Sense of Coherence and Lean-based leadership and alterations in sick leave and productivity at a steel wire manufacturing unit

1.1The managers’ role

Managers have an important role in the creation of workplace conditions that prevent sick leave and exhibit high performance [2]. That is in line with Tappura et al., who assert that quality of working life, innovativeness, and an organization’s performance can be improved if managers’ competence about occupational health and safety issues is developed and displayed [11]. That means that managers, aligned with HR representatives, must have knowledge about health promotion and act to foster the relationship between health and performance. Health promotion knowledge among managers enables them to create the conditions for employees to perform well at the workplace and prevent sick leave. Drucker has described managers as the life-giving element that through leadership makes resources productive that otherwise never would be [12]. Several writers have highlighted distinctions between leadership and management [13–17]. Emiliani et al. agree with Drucker, arguing that a manager’s primary job is to provide leadership that helps people perform at work [18]. Neumann et al. advise trying to embed ergonomics into existing groups and processes and not create new groups focusing on ergonomics [19]. In this intervention the intention was to adopt health-enhancing leadership, more specifically taking inspiration from the theoretical framework Sense of Coherence (SOC) as a basis for managerial behavior.

1.2Sense of Coherence theory

Antonovsky [10] described the SOC theory as consisting of components that are more or less present in our daily life at work. Those three basic components are meaningfulness, the motivational component; comprehensibility, the cognitive component; and manageability, the behavioral component. Researchers have found the salutogenic SOC theory to be relevant to the work context [20–22], justifying the SOC theory as a base for the intervention in this study. The idea was that managers have a role in the creation of workplace conditions that prevent sick leave and potentially lead to high performance. A further assumption is that people are the source for continuous improvements in the development of production [23–26]. However, Lean has evolved, and for example seven “schools” of Lean have been identified: systems engineering, systems architecture, operations research, organizational development, contingency systems, socio-technical systems and evolutionary. In addition, practical problems that are persistent should guide production and operations management research, such as the difficulties companies have with adoption and sustainability of Lean practices [27].

The idea behind the intervention was that the salutogenic SOC theory, in combination with Lean, could be the basis for changing managers awareness of their role as creators of SOC and better workplace conditions.

1.3Implementing change and the rationale for the intervention

Change in organizations generally is a difficult task to succeed with [28], and change efforts in organizations often fail to reach their goals. This has been extensively studied, in the management literature [29, 30]. Previous research has studied the translation of Lean to organizational practice [31] and use of the Lean approach in business management [32]. If the intention is to create workplaces that might affect sick leave, it is important to have tools to encompass physical, psychological, and social factors [33, 34]. When implementing Lean, the greatest challenges are changing the mind-set, motivation and behavior; that is, using Lean tools and Lean philosophy [35–37]. However, other researchers have found that implementing Lean in manufacturing can result in increased risk for work-related musculoskeletal disorders [38] and health problems [39–41]. Seppälä and Klemola conclude from their study that the critical factors when implementing Lean are the management of change, the opportunity to develop oneself at work, and the social climate [42].

Lean is predominantly supposed to be a philosophy influencing the way people think and behave [24, 25]; accordingly, the manager’s role becomes to focus on coaching and developing people [24, 26] for continuous improvements and a Sense of Coherence.

A new leadership approach based on SOC and Lean at the case company’s stainless wire manufacturing unit was implemented. A similar initiative has found synergies between ergonomics and Lean production [43], although not explicitly using SOC.

The aim was to explore if a leadership intervention based on Lean and the theoretical framework Sense of Coherence changed the key performance indicators: productivity, quality and sick leave.

In the next section the company, the intervention and the data collection will be presented.

2.1The case study

This study was conducted at a wire mill unit in a Swedish company producing stainless steel. All the company’s production takes place in one geographical place in Sweden, where the head office, wire rod mill and wire mill are situated. The wire rod mill produces about 60,000 tons annually, of which more than 10,000 tons are further refined into wire in the wire mill. The products are sold around the world directly or via a network of representatives. The company had a total of 251 employed people in 2014; that number decreased to 244 in 2015 and further decreased to 243 people in 2016. The company’s turnover decreased between 2014 and 2016 [44]. The company’s wire mill had for years had low productivity and high rates of sick leave among the workers on the production floor. According to the sick-leave statistics, the high amount of sick leave was due to many short-term, self-certified sick-leave periods and not long-term sick leave or rehabilitation.

2.2The intervention

Details on the intervention are to be found in Table 1. The intervention contained several steps. First a new production manager was hired to change production systems, followed by the creation of a new management team. It was decided to inspire their leadership on Sense of Coherence theory and Lean philosophy. The new management decided that all personnel should have a common framework on how to work regarding Lean and SOC. Managers spent time on the production floor and introduced new ways of acting in line with Lean tools, such as introducing whiteboard meetings, standardizing the procedure of deviation, common areas to interact, flexible work schedules, eliminating night work and reacting directly to sick leaves to speed up rehabilitation.

All personnel at the wire unit went through a one-day education and training program. The seven changes the managers described that they implemented were: Time on the production floor, introducing whiteboard meetings, standardized procedure on deviations, building a common coffee and lunch area, flexible crew, eliminating night work if possible, acting on sick leave as quickly as possible. The process of data collection from the management team is shown in Table 1, and the results are shown in Table 2.

The role of the first author was to initiate the intervention and take part in the discussions with the company’s top management during the planning phase. He was also teaching in six one-day education and training programs for leader and assembly workers, together with an assistant. The author did not take part in the implementation process in any other way, aside from the data collection phase. The intervention was to implement a new leadership approach based on SOC and Lean at the case company’s stainless wire manufacturing unit. The management team at the wire mill started to behave according to Lean philosophy and use Lean tools, working to create meaningfulness, manageability and comprehensibility (see Table 1 for more details of the intervention). For example, the new management approach based on Sense of Coherence theory implied that it became the management team’s primary work to help the workers to feel that their workday was characterized as meaningful, comprehensible and manageable. To reach that goal, frequent discussions at the wire unit involving all personnel, such as at daily whiteboard meetings, were seen as important to make both the management team and the workers feel that they were participating and could influence the changes, thereby also creating a feeling of ownership and meaningfulness.

2.3Data collection and analysis

Details of the data collection are summarized in Table 3. A baseline of KPI measures was collected in 2014. The measures were production in tons/year, number of production workers per year, amount of yearly production meeting the quality specifications and sick-leave rates. The same figures were collected for the years 2015. 2016 and 2017. There is an array of methodologies available to measure productivity [45]. Productivity at the organizational level can be defined as how well a system uses its resources to achieve its goals [46]. Interest in measuring health effects on productivity has resulted in the development of numerous instruments [47]. Karasek and Theorell have reflected on how to create productive work, and they address how a reconstruction of work might lead to productivity. For that reason, it is important to measure both productivity and health when measuring an organization’s performance [48]. Thus, we decided to use the company’s own KPIs, since they were related to the company’s goal of yearly production, meeting the quality specification. To this, sick leave was added, since that factor had been found to be too high before the intervention. Both the first author and the assistant from the education/training participated during data collection. The first author had the role of leading a conversation with the wire unit’s management team. At those four data collection sessions, information on the procedure and its effects was collected from the management team using an unstructured dialogue method. On those occasions, the management team also demonstrated the changes that had been done, such as the whiteboard that had been introduced and the new common coffee and lunch area. The company’s KPIs were analyzed descriptively. The most common indicators were extrapolated from the company’s KPI system, and the basic data were summarized to describe the data. The analysis was about the tendency of decrease or increase.The qualitative data were analyzed in two steps. Both the data collectors took notes and compared them. Contents were grouped regarding the mana-gers’ perception of the intervention and its outcomes. Categories occurred; nevertheless the perceptions were consistent, as described in the results.All respondents in the qualitative part of the study had agreed to participate in the study.

3.1Results on productivity and sick leave

Table 3 shows that productivity per worker increased from 158.3 tons in 2014 to 228.2 tons per worker in 2017. Quality, measured as the amount of yearly production that meets the quality specifications, increased from 95.3%in 2014 to 97.2%in 2017. In 2014 the amount of sick leave was 15%; that decreased to 2.5%in 2017. The number of production workers overall decreased from 49 the year before the intervention to 42 workers in 2017. Analysis of the statistics show that the reason for the decrease was retirements and other jobs. This was confirmed by the management team, who revealed that none of these individuals were often on sick leave.

3.2Results of the qualitative data collection

The main finding from the qualitative data was that the work intervention (as described in section 2.2) contributed to a new culture, for both managers and workers. During the data collection occasions during 2016 and 2017, after the intervention, the management team at the wire unit described the intervention as having changed the culture at the unit. This was visible in both the behavior and talk of the people at the unit (see an example below). The management team described how the harsh exchanges that were previously common between the workers were no longer heard, and that the workers now supported each other; The managers said that a “team culture has been developed.”

The managers further expressed that there has been a change in people’s way of thinking and behaving, i.e. the culture, and that had an impact on productivity and health at the unit.

One change that the management team perceived as important, was to ensure that the production leaders could spend as much time as possible on the production floor to be able to grasp the real situation experienced by the production workers and thereby enable them to support the workers from the facts and their needs. The managers said that to be on the floor as much time as possible was essential for the production leaders, because they could find out, through questions and observations, the current situation among employees and thereby help the workers feel meaningfulness, comprehensibility, and manageability at work. Similarly, fitting the work environment to humans has positive effects on both health and performance [2]. Fitting the work environment to humans requires knowledge of what they need, and as the management team expressed, those needs might be identified if managers spend time on the production floor communicating and observing to find out if people find their work meaningful, comprehensible and manageable, or why they do not.

The introduction of whiteboard meetings at the beginning of work shifts to provide the workers with relevant information was seen by the managers as important for the production workers’ feeling of being a part of a team with knowledge about the situation at the entire wire unit, not only at the machine they were working at. To be part of a team and have the opportunity to take part in decisions is in line with Antonovsky, who stated that the strength of SOC is influenced by participation in socially valued decision making [10]. The information at the whiteboard meetings is also a way to strengthen individuals’ understanding of the current situation and thereby increase their ability to manage the situation.

Building a common coffee and lunch area instead of the small huts previously used by one or two people was considered important. The result of this change was that the workers got to know each other and could build team cohesion. The management team described this change as successful. Moreover, if the work environment is fitted to humans, two related system outcomes may be achieved: (1) improved performance in terms of, for example, productivity and quality and (2) wellness and health [2].

A step-by-step standardized procedure on deviations was implemented to deal with deviations and used regardless if the deviation was about machines and production processes or about humans and behavior. Neumann et al. point to the importance of accommodating personnel changes during the change process [19]. Creating a step-by-step managerial behavior procedure for managers to follow can be a way to cope with that. In fact, Kotter argues that a change is fulfilled only when it has become a new behavior that is rooted in a culture within the organization that is naturally expressed as “the way we do things” [29]. The managers expressed that the standard procedure helps them to take action when deviations occur.

It was seen as important to always act on sick leave as quickly as possible through contact with the individual and when possible with a telephone call on the first day of sick leave. The individual was always offered a chance to work on something other than the ordinary work if possible, because the management team thought maintaining contact with colleagues was better than staying at home. This approach of finding an alternate task is also used in normal work situations where a worker might have problems and not be feeling able to work at normal capacity.

To have flexible working schedules for the crew was described as important according to the management team, because life events both at work and outside work affect the workers. They decided to always try to be flexible with work times if an individual has a problem working during scheduled hours.

For health reasons, the management team started to eliminate night shifts where possible for workers.

4.1Method discussion

The methods used in this study have limitations. Measuring the rates of sick leave can be argued to have limitations because there are many causes for a worker to call in sick [54]. The number of sick-leave days varies among countries [54] and gender [51]. Sick leave might be affected by more than work, but since there is generally no large variation in sick leave from one year to another [51], this was regarded as one conceivable indicator as complement to the others. For further research it would be interesting to measure whether SOC increases or decreases both among managers and workers before versus after an intervention. If it had been a large industry having many settings it would also have been desirable to design the intervention with a control group.

In the study at the wire mill, the company’s own measurements was used to study if the level of sick leave decreased after the new leadership approach combining SOC with Lean philosophy was implemented. As there were no changes in machines or technology, the managers unanimously perceived that the changes in productivity and sick leave rates resulted from practicing the new leadership. That view was also expressed by the workers after the intervention. In future research, to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms of the this leadership approach that combines SOC and Lean philosophy, we suggest a combination of KPI measurement with qualitative measurement, for example SOC questionnaires and interviews involving personnel from all hierarchical levels. Also, the changes may be dependent on individual managers. In this study, the four-person management team was dedicated and put effort into changing the situation at the wire unit, and they involved personnel as participants in the change process, which they felt was essential for the results.

The meetings were not recorded but are only saved as notes the first author and the assistant took, so there is a shortcoming that implicit changes were not recognized or noted completely verbatim. For further studies, recordings are recommended in order to make sure no details are missing during four-hour-long data collection sessions. On the other hand, the opportunity to participate in meetings allowed us to exchange information with the management team, and the authors benefited from talking to them regularly. To our knowledge, the case in this paper is the first time a new leadership approach for managers based on the combination of SOC and Lean philosophy and Lean tools has been implemented with the purpose of enhancing productivity and decreasing sick leave. For further research, the monitoring could involve all kinds of personnel rather than exclusively managers and production measures as in this study. According to Eriksson and Lindström, one important immediate research focus is to implement the SOC theory in practice [55]. This case study was an attempt to respond to that request.