What is continuous improvement? Company executives and human resources professionals have various definitions of continuous improvement. But despite all the theoretical and academic study of it, the concept is quite simple.
A solid definition of continuous improvement is: the belief that an organisation must constantly measure the effectiveness of its processes and strive to meet more difficult objectives to satisfy the target market.
In other words, continuous improvement is about setting clear goals, having ways to measure progress toward those goals, refining goals and strategies based on those measurements and setting new goals over time to satisfy clients.
Based on the above the team at Brightside Dental has started a series of regular meetings with the main purpose of implementing this continuous improvement.
Before the end of last year we held an important meeting on the future of Brightside Dental. After a long analysis of where we were at that moment in time, where we wanted to be and what was need to get there, we started 2013 with a total new approach. That’s how we created the Brightside Way.
Going into more details, what is the foundation of continuous improvement? It is more than just being committed to doing a better job over time – it is about involving the entire team at all levels to make doing a better job an inherent aspect of the way the company works. The most important aspects of it are:
Everyone is involved – continuous improvement involves more than executives and managers. All employees at all levels must be part of continuous improvement, including its development, implementation and evaluation and the Brightside team members are all on board.
We even took this further and we’re involving our clients as well by asking for their feedback after every appointment through a short 3 question slip they need to fill in.
It is incremental – it’s a step-by-step approach. It is not something you can do over the course of a week, month or year and then stop doing because a goal has been achieved. Rather, by incrementally improving the way the company works, you can integrate the concept into everything it does.
It is a cycle instead of a single goal – the process never ends. Goals are set, steps are taken to achieve them, the effectiveness of those steps are evaluated and refined, goals are accomplished and new, more challenging goals are set and the process starts again. Regular goals are reviewed monthly, yearly and nowadays even daily by Lia and Ketan and all of the colleagues are informed on the results and the measures needed to be taken to move forward.
It is measurable – we cannot improve the way we function if the strategies and processes being used at all levels – executive, management and staff – are not measurable. With strategies for measurement and review, we can more accurately determine how each process can be improved. Fixed targets are set at the beginning of each year/month/week and we all strive to reach them working as a team rather than as individuals.
Based on the Brightside Way we make a promise to our clients to apply it into everything we do in order to get maximum satisfaction at all times. We are therefore planning to introduce regular satisfaction survey to find out what are the wishes and wants of our patients and make sure we are up to the standards expected.
