For businesses, operational excellence is the way to go for sustainable growth and efficiency. Yet, when 80% of organizations say they have operational excellence initiatives in place, only 73% succeed due to a lack of training. 

The truth is that operational excellence depends largely on the right frontline employee training platforms. Long-term business success depends on operational excellence since these practices enable organizations to train their employees for optimal performance.

Closing the theoretical-practical disconnect requires proper training. Operational excellence projects and programs commonly fail to deliver expected outcomes due to the absence of appropriate tools, insufficient knowledge, and a limited mindset. Operational excellence failures stem from inadequate training regarding what a business-specific definition of this concept should be.

And to do so, what businesses need is a digital solution to get into this value loop, continuously generate value, improve performance, and hit key metrics such as profitability, customer satisfaction, and employee retention.

In this article, we will learn about how these operational excellence training platforms are crucial. 

Let’s get right to it.

What is Operational Excellence Training?

In essence, operational excellence (OEX) training is meant to instill within an organization a thought process in which improvement and efficiency are continual. 

Though traditional employee training usually involves short-term skill acquisition, operational excellence training strives to modify how employees approach and engage with work. This type of training is built on integrated systems, process optimization, and problem-solving principles.

Operational excellence training platforms provide training to new and existing employees to assist in the internalization of these principles so that employees can develop the necessary skills and tools to continuously improve the organization. These are the main objectives of such training.

1. Standardizing Best Practices: The implementation of standardized operational procedures gives workers the capability to deliver efficient work that supports organizational objectives.

2. Building Problem-Solving Capabilities: Operational excellence demands personnel to detect problems rapidly and then find prompt solutions. Training programs give employees strategic tools for process mapping and root cause analysis to resolve problems properly.

3. Fostering a Continuous Improvement Mindset: Operational excellence training motivates people to seek regular essential changes that lead to daily progress. To achieve enduring success, organizations require this particular mindset.

4. Creating Organizational Alignment: Operational excellence demands that organizations unite forces with one purpose in mind. Training sets a common understanding between all staff members so that departments work together effectively toward corporate vision and objectives.

The Four Pillars of Operational Excellence

What are the four pillars of operational excellence? This question is central to understanding how organizations can achieve high levels of efficiency and productivity. These principles are building blocks to the foundations of operating excellence at every level within an organization.

Pillar 1: Culture and Leadership

Operational Excellence is built on an organization’s culture. Leaders must set the example of continuous improvement and inspire their people to get better at all levels. The operational excellence training programs must inculcate leadership development and empower the manager with the required skills to be able to drive the excellence culture.

Retention and leadership behaviors that build improvement support, develop a mindset of accountability, and create space for feedback and innovation.

Pillar 2: Continuous Improvement Processes

For organizations to implement continuous improvement, structure methodologies for process optimization need to be implemented. Techniques to be learned include Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, and several others. 

Operational excellence training provides a set of training tools and skills required while engaging in continuous improvement activities, e.g., root cause analysis and workflow optimization.

Training employees to do data analysis, testing things, and teaching them how to identify inefficiencies to make changes in the process and solve the problem.

Pillar 3: Performance Management

Effective delivery of performance management has a major impact on operational excellence. 

KPIs need to be checked and measured, and the performance has to keep up. Data is used in performance management for employees to do two things: determine areas of excellence or make decisions based on it, and they'll go out of their way to achieve results.

Managers know the metrics that impact business success, work with data to make the smartest decisions, and visualize data vs. time to monitor performance.

Pillar 4: Standardization and Knowledge Management

Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are important, they make the organization's operations less variable and therefore more consistent. Best practice documentation is a critical element in operational excellence training because it supplies the knowledge to all employees in an effortless manner. It ensures that everyone follows the same procedures, thus eliminating the variability and making the process more powerful.

Creating SOPs, ensuring employees understand the importance of SOPs, and how to create, implement, maintain, and update as needed, following industry standards and best practices.

Why Traditional Operational Excellence Training Falls Short

Traditional training for operational excellence is too often incomplete, ineffective, and leaves the trainee unprepared to work effectively, and generates only limited enthusiasm for the job. These methods fail for several reasons.

1. The "Training Event" Problem: Traditional training, such as a workshop or seminar, is a one-time event and has little or no ongoing support. In fact, without reinforcement, employees tend to forget what they’ve learned or forget to apply it effectively in their daily roles.

2. Disconnection from Daily Work: Traditional training methods are often disconnected from real-world operations. This makes it difficult for employees to apply new knowledge to their specific tasks.

3. Lack of Verification and Measurement: The training programs often do not have powerful systems to verify whether employees have truly absorbed the lessons. Without it, you cannot guarantee that operational excellence is being realized within the organisation as a whole.

4. Static and Inflexible Materials: Traditional training materials are not dynamic in the sense that they don’t change as new practices become the best. For example, outdated procedures and techniques can arise from this, which may be absent from the most up-to-date advancements in operational excellence.

5. Accessibility Challenges for Frontline Workers: More often than not, traditional training methods fail to serve frontline workers, often the most important in getting to operational excellence. These workers need to have real-time access to resources, and static, paper-based training fails to meet their needs.

Leveraging Digital Platforms for Operational Excellence Training

Now, with digital platforms, organizations have a powerful solution to get past the limitations of traditional training to implement operational excellence at scale. They are flexible, scalable, and provide the kind of engagement that can be utilized to bring about operational improvements to all aspects of an organization.

Xenia is much more than a digital training platform. Consequently, it is a more advanced solution with modern aspects of Task management, Audit tools, and frontline Learning Management systems (LMS).

Xenia uses super workflows, real-time analytics, fully integrated with an intuitive UI to operationalize excellence at scale, well beyond training completeness. 

The instructions focus on not just the maximum clarity at the base of the pyramid but also on complete and provable consistency and drive to working efficiency on the ground floor.

How Xenia Transforms Operational Excellence Training

Xenia is a perfect example of a digital training platform that has been specially designed to accommodate the requirements of frontline workers. Its main objective is the execution of operational excellence training without fail and at the optimal level.

1. Mobile-First Accessibility: Training accessibility for all staff members requires a mobile-first approach to cater to employees working in the frontline. With Xenia, they get quick access to training content using their mobile devices whenever they need it during their shifts or at any company location.

The use of mobile technology removes traditional paper-based learning challenges to achieve seamless employee learning experiences during job performance.

2. Standardized, Accessible Procedures: Xenia enables organizations to develop the standardized operating procedures (SOPs) of the organization and make them easily accessible to all employees.

This prevents confusion and reduces errors made due to miscommunication. With these digital SOPs, new best practices can be updated continuously to maintain the highest levels of operational excellence.

3. Blended Learning and Point-of-Need Access: Traditional classroom knowledge assessments are insufficient to guarantee that employees will effectively implement lessons outside the classroom.

To determine the effective training of operational excellence, organizations must implement practical testing methods. With an LMS such as Xenia, employees can access on-the-go training material through QR codes whenever and wherever they need it.

4. Role-Specific Training Pathways: There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to training. Every skill set and knowledge is different from that of others, depending on the industry.

Xenia makes sure employees get the right training to perform their duties properly. For example, in a restaurant, it may be front-of-house staff being trained, or in a store, it may be in-store associates. But whatever the role, each employee gets the training necessary to succeed.

5. Continuous Reinforcement through Daily Workflows: The main problem with traditional training approaches is, it's difficult to find the right time and have all the employees be available at that time for training.

Digital platforms maintain a continuous learning flow because they integrate with regular tasks. As employees engage in their regular tasks, they are reminded of best practices and provided with quick access to relevant training materials.

They can access training guides, images, videos, and audio anytime they want. This kind of integrated learning environment promotes sustained skill development and continuous improvement.

‍6. Verification and Competency Tracking: Verifying that employees are not only completing training, but utilizing what they have learned is part of Xenia’s mechanisms. Companies can be confident that employees have mastered the required skills and can execute tasks to the required standards through a photo or video of the completion of a task.

This helps managers analyze training effects on specific target metrics like lowered errors, elevated productivity, and improved customer satisfaction.

7. Continuous Feedback and Improvement: Xenia stands out for one main reason: it captures employee feedback, enabling them to share their ideas and make suggestions for improvements, as well as pinpoint possible roadblocks or problems.

Such a feedback loop further develops the culture of continuous improvement, which helps the organization to constantly evolve and adapt to challenges and opportunities.

8. Performance Monitoring and Analytics: With its full employee performance tracking, businesses get a look at how training completion is correlated to key performance indicators (KPIs). The value of this data for measuring the success and impact of operational excellence training is invaluable, and is necessary to ensure that the training is getting the results that were expected. 

Conclusion

Today, business success is driven by operational excellence training. Therefore, this also means that businesses greatly need to invest in the right training platforms to achieve huge efficiency, revenue, and profitability. 

Xenia is an operational excellence training platform that allows standardizing procedures, reinforcing learning, and tracking employee performance to constantly improve the organization.

With operation excellence becoming more and more important, organizations cannot stop at the old school methods of training and have to embrace the digital solutions that seamlessly integrate into the everyday workflows. Businesses can benefit from operational excellence firmly embedded in the DNA of their organization, and as such, become measurable business success through the use of technology.

Are you ready to change your operational excellence training approach? 

Xenia gives you the control to standardize procedures, deliver a consistent training program, verify competency, and track results in all your business activities. Want to see how other organizations like yours are also bettering the training systems? 

Schedule a demo today.‍