Fundamentals of continuous improvement in HR

- As we learn and get better at our work, we might see ways to do it more efficiently. We can then look to continually improve how we do our work. What is HR's role in this approach for people to always be getting better at their work, leading others, and improving services for customers? The sciences of work were created originally in the middle of the 1800's industrial era. Working to routines with supervision and formalized standards has now matured to the modern working deal. We are now used to appraisals, objectives, and key performance indicators. The consumer goods boom of the 1950s and 60s created a move to more efficient and high quality manufacturing techniques. Into the 1980s and Kaizen, translated from Japanese as "change for better," became a production technique that further improved how things were made and overcame production defects via the Toyota techniques in car making that found their way into all forms of manufacturing. Kaizen led to Total Quality Management and in turn to Six Sigma and Lean, production techniques that further enhanced how well things were produced and the skill people needed to continuously improve themselves their working methods. This meant that continuous improvement became a part of people's job. HR developed professional and skills programs, so that all engineers, line workers and their management, could apply continuous improvement techniques. As we moved into the digital and internet era, continuous improvement has changed again to become a key part of the way large software programs are developed and those we are more familiar with now, smaller applications, or apps, we use on our smartphones and tablets for booking rail and air travel, for our news content, our online games, and entertainment applications like Netflix and Spotify. HR is very much in its own continuous improvement stage and is looking to use new methods, like those featured in iconic book, "The Lean Startup," in systems like Design Thinking, and in information technology approaches like the Agile project development method. To perfectionists, this may be a frustrating circumstance of something never being done. In reality, the advancing, particularly digital, technologies and the need to always look for more efficient and effective ways is likely to be a feature of how we all work. Continuous improvement has now become short bursts of design and development, with regular small iterations. Versions, updates, and new releases have become a part of how things are and HR's work is included in this. Improved versions of talent development programs, recruitment techniques, fair and flexible ways of working, and in how we lead other people are the HR versions of apps regularly updated, just like we see Waze, Shazam, or Twitter are updated as new functions are created and released. Continual improvement is the approach taken by most businesses who are serious about providing a future-proof way of working in a challenging and demanding world. So how might your company be looking to use continuous improvement and what can HR do to introduce those changes?