In responding to your peers, consider the elements proposed by your peers. Do you agree with their identified choices, or do you think there were more pressing issues not chosen? Explain your position and support with citations from the resources.

1) Within my current organization we use customer-focused and total employee involvement approaches to TQM. Our industry is truly about about the customer; without a customer, we don't have a business. It is imperative that we have happy customers. One way we ensure satisfaction is by holding conversations with our clients, what benefits do they like, what benefits would they like to see introduced, what can we do to continue to help us stand apart from our competitors. We truly listen to our customers; when it was mentioned that offering a standalone vision plan is desirable (as opposed to it being only offered to those who enroll in medical), we have begun the process to see how to make this change happen and hope to have it rolled out by the end of the year for open enrollment. Likewise, when a client comes to us with a complaint, we take that seriously and work hard to rectify the problem in a way that not only satisfies that client but changes how we handle that situation so it either doesn't occur again, or, we have a readily available fix. In addition, all of the employees within my organization are working toward one common goal; providing the best service possible. While we are not totally error free, we are close. When errors do occur, we are given the ability to rectify the situation as we see fit without having to obtain permission from our managers (within reason). Empowering employees to manage a situation, as well as allowing teams to be self-managed, not only provides a positive work environment for our teams, but it allows us to be customer-focused.

2) As I read the Total Quality Management (TQM) article, my current company immediately came to mind. The company has undergone multiple changes, including revitalization and, most recently, separating from our parent company and going private. Ultimately, the company's vision is to get to a billion-dollar company, and TQM plays a vital role in this process. One of the first things the company implemented was a set of core values for everyone to work toward. I have been at the company for twelve years, and there was never a standard set of core values. I feel that, at this point, the company has been able to strengthen its identity and branding, as all employees are working toward and adhering to the same values.

In addition to implementing the core values, the company was customer-focused regarding training our employees. After the company went private, we had a massive hiring surge and implemented intensive new hire training to train our new hires to provide quality service. In addition, the company is migrating to new a new CRM geared to streamline processes that will benefit the employees and customers.

As a sales company, numbers always play a significant role. Over the last five years, the company also implemented an Employee Engagement survey to improve overall employee satisfaction. They use the data from those surveys to implement programs geared toward their employees. Since implementing these surveys, retention has been higher, and additional benefits have been implemented, including additional PTO, increased 401K matching, and student loan payment assistance. Studies have shown that happy employees are 20% more productive than unhappy employees. (Preston, 2017)

The company has greatly benefited from using a TQM as it has had its best financial year in 2022 and is well on its way to hitting its ultimate goal.

References

Preston, C. (2017, December 13). Promoting Employee Happiness Benefits Everyone. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2017/12/13/promoting-employee-happiness-benefits-everyone/?sh=3c08370c581a