Working with Others

Employees who gain basic skills perform better as members of a team or in supervisory roles: 

• Better Team Performance

• Improved Effectiveness of Supervisory Staff

• Improved Understanding of the Culture of the Group/Organization

Better Team Performance

Eighty-two cent of employers saw better team performance among WEP graduates, an important aspect of improving the capacity of employees to work successfully with others in the organization that employs them. The scale of change was significant: many employers measured really substantial improvements in team performance of 75 per cent or better.

Some WEP courses improved employees’ team performance by focusing their curriculum on interpersonal skills development. Interpersonal skills courses can have a lasting and significant impact on employees who learn lessons and gain skills that they can immediately apply at work. For example, one employer saw his employees immediately apply the conflict resolution techniques taught in their interpersonal skills course during a grievance meeting held soon after they completed the course.

In one unionized manufacturing plant, a common team problem before the training was that employees failed to notify their team leaders when they identified a problem because they were afraid that they would look stupid. WEP training gave them the insight and confidence to spot problems and bring them to the attention of their team leader.

In a sense, everyone who works for the organization that employs them can be viewed as part of the team. When employees gain a greater interest in the organization-team they tend to feel like more of a partner and therefore they are more committed to teamwork.

"The training helps employees feel more like business partners in the organization."

The importance of building the capacity of employees to work with others in teams is enormous. WEP-based improvements may come from improving their literacy skills so that employees speak and write better English and can communicate more effectively. They may also come from changing employees’ attitudes to other individuals and groups in the workplace by creating opportunities for personal interaction between employers, employees and union representatives as they undergo training. However the change occurs, the benefits to the employer are significant.

When team performance improves, employees take more initiative, individuals rely more on one another for help, tensions are reduced, and people are able to trust each other for their personal safety. They tend to work more effectively because they can solve problems quickly, and help one another incrementally improve how they do their work. As their teamwork skills improve and they become more positive about working with others, employees become increasingly comfortable about sharing their expertise. Often, employers are unaware that this expertise even exists because it relates to the particular processes and techniques involved in doing a specific job in a specific workplace setting that are only understood in full detail by the employees themselves. Yet the results can be profound, yielding measurable improvements in performance.

Another important aspect of better teamwork is the enhanced capacity of employees’ to perform each others’ jobs and to take on new jobs, either by exchange or by job rotation, as the need arises. This can keep employees’ fresher and more interested in their work because the dulling effect of long-term repetition of work is reduced or eliminated. It can also increase the capacity of the team to take on new work and get it done within a tight time limit because it enables large numbers of people to work together and focus their effort on solving a problem or stepping up production in a given area.

"It has improved team performance. When we started the jobs were individual people doing separate jobs. For example, one person put the handles on the lab cases and another put the sides on. Now we have employees rotating through jobs."

Improved Effectiveness of Supervisory Staff

Supervisors who take part in WEPs are subsequently more effective on the job, according to nearly 70 per cent of employers. One reason for this often unexpected benefit is that supervisors gain better reading, writing, speaking and listening skills which makes them more effective in communicating with employees. Supervisors who learn to listen closely to their staff and read their memos, reports and email carefully are more successful because they understand what their employees are saying; when they add speaking and writing skills they can give them clear direction and help them to solve workplace problems.

Supervisors also gain in effectiveness when they become more adept at taking a team approach in working with others. This is tied to their attitude to staff - sharing the experience of training tends to build mutual respect among supervisors and employees which in turn promotes better teamwork. Finally, supervisors become more effective because some of the on-the-job training is taken off their shoulders, leaving them more time to focus on supervising production of products and services. As one employer put it, "They spend less time teaching employees the basics and can get back to a [core] supervisory role."

Higher skilled employees make their supervisors more effective. When employees graduate from WEPs with greater problem solving skills and the ability to work with looser direction, their supervisors gain in effectiveness because they are left with more time to focus on their core supervisory responsibilities. As employee empowerment and ownership take hold supervisory staff become even more effective.

ESL training is an important strategy for improving supervisors’ effectiveness. Having a common language of communication means they can communicate instructions better and obtain more feedback from employees, who are more likely to express their opinions and ideas than they did before. After ESL, supervisors are less likely to find themselves running to find an interpreter to communicate with their staff. This improves the effectiveness of both supervisors and employees because their ability to communicate their needs in English make them better able to resolve situations more quickly and effectively.

ESL can also teach managers and supervisors how to train better. They learn how to take complicated concepts and break them down so they are easier to understand. When intercultural and diversity training classes are associated with ESL the benefits are increased. Supervisors who are made more aware of the needs of employees and more sensitive to cultural diversity became attuned to how to make their employees perform effectively.

These changes can lead to bottom-line results. For example, one manufacturing company has been able to reduce the number of supervisors it needs per shift from one per 18 production assembly staff to one per 28 production assembly staff, largely thanks to the impact of its WEP. Calculated as a percentage of total revenue, the cost of supervisory staff has gone fallen from 0.1% to 0.03%.

Another manufacturing workplace which pre-WEP had 37-40 employees and four foremen, now has 55 employees and three foremen. The impact on performance and capacity is enormous: the employer feels his company wouldn’t have obtained ISO 9002 certification without the WEP courses.

"Now the guys figure out most things for themselves. Even 5 or 6 years ago they saw that as the supervisor’s job. The math has almost completely shifted from front office to the shop floor."

Supervisors are happier as a result. They like to know that they can depend on their employees to move one another along.

Improved Understanding of the Culture of the Group/Organization

Ultimately, one of the greatest benefits of WEPs is that employees gain a much better understanding of the culture of their workplace or their work group within the workplace. This makes them feel more connected and less isolated which, in turn, enhances their capacity to work effectively with others.

An important dimension of understanding the organization’s culture is that employees gain an appreciation of its values and strategies for success. In many cases, employers have found that their employees did not grasp why change was being embraced so readily by management and did not fully understand how important they, as employees, would be in bringing about successful change. Often this was because the employees’ English language skills were inadequate to comprehend changes such as technological innovation, corporate mergers and new production processes. After participating in WEPs these same employees were better able to understand the significance of change and what it would mean for them. Above all, they gained crucial insights into their role.

More generally, WEPs give employees an increased understanding of what is going on and why it is happening. They help employees to see how their jobs fit into the workplace and how they contribute to success – and how their fellow employees contribute. As a result, some employers have noticed a greater acceptance on part of American-born employees of their ESL-trained, foreign-born colleagues. In other words, WEPs help bring down cultural barriers which leads to more co-operation in the workplace.

For problems or questions regarding this web site contact campbell@conferenceboard.ca.
Last updated: February 18, 2001 .