Focus on Kaizen: Winning Entry at 15^th CII National Competitiveness & Cluster Summit

The 15^th CII National Competitiveness & Cluster Summit was held recently in New Delhi, with 149 companies showcasing their case studies and Kaizen award entries. We are delighted to announce that Akhila Ali, Assistant Manager – Culture, Learning & Development for SenecaGlobal – won the Platinum Kaizen Award for her submission entitled “The Opportunity of Internal Training & Implementation” in the Morale Stream category.

Ali’s winning submission discusses the importance of providing continued workplace growth opportunities. She posits that “[e]mployee learning and development isn’t just about upskilling the workforce; it also directly impacts morale and culture.”

According to Ali, the pandemic dramatically affected talent-driven training programs. When organizations transitioned to virtual settings, Learning Management Systems (LMS) were the default option to make learning offerings available with recorded video and online training.

As a result, employees missed irreplaceable opportunities to acquire new skills, practice utilizing cutting-edge technology and collaborate with their peers. With minimal in-person human interactions, morale took a hit.

The winning solution

Ali’s solution is a blended learning culture that takes advantage of the LMS to tackle learning needs and a high focus on in-house, hands-on internal training. This model encourages employee engagement and output. The idea is to build a learning culture where teaming and collaboration are fostered, opening the door to real-time implementation possibilities where employees feel valued because they have opportunities to develop their skills.

Key program elements include:

• Increase internal training opportunities – share learning experiences with mentor support and diverse collaboration
• Build an internal pool of talent – provide associates the opportunity to become trainers and lead internal applications
• Provide real-time hands-on learning implementation opportunities – build internal automation tools and applications

Ali’s program produced impressive results at SenecaGlobal:

• 290% increase in internal training programs
• 284% increase in total associates’ training hours (1,978 hours to 5,267 hours),
• 250% growth in faculty members
• 4.5/5 employee satisfaction rating in the most recent survey

SenecaGlobal Kaizen entries

In addition, four other SenecaGlobal associates submitted Kaizen award entries based on their recent projects.

Cost Stream: Shrikant Barshe

Improved Snowplow data load times to produce cost savings.

Cost Stream: Chetan Sharma

Migrated PROD On-Prem server to AWS Cloud with rehost migration model

Productivity Stream: Vivek Keshore

Developed a tool that converts APIs to automated Swagger Docs and tests

Quality Stream: Veeranarayana Mannam

Reduced hits to DB and Redis with pub-sub concept without compromising on accuracy

SenecaGlobal endorses the Kaizen method because it encourages improvements that build upon each other, inspiring a snowball effect of efficacy and innovation. We’re proud of our associates who are eager to participate in our culture of creativity; without their inspiring visions, technology wouldn’t be able to soar to such impressive heights.