SAI’s innovative TenSquared program connects and inspires groups of managers and workers to solve the most challenging workplace problems in just 100 days.
SAI is now working with two large tech giants to implement TenSquared for four of their suppliers in Shenzhen, China. The companies have completed their launch workshop, where teams of five workers and five managers from each company worked together to identify their goals focusing on improving social performance management systems and relations between workers and management. The teams will continue working together over the next 100 days, with ongoing support and coaching from SAI, to co-develop and implement solutions that will benefit their entire workforce beyond the project’s end.
The program’s launch has already showcased a number of early successes of this program, including great responsiveness among managers to workers’ ideas and concerns, high worker confidence and passion for their projects, willingness of managers and workers to collaborate with each other, mutual respect and patience within teams, and ambitious project goals. The TenSquared participants shared some reactions to the initial project workshop and the work they have ahead:
From managers –
“I highly value the workers’ ideas! Worker participation is essential, otherwise we end up making quick decisions by ourselves that we regret later.”
“I think I can really understand my colleagues through this way of joint learning. I rarely see them like today’s discussion, which surprises me very much”
From workers –
“I have never thought of such innovative training methods.”
“In the past, I always thought I have the ability to find problems, but whether I can solve them depends entirely on the attitude and ability of the management”
We will continue to update this article as these projects progress.
SAI’s innovative TenSquared program unites teams of workers and managers to address root causes of workplace challenges, overcome institutional hurdles to change, and create a culture of continuous improvement. It was developed as a collaboration between SAI and the Rapid Results Institute and with funding and support from the Walt Disney Company, was piloted with dozens of companies in Turkey, Brazil, and China.
For more information about this project, contact cdaly@sa-intl.org .
