Wastes in an Organisation: Non-utilised Talent

( also known as "Skills" in the acronym TIMWOODS)

I wrote about the eight most common wastes in an organisation and explained DEFECTS, OVERPRODUCTION and WAITING wastes in my previous posts. Link to my previous blog posts is here.

This post is about the fourth waste of DOWNTIME: Non-Utilised Talent. It can also be referred as SKILLS in the acronym TIMWOODS.

Taiichi Ohno originally identified seven wastes in Toyota Production System (TPS) and non-utilised talent was not included. However, many practitioners and organisations have added "non-utilised talent" as eighth waste to Ohno’s original list connecting to the notion that if you don’t maximise the contribution of employees and motivate them to excel, then this is "waste" or at least an opportunity lost. Some people also argue that adding non-utilised talent in the list of wastes raises several issues since it cannot be easily identified in a process or value stream, cannot be readily acted upon, can arguably be distracting in the search for the other wastes, positions non-utilised talent in a negative context while realising and utilising potential should be considered as an opportunity in a positive context. Organisations can consider their own activities and decide which wastes are more applicable to them. A waste more applicable to the manufacturing industry might not be as relevant to a service industry for instance. DOWNTIME wastes are a great starting point and organisations can develop their own waste lists based on the DOWNTIME wastes knowledge.

Definition By dictionary definition talent is (someone who has) a natural ability to be good at something, especially without being taught. Non-utilised talent refers under, or not at all, utilising people's skills, talent and knowledge. It can be extended to not engaging employees in the process, not using employees intellectual contribution, under utilising their capabilities, delegating tasks with inadequate information or training and unused employee creativity. Companies who fail in this area not only miss the great benefits when recognising the value of talent, skills and improvement ideas from all levels of the business, but also suffer when under-utilised people don't effectively engage and therefore are likely to become dissatisfied, begin to perform poorly and even leave. You might have seen in some workplaces management calling " Our most important assets are our employees". I personally do not like to call employees as assets which sounds more like a financial transaction matter. Assets in financial terms can be any resource owned by the business. They represent value of ownership that can be converted into cash, which is also an asset. Employees work in the service of an employer but they are not owned by the employer. It is important not to give the wrong message to the employees by calling them assets.

Possible Causes of Non-Utilised Talent

• Assigning staff to wrong tasks

• Wasteful admin tasks

• Poor communication

• Lack of teamwork

• Management's refusal to include employees in problem solving

• Insufficient training

• Not listening to team members' improvement suggestions

• Not recognising employee contributions, strengths and talent

• Applicable skills from previous roles aren’t recognised/ used ( Once a manager who hired me told me after months that he did not know about my Six Sigma Black Belt training and experience when I mentioned it when it could be of use. I assumed he would know from my CV).

• Not well defined jobs and expectations

• Poor management in general

• Employees who have shown a growth mindset (instead of fixed mindset) aren’t being given the resources to develop new, higher-level skills

• Hiring practices in the enterprise aren’t aligned so that the new talent in the organisation is being placed or shifted most effectively

• Further training opportunities aren’t available to employees showing aptitude
  

Please note that many of the above causes are the same ones that result in a lack of employee engagement.

Possible Impacts of Non-Utilised Talent

• Dissatisfied employees

• Poor employee performance

• Higher employee turnover rate

• Low morale in the organisation over time
  

Possible Solutions

Photo by Rohan Makhecha on Unsplash

• Empower employees

• Do not micro-manage

• Employee and also management training, mentoring and coaching

• Encourage employee suggestions

• Create open door policy

• Form employee teams to solve problems

• Provide cross-training

• Encourage employees to take ownership of their processes to promote involvement
  

Simply you should treat experienced people as process experts who know what they're doing, not as interchangeable spare parts in your system. Don't just tell them what to do, ask them to think too. Leaders must have adequate understanding of their employees’ backgrounds and current skills, and an organisation must have a system in place that allows for this type of information to be known and acted upon.

"I remember early in my career one of my managers telling openly that one employee comes, one employee goes. I still remember how I felt at the time: as if we, as employees, have no value to the organisation and are interchangeable. His comments affected me indefinitely as starting from the early times of my career I wanted to know the values of an organisation I work for and compare them with my own values. Since I personally value every individual and believe we all have some great skills and talent, I never liked working for organisations considering their employees as "assets" or a transaction matter. I have always had the intention to create an environment, an organisation, for myself and others who have similar values to mine and treat everyone respectfully and fairly. I will write about values and how they can affect your day to day lives including your work-life in a future post."

If you want to continue the discussion email or follow me on LinkedIn.

---

Zeynep Yalcin Parks is lead consultant at Derin Consulting. She helps organisations become better at achieving their purpose. She can help you find the wastes within your organisation and the right solutions to eliminate them .

---

Follow Derin Consulting on LinkedIn.

Get in touch: hello@derinconsulting.com.

Visit our website: www.derinconsulting.com. * Cover photo by Shridhar Gupta on Unsplash.