Underutilized Skills? Not with Liliana....

By: Liliana Domingues

  Liliana Domingues has been a star performer in Lean Strategies International LLC's white belt course online.  She has recently completed her white belt and performed exceptionally well.  As a stand out Liliana graciously accepted our request to share some of her wonderful activities which she completed online.  If you would like to see more of Liliana's inspiring activities you can enroll in the Lean Six Sigma White Belt course online by clicking on any of the links in this description.  Thank you Liliana for your wonderful performance, keep up the great work!

Click here to enroll online!

  The following was part of an activity that Lean Six Sigma White Belt students are asked to complete online.  Liliana has been a star performer online and has graciously let us post her answers to one of our activities (shown below).  You can enroll online by clicking here.  Without further adieu, here is Liliana's thoughts: 

•In what ways have you experienced the waste of underutilized skills and talent?

  Where I work, this is a well-known and visible form of waste. There are several cases of employees who were hired to perform tasks to which they are clearly over qualified. In the very beginning it’s ok, but they learn fast, they start performing their tasks extremely well and quickly. They start wanting to improve processes and innovate…, but there is a culture of “we have always done things like this” in place with little margin for change. And after a while they start getting demotivated and bored, so they start engaging into training (getting even more qualified). On the other hand, their good job is not recognized in terms of salary benefits or promotions and their talents are not used into new responsibilities or possible relocation to more challenging internal posts.


•How would you go about removing this type of waste?


  First of all, I would say management can start by reviewing HR processes for recruitment (finding the right candidates with the competences needed for the jobs available) and specially nurturing and harness a culture of change, of constant improvement as a responsibility of all.


  Managers have to find ways of keeping employees motivated and engaged by redistributing tasks and resources allocation whenever needed (high/quick achievers can be useful to help colleagues, give trainings, share good practices, develop new and improved work methods… they just need to be entrusted and to have an opportunity), by updating/improving internal rules, by empowering employees (if a colleague is over qualified, why not give him a new responsibility or involve him into the decision making process), making the reward/recognition system fair, and saying “good job”!
•Other ideas for commandments of team work:


* Share your good practices and ideas
* Motivated each other
* Have a positive approach

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