James Tyer of SWOOP and I are giving a presentation together titled “Achieving Real Value with Enterprise Social“at the upcoming Toronto Canadian elearning Conference. The title leaves a lot for interpretation such as what’s value? and what’s real? Not to mention what is meant by enterprise social and that is a critical point. It’s about social, leave your old thinking behind. Spoiler Alert! Part of our interactive session is to have attendees explore various scenarios where training is not an option. I was reminded of a story a friend who works in elder care shared with me and thought “How could training or social technology help here?” But left thinking some situations need a lot more than a “fix”.
Here’s the story, you be the judge.
A elder care facility recently upgraded all the refrigerators on each of their 5 floors. These state of the art units have an enhanced sealing mechanism which makes them all that more efficient; when the door shuts a vacuum device tightly seals the door and it cannot reopen for 30 seconds. The staff must serve about 120 residents three meals a day and therefore they are constantly going in and out of the refrigerators to prep the meals. 30 seconds is an eternity.
Initially the staff naturally began trying to force the door open by pressing their foot on the lower part for leverage and yanking the handle. All units now have a highly visible dent. The work around that ultimately solved the problem however was to put a rag in the door so it couldn’t seal. Now the staff can quickly access all they need during dinner prep. However they frequently leave the door ajar and the temperature rises resulting in three painful consequences.
- The food spoils and hundreds of dollars worth must be throw away
- Residents are served warm drinks and food which is not only a violation but poor treatment
- The facility has been cited by the Board of Health and fined repeatedly.
Not one food service staff member informed leadership of the issue. 5 floors, 5 refrigerators. It appears employees are doing what they are paid to do and nothing more – punch in, do what’s required, don’t make waves, punch out. Communication between them is poor and Management appears distant; focused on watching dollars and filling the next open position.
Devastating.
How could social technology help here?
It can’t. In its most basic form, social doesn’t even exist to start with.
Social technology can help make your organization more responsive and it can help surface solutions to sticky problems, but if the culture is as rotten as the food here and honesty and communication is non-existent, social technology isn’t going to do a damn bit of good.
