Things have been busy, October came and went in a blur. October was the first month of an 18 month grant cycle for a $55,006 grant received from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Labor-Management Cooperation Grant Program.
The grant will support the Continuous Improvement Labor-Management Advisory Committee; an 11 member committee, composed of six “management” staff and five union staff (all three of Michigan Tech’s unions represented). The committee was put together to further develop the Continuous Improvement using Lean Principles Program as a method to improve labor-management relationships and increase staff participation in enhancing work environments.
Goals of this project include:
- Develop a Continuous Improvement/Lean Facilitators’ Training Program to train new facilitators and provide continued education to current facilitators.
- Recruit and train a cohort of 10-15 new campus facilitators, consisting of at least 50 percent unionized staff members.
- Develop an outreach and training program to introduce supervisors and management to the Lean model of continuous improvement and how it can enhance work processes and labor-management relations.
- Provide training to Michigan Tech employees who are key to managing and expanding the Lean continuous improvement programming developed as part of the Project.
- Sharing Michigan Tech’s model at a regional and national level via publications and presentations at key conferences, meetings, and workshops.
It is an exciting time period for Michigan Tech’s Lean Journey, the next 17 months will be busy yet rewarding.