New White Paper from Oliver Wight Harnesses the Power of People

VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA, August 03, 2012 (Press-News.org) A white paper on how to manage people and behaviours to get financial results that will last has been released by business improvement specialists Oliver Wight. Entitled 'Unlocking the Potential: Harnessing the Power of People', the series of articles explore the benefits of educating and maximising employee potential to drive performance levels, improve productivity and maximise financial gains.

Written by Oliver Wight partners, Stuart Harman and Mike Reed, who have over fifty-five years collective experience, the white paper shares key insights in to how to harness the power of employees and achieve sustainable improvement in any business. How this can be achieved through behavioural change, time management, appropriate performance measures and effectively balancing the three key elements of people, processes and tools, is explored.

"Continuous improvement and the pursuit of business excellence have become increasingly vital in ensuring an organisation's future survival and success," explains Harman. "Successful business improvement relies on the integration of people and behaviour, with new processes and tools. This challenge depends heavily on education." The white paper outlines three keys principles to follow to encourage people to accept and own new ways of working:

1) Get employees on board by exciting them about the business potential, which can be bought about by change.
2) Engage people - from managers to front line staff, by encouraging their participation in the process redesign.
3) Ensure individuals understand their role within the business and in driving change.

Utilising what a company already has is a cost effective way of refining a business, but Stuart says "productivity should not be confused with simply demanding more from employees; to be sustainable it is important to adopt the maxim of 'working smarter not harder'." The articles outline how to equip every employee with the knowledge, processes and tools to create the right atmosphere and desired output for sustainable productivity in a successful change programme.

"Ultimately, failure to sufficiently invest in people will inevitably undermine the success of any change program," Harman concludes.

Oliver Wight has a 40 year track record of delivering business improvement to some of the world's best-known organisations. With a team of professionals offering a wealth of experience, Oliver Wight is the largest consultancy of its type, with offices throughout Europe, South Africa, North and South America, and the Asia Pacific region. We believe that sustainable business improvement can't be delivered by external consultants but only by our clients' own people, so unlike other consultancy firms, we transfer our knowledge to them, helping deliver performance levels and financial results that last.