Continuous improvement

Continuous improvement comes up sooner or later in every development programme.

If you’ve been following the series of posts on employer engagement basics, you will have found quite a few areas where you can improve what you currently do to support employers.

In the context of continuous improvement it’s important to record the detail of your systems and processes for supporting employers. You also need to show how you change your processes for managing your work with employers. When you make these changes you are creating a case study of how you manage the continuous improvement process.

Don’t worry, then, that you have four versions of your ONA and three versions of the approach you use to measuring the impact of your interventions in employer organisations. You’re demonstrating incremental development via each iteration. You’re showing how you are adapting your work to be more employer-responsive. You’re showing you want to serve your market more effectively.

If you’re looking to measure your improvement as well as describing it in narrative terms, think about the performance measures you have identified for your organisation. Remember these are not your targets. They are the measures you are using, your own key performance indicators (KPI). They could relate to employer satisfaction. They could relate to productivity issues and how you are helping employers to improve their ability to do what they do.

Do the trends you have noted show an improvement? Are you able to demonstrate that more employers believe you are helping them to improve their business, for example?

If they do, and if you have the numerical information to prove it, you are on your way to demonstrating continuous improvement.