Lost in translation: how Lean is being condemned in public services

A recent article in the main-stream UK press has savaged Lean systems that have been introduced into local government offices, claiming that they are responsible for "de-skilling" and "de-humanising" workers, and have directly led to the removal of all personal objects from the workplace, including the early morning hijacking of teddy bears.

Cursory inspection reveals that the systems that are being introduced have little to do with Lean Thinking; however, mud does tend to stick and it is worrying that the reputation of practices that are specifically designed to reduce waste and improve working conditions are being damaged in this way.

Writing in The Guardian, Dr Gregor Gall talks about the introduction of modernisation programmes at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs offices under the byline New management techniques to supposedly cut costs are making public service workers' lives a misery. Dr Gall directly claims that these programmes are based on “the Lean Technique”.

However, Dr Gall’s main problem -- and the main focus of the article -- seems to be with the practice of ‘hotdesking’, which he defines as ”no worker having their own, particular desk in order to maximise utilisation of desks and to reduce the existence of "surplus" desks.” He does not directly link the practice to Lean, but by citing it in the second paragraph of the article, the inference is that everything he subsequently writes about is a part of the “Lean Technique”.

He writes: “Cost-cutting and cost-saving have been the order of the day here. This has meant civil servants in the HMRC are barred from having tea, coffee, sweets, crisps and paraphernalia like photographs of family and teddy bears on their desks because these suggest ownership and desk rigidity.... Management look for huge savings as a result of central government diktat. They are, thus, willing to pay consultants, as outside experts, huge fees to dream up new means of lean ways of working.”

Around the same time, the Harvard Business Review published an article called The Contradictions That Drive Toyota’s Success, based on a six-year study of the automobile manufacturer from which the tenets of Lean are taken. Far from the harsh, de-humanising practices described by Dr Gall, the article says that ”[Toyota] views employees not just as pairs of hands but as knowledge workers who accumulate chie—the wisdom of experience—on the company’s front lines. Toyota therefore invests heavily in people and organizational capabilities, and it garners ideas from everyone and everywhere: the shop floor, the office, the field.”

It is a fact that there have been industrial disputes at the HMRC, and Lean techniques have been cited by the union, the Public and Commercial Services Union, as being a result of the introduction of Lean practices. Claiming that the HMRC management spent £7.4 million on consultants in order to introduce the new techniques, Frank Campbell, PCS senior national officer for HMRC said: "The introduction of the new style working practices which break up individual tasks is leading to the deskilling and demotivation of a committed and skilled workforce."

It is surprising that the problems that have been focused upon do not seem to follow the accepted vision upon which Lean is based. Far from de-skilling, TPS encourages diversification of roles to make the system more efficient. And whilst the 5S system does of course preach cleanliness and order, there is no direct condemnation of fluffy toys. It would appear that the message has somehow been lost in translation, either in its telling, its interpretation, or its application.