HR intervention for TQM

TQM is primarily an organizational strategy considered as a change programme to

achieve excellence and therefore HR has an important role to play in designing the
interventions to prepare the people and the organizations for the desired change.
Development of Total Quality People
As discussed earlier, the first pillar of TQM is internal customer satisfaction. People
involved in each process have to treat those next in the process as their customer. In
addition to the external customer, every activity in the factory has an internal customer.
The service to the internal customer is the one which will help gear up the organization to
deliver finally the required service to the customer. For example if Marketing dept. deals
with external customer, it's commitments are to bebacked up by other departments for
whom the marketing dept. itself becomes a customer. Therefore, all the departments and
the people are to be oriented towards achieving total quality and the attitude of " Help us
to help you better " must be developed on the philosophy of internal customers. Here lies
the importance of HR in developing total quality people i.e. people with positive attitude,
values in consonance with organizational mission and change the mindset so that the
foundation becomes very strong. The HR effort should be to bring in/foster real spirit of
TQM i.e. spirit of reciprocity in interactions and not merely the mechanics of it. The HR
initiative in TQM activity should be oriented to demonstrate theefficacy of Win-Win
relationships as contrasted to Win-Lose or Lose-Lose relationships and thereby enabling
effective spirit of team work.
Training
HR has also to undertake intensive training of personnel in understanding the application
of TQM methods & its tools. In Japan, this part of applying TQM methods & tools are
very much wide spread & people at all levels starting from top to bottom are very much
conversant with this and apply in all spheres of their activity. HR initiatives in this
context have toaddress in training of personnel in becoming "data minded than opinion
minded". The mindset of " What is wrong" than " Who is wrong" to be generated & built
up. Though it is a formidable task, HR has to trigger this thinking in an organization to
realise thought revolution of TQM dimension.
Employee Involvement
Further, HR has to initiate employee involvement in TQM activity. Ultimately, quality is
physically produced by the operator on the shop floor. It is therefore very important that
he understands the quality requirements of his job. This is possible provided his
involvement in the job is very high and he is a very committed and empowered worker. It
is in this context that Japanese have introduced Quality Circles which have generated
high level of commitment of workers and finally helped Japan to become as world leader
in the business. Quality circles are based on the fundamental principles of
collaboration,involvement & empowerment. HR has to facilitate the culture of team work

either in the form of Quality Circles, Quality Teams, Task force, CFT, Suggestion
schemes or any such others innovative employee involvement schemes for TQM
activity.Finally HR has to create TQM mindset by focusing following three main
orientations:The customer orientation
The process orientation
The people orientation.
This can be made possible through an integrated & dedicated approach flowing from
corporate value system built around the principle of " Do things right, the first time and
every time"