Offer additional examples of any of the concepts as they apply to the below systems. Explain.

Concepts:

- Pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable

- Go for the good of the whole

- Listen to the wisdom of the system

- Locate responsibility in the system

Problem:

high employee turnover rate in our Mexican factories. In Mexico there is a high demand for labor and over the last several years this has led to large annual wage increases to attract and retain talent. This high turnover causes several issues; poor productivity, training challenges, safety concerns, high direct labor costs, all of which directly impact the bottom line.

Pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable

It is important to point out that a linear solution to this problem is to increase our employee wages and that is a short-term fix until other employers do the same. With that said, it is critical to address the problem from a system thinking point of view. There are other important elements that need to be considered in this problem such as benefits, work conditions, compensation, job market, unemployment rate, attrition, culture, economy, profitability, etc. Measuring the turnover rate is important and understanding how the high turnover affects the performance of the factory is a challenging topic.

Go for the good of the whole

Looking at this with the intent of the good of the whole, we might say that turnover rate doesn't really matter if the factory is performing. However, without the workers we can't make our product, so we know there is a great deal of importance with turnover rate. "Aim to enhance total systems properties, such as growth, stability, diversity, resilience, and sustainability-whether they are easily measured or not" I think that aiming to enhance the whole employee experience is a key to improving the turnover rate.

Listen to the wisdom of the system

This idea suggests that the system can run itself without having to make drastic changes. When considering this with my turnover problem in Mexico, we should stop and make sure we fully understand the causes of the issue. In other words, pause our reactions and confirm action needs to be taken. Perhaps the system will level out over time as it is influenced by many factors that are both internal and external to our control.

Locate responsibility in the system

Locating responsibility in this system is critical. We need to understand what outside influences are triggering our employees to leave to go to other companies. We know through exit interviews that employees are chasing a higher wage and have very little loyalty to their employer but how do we change this view and provide the employees with additional benefits that far outweigh wages alone? Is the responsibility in this system the employer, employee, government, society, or country? I think one of the challenges with this system is understanding where to draw the line on how far out to reach when trying to pinpoint the real responsibility. As an employer, there is very little that you can do to change the whole economy of Mexico so the focus needs to be on identifying the responsibility and influence the elements that can be controlled