Productivity Trap

The 'Productivity Trap' in Services

The evolution of a developed service-centred economy has significant implications on a country economic growth, investment and capital formation, employment and productivity. Services tend to be more labour intensive and use less capital equipment than manufacturing. Productivity growth tends to be slower in services than in manufacturing - a 'productivity trap' of a developed service-centred economy.

The 'productivity trap' is neither an inescapable fact nor is it a Hobson's choice. The choice does not lie with the government, it lies with the organisations themselves. It is the task of every member in the organisation to help raise the productivity and quality of the services they provide.

Understanding Productivity and Quality in Services

Productivity and quality in services have many differences compared with their manufacturing siblings, which produces physical goods. Although these differences are varied and widely recognised, to the customers in buying a product or service, their main goals remain the same, that is, to maximise their utility or satisfaction. Productivity and quality in services is all about customer satisfaction.

The paradigm to manage productivity and quality in services can be conceptualised as an ongoing process of integrating the dynamic relationship of customer, organisation and environment to achieve continuous customer satisfaction.

Customer Happiness

In the experience-centric economy, businesses are aggressively seeking differentiated customer experience as a way to build customer loyalty and competitive advantage over their competitors.  The renaming of customer service awards to customer experience awards in leading economies such as the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore has helped to create and promote customer experience as a key differentiator in service. Customer experience is transactional, emotional and transformational. The core of customer experience is happiness, which comes from the “heart”:

Happiness,

Emotions,

Awareness,

Relation, and

Trust.

Articles by Johnson Ong Chee Bin

Articles by Johnson Ong Chee Bin:

• The Tipping Point of a Happy Economy (Jobscentral, July 2014)
• In Search of Happiness (Surwinette Associates, http://surwinette.com/, Oct 2013)
• The Happiness DNA (Today’s Manager, Jun-Jul 2012)
• Adding Emotional Value to Customer Experience (Today’s Manager, Feb – Mar 2011)
• The Heart of Customer Experience (Today’s Manager, Aug – Sep 2010)
• The How, What, Who and Why of Service Training (Today’s Manager, Dec 2009 – January 2010)
• The Great Service DNA (SQI Newsletter Apr – Sept 2009)
• The Great Service DNA in Singapore (Awarded the “Best Paper” at the 7^th ANQ Congress, Tokyo Sep 2009, and SQI Yearbook 2009/10)
• Treat Your Customer as Your Guest (Today’s Manager June/July 2009)
• The Art of Great Welcome (Today’s Manager December 2008/January 2009)
• Your Attitude Determines Your Destiny (Vaidurya August/September 2008)
• From Good to Great Service (Today’s Manager June/July 2008 and Human Capital March/April 2008)
• Delight Customers with the Magic Experience (Today’s Manager December 2007/January 2008)
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective Service Professionals (Human Capital September/October 2007)
• Keep Difficult Customers Happy (Today’s Manager, August/September 2007)
• The Face and Feel of Service (Human Capital Plus, June 2007)
• High Five to Great Service! (Human Capital, July/August 2006)
• Delighting Customers with RARE Service (Human Capital Plus, January/February 2006)
• Transforming and Managing Quality Circles in the Age of Innovation (International Convention on Quality Control Circles (ICQCC) 2005, Korea, November 2005)
• The “RAdiCAL” Approach to Innovation (Human Capital Plus, July 2005)
• The C.A.R.E. Approach to Service Excellence (Human Capital, March 2005)
• A Holistic Approach to Change Management (Human Capital, October 2004)
• An Integrated Competency-Based Performance Management System (Human Capital, May 2004)
• Holistic Approach to Human Capital Development and Management (Human Capital, February 2004)
• Framework for World-Class Business Excellence in the New Economy (Today’s Manager, August 2000)
• A Total Quality Management (TQM) Model for Service Organisation to Achieve World-Class Business Excellence (Productivity Digest, July 2000)
• Total Quality Management in Singapore: A Model for Service Organisations (QC Focus, August/September 1999)
• Paradigm for Managing Productivity and Quality in Services (QC Focus, July/August 1995 and September/October 1995)

TQM Model for Service Organisations

This research documents the ‘best-in-class’ TQM practices adopted by six leading service organisations in Singapore. The main objective of this research is to develop a TQM model to help organisations to achieve world-class business excellence.

Strategy-People-System-Culture (SPSC) Model

In today’s business world, no organisations can do business or survive in isolation. Organisations, therefore, need to respond to their customer, competitor and environment; and quickly integrate them into their business strategies and plans. TQM practices adopted by organisations, likewise, have to be adjusted or modified accordingly. There is no exception.

Strategy allows organisations to achieve a viable match between their external factors (customer, competitor and environment) and internal capabilities and resources (people, system and culture). The role of strategy should not be viewed as a passive response to the opportunities and threats presented by the external factors, but rather a process of continuously and actively adapting the organisation to meet the demands of a changing customer, competitor and environment. Given this perspective, the TQM SPSC model (see Figure below) encompasses four focus points:

·         The customer, which is the central focus of the organisation’s business

·         The competitor, which determines the key competitive factors and trends

·         The environment, which determines the key environmental factors and trends

·         The internal competencies, which defines the ways to compete

ASEAN University Network-Quality Assurance (AUN-QA)

Quality Assurance (QA) in Higher Education

Quality in higher education is not a simple one-dimensional notion about academic quality. It is a multi-dimensional concept in view of its varied stakeholders’ needs and expectations.

The World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty First Century: Vision and Action (October 1998), Article 11, Qualitative Evaluation considers quality in higher education as “a multi-dimensional concept, which should embrace all its functions, and activities; teaching and academic programmes, research and scholarship, staffing, students, buildings, facilities, equipment, services to the community and the academic environment. Internal self-evaluation and external review, conducted openly by independent specialists, if possible with international expertise, are vital for enhancing quality.”

To develop, implement, maintain and improve the level of quality in higher education, a university needs to install a quality assurance system. The Regional Report of Asia and the Pacific (UNESCO, 2003b) defines quality assurance in higher education as “systematic management and assessment procedures to monitor performance of higher education institutions”.

AUN-QA Models

AUN recognises the importance of quality in higher education, and the need to develop a holistic quality assurance system to raise academic standards and enhance education, research and service among AUN member universities.  In 1998, it mooted the AUN-QA initiative which led to the development of AUN-QA models. In the last decade, AUN-QA has been promoting, developing, and implementing quality assurance practices based on an empirical approach where quality assurance practices are shared, tested, evaluated, and improved. The AUN-QA timeline is depicted in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1 – AUN-QA Timeline

The AUN-QA Models comprise strategic, systemic and tactical dimensions (see Figure 2)

and are subjected to both internal and external QA including accreditation.

Figure 2 – AUN-QA Models for Higher Education

Internal QA ensures that an institution, system or programme has policies and mechanisms in place to make sure that it is meeting its own objectives and standards.

External QA is performed by an organisation or individuals outside the institution. The assessors evaluate the operation of the institution, system or programme in order to determine whether it meets the agreed upon or predetermined standards.

Accreditation is the process of external quality review used in higher education to scrutinise colleges, universities and higher education programmes for quality assurance and quality improvement in order to formally recognise it as having met certain predetermined criteria or standards and award a quality label or mark.

The AUN-QA models are applicable to the diverse universities of ASEAN and they are also aligned to both regional and international quality assurance frameworks.

Source: Guide to AUN Actual Quality Assessment at Programme Level

Holistic Approach to Change Management

Change is a pervasive and constant feature of modern business life. It can be said to be the single most important element of successful business management today. Ignoring or trivialising a changing trend can be costly. To remain competitive in increasingly aggressive markets, organisations and individuals have to embrace and adopt a positive attitude to change. In all business environments, managers and their employees are required to identify, lead and undergo unprecedented levels of change in order to sustain advantage in an increasing competitive and unforgiving world.

The Need for a Holistic Approach

The imperative to change the way organisations do business may be great but the success rate of change programmes is not so great. About 75 percent of all organisational change programmes failed, largely because employees felt left out of the process and end up lacking the motivation, skills and knowledge to adopt new systems and procedures.¹ A recent global survey of 500 companies by PricewaterhouseCoopers showed nine out of ten obstacles to corporate change were linked to the capabilities, attitudes or behaviours of people.² The same survey also found that the top ten success factors for change placed emphasis on people. Therefore, the barriers to successful change are usually people related rather than technical problems. This calls for a holistic approach to manage change successfully in dealing with the vagaries of human behaviours and emotions.

Service DNA

Do Singaporeans have the Service DNA?

We align organisation’s culture, attitude and service to create positive memorable customer experiences using the Service DNA as illustrated below.

Coaching, Training and Consulting Services

• The Happiness DNA

• The Customer Happiness DNA

• The Workplace Happiness DNA

• The Art of Great Service

• The Heart of Great Service

Hey Leader, Wake Up and Hear the Feedback

Today received 5 copies of "Hey leader, wake up and hear the feedback". My submission "leader" was among the 600 selected for publication. Page 53, hope it helps anyone who reads the book.

LEADER

My thought on leadership "LEADER" which stands for Listen, Empower, Advocate, Develop, Encourage and Role Model was published in the "Hey Leader, Wake Up and Hear the Feedback!" published by theWalkTheTalk.Com. It was among the 600 submissions selected for publication. Hope this book can give you tips on leadership.

The Happiness DNA

The Happiness DNA consists of 7 dimensions: financial, career, physical, mental, social, environmental and spiritual as illustrated in the diagram.

Are You Happy?

Take a moment to think about what you have been doing now and in the past. What are you pursuing: cash, career, condominium, car or certificate?

Does the pursuit of these material things make you happier? A poll conducted by Asiaone in 2009 showed that 60 percent of the people were not happy with their lives in Singapore. Similarly, a 2007 survey on overall life satisfaction and planning for the future by AXA Life Insurance showed Singapore ranked the lowest among the eight Asian countries. The life outlook index of Singapore was 59.2 as compared to the highest index of 87.2 for India.

The study of what makes people happy repeatedly demonstrates that the route to happiness is not about the endless accumulation of wealth. Rather, it resides in a host of personal dimensions known as the "Happiness DNA".

What is happiness?

Happiness means different things to different people. To some, happiness may means "shiok", "joy", "peace", "lucky", "yummy", "happy" and to others it may means "enlightment", "a sense of purpose", "true happiness" etc. Lord Richard Layard, Founder, Action for Happiness defines it as "We all want to be happy and we want the people we love to be happy. Happiness means feeling good about our lives and wanting to go on feeling that way. Unhappiness means feeling bad and wanting things to change".

Each of us has a different interpretation of what happiness is and it is personal.

What is happiness to you?

World Happy Day

Do you know that 11 February 2012 is a very special day?

It is the first World Happy Day. This special day was celebrated in 60 countries over 600 locations. They joined together to view the HAPPY movie and began their journeys towards healthier and happier lives.

Join the Action for Happiness movement http://www.actionforhappiness.org/ and pledge to create a better, happier future for all beings.

About Living Better

Living Better is a Singapore’s registered business founded by Johnson Ong Chee Bin with a vision to create a happier world by empowering individuals and organisations to live a purposeful and fulfilling mission. We aspire to bring happiness to all beings.

The Living Better logo is represented by the characters "L" and "B". The two characters form a double heart symbol. A heart for oneself and a heart for others. Happiness has to start from oneself before one can spread happiness to others. 

The green colour denotes growing and living while the orange colour denotes hope, vitality and energy. The letter "V" in the word Living is represented by a heart symbol which denotes the source of one's being.  Happiness is a natural pursuit of all beings and it is both a conscious and sub-conscious choice. Happier People lead to a Happier World which is espoused in the motto - "Happier People Happier World". 

The logo symbolises a happy face which espouses the vision of Living Better. People are all born happy but we simply forget how to be happy as we work and live to pursue our materialistic goals. We empower you to rediscover and renew your natural true self through the Happiness DNA.