In 2018, Teal Unicorn were invited by the CEO of one of Vietnam’s largest clothing manufacturers to help make staff happier. We quickly figured out that it wasn’t about individual experience, it was about frustrations of the system (which is usually the case: fix the system not the people).
The client reported publicly:
As 2018 is drawing to a close, we would like to invite you and your friends to look back at the Corporation’s outstanding events during the past year. “Training managers and improving activities in the Corporation’s operations” is the top event in a series of outstanding events of 2018.
In Quarter 3 , Garment Corporation 10 organised New Ways of Working and Managing courses, divided into 2 phases (From July 29 to August 14 and September 19 to September 25, 2018). Participants included members of the Board of Directors, and those in charge of business units and, across the company, employees at departments and enterprises directly related to production and business in the Corporation. The course was guided by Dr. Vu Anh Dao – CEO of Teal Unicorn with the aim to find a suitable new working and management method. Set up the system, train it, and teach it how to operate it. After the course, the units applied a new way of working and new management into practice, quickly achieving some positive results, contributing to solving problems and maximizing work efficiency such as: distributing specific authority to each individual, reducing formal procedures in management; enterprises actively organize production when assigned to manage raw materials; remove 14 [?] related to P.TCKT and P.Market; solving customs declaration issues, booking shipping and completing import documents, amending 11 forms to authorize the direct manager; reduce the signatures of the executive agency and the director of the XN; spread the trial demo from the Corporation level to the self-executing units to ensure consistency yet still effective…. The Corporation’s improvement team continues to apply a new way of doing things, focusing on some new content such as human resources and management policies…
This is the story in pictures:
Their factories are pleasant places
It’s not that the head office campus is a “show piece”. We visited regional factories too.
Please forget any stereotypes of “sweat shops”. Look at the safety and ergonomic features: aircon, clear zones, good lighting, dust masks, hearing protection, emergency stop, even a few plants (more in some teams).
They’re a big company.
We had strong executive support and an eager open-minded leadership team.
and really smart people to work with.
We bring in specialists as needed. James knows Lean.
We did a lot of work…
We visualised their data in new ways that were enlightening…
Relative size of factories,
relative performance of groups of factories,
more relative performance and scale (we love bubble charts!),
sample balanced scorecard.
…and got great results!
Things change, people move on, priorities shift… We havent been back there for a while. We are ‘hopeful that we can achieve even more with this client again in the future.
(You can read more of Teal Unicorn’s client stories here)