WHERE
Omaoksa is a laundry co-operative located in Järvenpää, Finland, specialised in washing water washable laundry mainly for public institutions. Omaoksa’s staff consists of managing director, two on-the-job counsellors and five employees. In addition, the laundry employs four people in rehabilitative work activity under a so-called open employment relationship, two of whom are students. 80% of the staff members are people with disabilities or persons who have encountered problems in entering the open labour market.
New approach to collecting evidence for organisational self assessment
An important service is to provide support for the employees in managing their own life. While learning a trade at Omaoksa, the employees also learn social skills, skills needed in working life and skills for managing one’s life. The social mission is an ingrained part of Omaoksa’s activities, but takes a considerable amount of management time from for-profit business activities.
The co-operative has nine members: the city of Järvenpää, the local Evangelical Lutheran congregation and seven private persons. The establishment of Omaoksa followed the city’s decision to outsource its laundry operations. When the operations were started in 1998, the scope of services included assembly work and laundry. Very soon the operations were concentrated on the laundry outlet located at an old people’s home. After a year the laundry operations were also expanded to the local health centre. At present, Omaoksa washes a little less than 100,000 kilos of laundry per year. The main customer is the City of Järvenpää, which provided 90% of the laundry’s income in year 2005.
Omaoksa was a partner in the EQUAL Development Partnership Response.
WHY
There is a need to create simple ways for all staff members to contribute to the organisational self-assessment and give feedback about the operations.
HOW
In 2005, Omaoksa conducted a self-assessment on the basis of the EFQM Excellence Model. In the staff info about the self-assessment, each employee was asked to produce one strength and one item for improvement at Omaoksa. The idea was to present these to the members of the self-assessment team either in writing or orally.
After being requested to provide strengths and ideas for improvement, the employees ended up writing letters to the managing director (laundry manager). For the staff members, this was a natural way of communicating what they found good and bad in the workplace. The letters included very concrete things and feedback about Omaoksa’s operations (translation from Finnish originals):
- “Good things in the laundry: Everything has fallen into place in my life thanks to Omaoksa, and of course thanks to the school. I have managed very well at Omaoksa because everybody is so nice and diversity is accepted. Not all people are healthy but they can work all the same like the healthy people. The Omaoksa laundry maintains equality.
Bad thing in the laundry: Poor ventilation.” - “Good things: It’s nice to go there. The working atmosphere is good and the workmates are nice. If something is unclear in the work tasks, you get advice. You can work even at a slower pace. The location of the workplace is good.
Bad things: The mops are not good. The reception of dirty laundry. There is a hanger problem in the storeroom for working clothes. The mangle in the elderly people’s home is not good ergonomically. The floor in the dryer room of the health centre end.” - “Plusses: Workplace. Quality of work/speed of work.
Minuses: Dirty laundry side weighing (scales), because you have to mark the kilos on paper manually. It would be nice to be able to feed the numbers in a computer, so there would not be any need for others to interpret handwriting. If many people get ill at the same time, there are no substitutes. Also, during the summer holidays there are not always enough summer trainees. The dirty laundry reception is somewhat too small. The storage for clean laundry at the elderly people’s home is way too small.”
The employees handed over the letters to the laundry manager a week before the self-assessment session, which allowed some time to prepare a response. In the self-assessment session, the laundry manager introduced all the questions brought up in the employee letters. Thus, by means of these letters, all staff could contribute to the self-assessment and express their opinions.
Experiences
The staff info and the letter writing created a lively discussion at the workplace. The employees started to think about their own behaviour, ways of working, and general work practice at Omaoksa. An interest in development of operations was born. The self-assessment was found to be a positive experience. The procedure of self-assessment interests the employees and they look forward to it.
The same method for gathering staff ideas can be used in the future organisational self-assessments at Omaoksa.
Transferability
The practice is transferable to any organisation willing to use new forms of employee involvement and feedback in common development processes at the workplace. The method can be combined with other forms of feedback.
For more information: Managing Director Kirsi Suvanto, jarvenpaan.omaoksa(at)kolumbus.fi, www.omaoksa.fi