business knowledge – employees understanding how their roles fit into the overall business strategy.

From the 26 employees, two teams of 13 were formed, one team for each issue.

The teams met two to three times a week for three months between January and March 2006. Each team self-selected ‘co-leads’ and one ‘expediter’ to partner with the outside facilitator in managing the team and team meetings. Co-leads were also responsible for presenting updates to senior leadership during monthly, one-hour, face-to-face meetings.

Winning Workplace team members used Team Action Planning (TAP) to research and develop improvement recommendations. Through this process they learnt to define the project scope, conduct research, identify root causes, develop detailed improvement plans, and create a measurement system to track results. TAP was easily aligned with the DMAIC principles already in use in Process Excellence, the cornerstone for problem solving at Rolls-Royce.

While the teams progressed with the problem solving activities, they also launched several ‘quick win’ actions in the early stages of their work that introduced new standards for team building, decision making and sharing information throughout the site, including:

§          Weekly huddles – 15 minute information sharing/gathering sessions held in each work area;

§          Formal feedback process – a method for quickly gathering employee feedback that can be used to make formal improvements;

§          Winning Workplace Information Center to centrally locate all site communications;

§          Winning Workplace Update – newsletter produced in-house and distributed weekly to all employees;

§          Formal programme review process of project status with senior leadership;

§          Revamp of quarterly all-hands business review meetings, including length, speakers, topics, format and content.

Through the ‘huddles’, feedback process and new communication tools, employees began to see and experience change in the workplace. Actively connecting with employees from the beginning helped relieve some of the scepticism and provided the Winning Workplace team with much needed grassroots support. The formal feedback process also gave employees a role to play in the effort, enabling them to express their opinions about issues requiring attention.

In analysing all available data, the teams identified the following root causes:

1.         Lack of accountability;

2.         Micro-management;

3.         Resistant to change/fear of thinking outside the box;

4.         Top-down management;

5.         No consistent plan for career development;

6.         Information not shared/lack of ‘big picture’ awareness;

7.         Ineffective policies, procedures and systems;

8.         Inconsistent management and use of information systems.

Improvements were focused on the issues raised in the data. Each team came up with three recommendations, all of which addressed at least one of the main root causes identified.

Teams presented problem statements (see fig 2), root cause analysis information and their recommendations, including estimated budget/cost to complete, to the RRESO leadership team in March 2006.

The trust team focused on leadership training, behaviour and communication.  Recommendations were to:

§          Develop a meeting effectiveness programme, including disciplined tools, processes and training for use at all department and company meetings;

§          Create and implement a continuous leadership learning and development pilot programme for senior managers and above; and

§          Establish a regularly scheduled, work centre walk-around process for managers, directors, vice presidents and the president at the facility to increase visibility and improve two-way familiarity and communication with the workforce.

The knowledge team concentrated on communication and employee involvement. Recommendations were to:

§          Develop a Business Knowledge Communications Team for the company;

§          Elevate Winning Workplace weekly huddles to departmental-level business huddles. A key product of the huddles will be a scorecard that will be used to document issues and develop action plans;

§          Establish a Voice of the Customer process to include six to eight customer events per year.

Senior leadership approved all six recommendations and a dedicated integration team was formed. All six recommendations have been successfully implemented over the past 12 months. Continuous monitoring and measurement helps to identify areas where corrective action is needed. These original recommendations provided the platform for system changes to drive better business performance – and it’s working.

Cross-functional teamwork is important to RRESO and Rolls-Royce – and it’s on the rise. Increased collaborative efforts between different shops are much more prevalent and silos are breaking down. During a shop re-design of one programme, delicate machinery requiring calibration had to be moved. The certification process can take several days. Working together, a multi-disciplined team accomplished the project in hours by having everyone and all the right equipment in place.

In another example, a group looked at new technology to increase quality and repeatability and decrease labour hours. The measurement of compressor rotors in the subject programme was a manual system averaging 32-36 labour hours. With the addition of laser measurement tooling the time taken to complete the task has been reduced to a remarkable 11 hours and the error rate has decreased by 400 per cent. Challenging employees to work more efficiently has also led to a reduction of labour hours by 19 per cent in another production area.

A key to validating the success of RRESO’s engagement programme would come directly from measuring our employees’ opinion of Winning Workplace. In a survey conducted last October following the group’s Q3 Business Review, employees responded with a 94 per cent approval rating of the six recommendations implemented over the last year. This feedback also showed that overall business literacy is improving. Employees are learning more about the company and how their individual contributions affect company targets.

The latest Winning Workplace project, centred on new employee orientation, is again being driven and directed by frontline employees. And, when Oakland’s site-specific results from the 2006 Global Employee Engagement Survey are analysed, the teams put in place to act on those results will also be from the frontline.

Employee-driven action teams and the methodologies used in Winning Workplace have become part of RRESO’s culture – it’s how RRESO addresses challenges and develops new programmes. Winning Workplace has changed the way people work together. In the words of Raj Sharma, President, RRESO:

“The Winning Workplace methodology has become part of our company culture, closely tied to process excellence. Getting groups of employees together to deal with issues as they arise gets them more involved in the business and makes them owners of the solution.”

At the end of the day, people excellence drives our business. RRESO has learnt that to excel, it must start with the engagement and involvement of the true drivers of business success – frontline employees. The Winning Workplace programme has been an eye-opening experience for RRESO. And while some scepticism remains, open and honest dialogue with employees about Winning Workplace’s continuous progress is helping to establish and reinforce RRESO’s commitment to its success.

Lisa C. Lange is director of internal communications, Rolls-Royce North America. She can be contacted on lisa.lange@rollsroyce.com

Fig 1

Rolls-Royce Engine Services – Oakland

Repair and overhaul facility for aircraft engines

§          FAA Repair Station for fixed wing and tilt rotor aircraft, and helicopters;

§          ISO Certified;

§          Complete in house remanufacturing and on-site testing;

§          Civil and defense work for more than 25 countries;

§          450 Non-Union employees – two shifts;

§          65 per cent – Works;

§          35 per cent – Staff;

§          Diverse employee base: 49 per cent ‘minority’, 20 per cent female.

Fig 2

Problem statements

Mutual Trust Team Problem Statement

Ties cultural issues to profitability – “Lack of mutual trust and accountability between all levels of employees results in ineffective job partnerships…(and) greatly inhibits our ability to perform as a successful, efficient team and improve our profitability.”

Business Knowledge Team Problem Statement

Communication issues tied to bottom-line impact  – “The disparity between what people hear and see and what they are told… hampers our ability to perform as a team to world class standards.”

Fig 3

Mission statements

Mission Statement

Narrowed the scope and guided team members’ behaviour by focusing on “Bridging the gap and building partnerships between all levels of employees…”

Winning Workplace Team Mission Statement

Bridging the gap and building partnerships between all levels of employees through trust and knowledge for a stronger RRESO.

Our winning attitude creates positive change through innovative, customer-focused people.

Fig 4

Why winning workplace?

“A ‘winning workplace’ is what we at RRESO want to be. We don’t want to be just a pretty good place to work, but a great place to work where employees are fully engaged with the business,” explains Raj Sharma, President, RRESO. “Our focus is on improving business performance through a more informed and involved workforce. The Winning Workplace programme will serve to kick-start the needed culture shift, and hopefully sustain it.”