Advocacy in Action: Tools and Strategies to Tackle Systemic Challenges

Step 1: Understand the System

• Learn the Metrics: Familiarize yourself with the metrics and algorithms used to evaluate performance. Understand how these metrics are calculated and what behaviors they are designed to encourage.
  • Drive-Through Example: For Chunky, this could involve understanding how speed targets (e.g., completing orders in 90 seconds) are calculated and the underlying corporate priorities driving these goals.
• Identify Pain Points: Pinpoint the specific issues caused by these metrics or systems. For example, are they creating unachievable targets, causing resource misallocations, or fostering inequity?
  • Drive-Through Example: Pain points might include customer indecision slowing down service, understaffing during peak hours, or automated upsell prompts creating confusion.
• Map the Ripple Effects: Use tools like Ripple Mapping to trace how these metrics impact different stakeholders—workers, managers, and customers.
  • Drive-Through Example: Ripple Mapping could visualize how understaffing leads to longer wait times, which frustrate customers and put additional stress on workers, ultimately reflecting poorly on managers’ performance reviews.

Step 2: Document Challenges

• Keep a Record: Maintain a log of recurring challenges, including dates, times, and specific incidents. Examples include understaffed shifts, broken equipment, or unrealistic expectations.
  • Drive-Through Example: Chunky could note the exact times when the drive-through lane became overwhelmed due to staffing issues or when automated systems caused delays.
• Gather Evidence: Collect tangible proof where possible, such as screenshots, emails, or feedback from coworkers.
  • Drive-Through Example: Dana could gather customer feedback or logs showing how delays correlate with understaffed shifts or malfunctioning headsets.
• Highlight Patterns: Use your records to show trends that demonstrate systemic issues rather than isolated incidents.
  • Drive-Through Example: If understaffing recurs every Friday evening, this pattern can strengthen the case for adjusting schedules or hiring more staff.

Step 3: Propose Solutions

• Frame Issues Constructively: Instead of focusing solely on the problem, pair each issue with a potential solution. For example:
  • Problem: Understaffing during peak hours.
  • Solution: Adjust scheduling algorithms to incorporate feedback from frontline workers.
• Drive-Through Example: Suggest adding a buffer in the scheduling algorithm that accounts for local events, like nearby school breaks or sports games, which increase traffic unpredictably.
• Emphasize Mutual Benefits: Show how proposed changes can improve both efficiency and morale.
  • Drive-Through Example: Propose how reducing worker stress through better staffing could lead to faster service and higher customer satisfaction scores.

Step 4: Communicate Effectively

• Tailor Your Message: Address your communication to the appropriate audience:
  • Supervisors: Focus on immediate operational issues.
  • Corporate Leaders: Highlight systemic challenges and propose high-level changes.
• Use Data: Support your points with data from your documentation to lend credibility to your argument.
  • Drive-Through Example: Present data showing how wait times correlate with understaffing during specific hours or events.
• Leverage Empathy: Share stories that illustrate the human impact of systemic issues.
  • Drive-Through Example: Describe how worker burnout due to repeated high-pressure shifts impacts customer experience and turnover rates.

Step 5: Engage Stakeholders

• Build Alliances: Collaborate with coworkers, supervisors, or other stakeholders who share your concerns.
  • Drive-Through Example: Workers like Chunky could team up with managers like Dana to present a unified case to corporate.
• Request Feedback: Involve others in refining your proposed solutions to make them more robust.
  • Drive-Through Example: Ask coworkers how proposed scheduling changes might improve their workflows.
• Escalate Gradually: If initial feedback isn’t acted upon, consider escalating your advocacy to higher levels of management.
  • Drive-Through Example: If Dana’s initial proposal to corporate is ignored, escalate by including district-level managers.

Step 6: Monitor Progress

• Track Outcomes: Keep a record of responses and actions taken based on your advocacy efforts.
  • Drive-Through Example: Log corporate responses to staffing proposals and whether changes are implemented effectively.
• Assess Effectiveness: Evaluate whether proposed changes are implemented and whether they address the root issues.
  • Drive-Through Example: Assess if improved staffing during peak hours reduces customer complaints and worker stress.
• Iterate: Use feedback to refine your advocacy approach and continue pushing for improvements.
  • Drive-Through Example: If staffing solutions partially work, propose further tweaks, such as cross-training workers for flexibility.

HR’s Role in Advocacy and Leadership

HR can play a crucial part in navigating systemic challenges by integrating advocacy into performance counseling and leadership development. Here’s how:

Performance Counseling

1. Provide Context: HR can help workers like Chunky understand how systemic factors, such as metrics and algorithms, impact their evaluations. This ensures employees feel supported rather than blamed for systemic flaws.
2. Tailored Development Plans: Use Ripple Mapping insights to create individual development plans that address both performance challenges and systemic barriers.
3. Facilitate Feedback Loops: HR can implement tools like the Feedback Loop Tracker to ensure that worker concerns are documented and addressed systematically during performance reviews.

Leadership Development

1. Train Supervisors: Equip leaders like Dana with the skills and tools to advocate for their teams, such as communication frameworks for escalating systemic issues.
2. Promote Empathy-Driven Management: HR can train leaders to recognize the human impact of systemic issues, fostering trust and morale within teams.
3. Engage Corporate Leaders: HR can bridge the gap between frontline advocacy and corporate decision-making, ensuring alignment in goals and metrics.

By incorporating these strategies, HR supports both individual and organizational growth, driving equitable and effective solutions.

Advocacy Tools:

1. Feedback Loop Tracker: A tool for logging and organizing worker feedback on systemic challenges.
2. Advocacy Guide: A structured framework for presenting issues and solutions to decision-makers.
3. Ripple Mapper: A visual tool to trace the downstream effects of metrics and policies on stakeholders. For example, the Ripple Mapper can visually map how corporate scheduling policies impact frontline workers like Chunky, leading to understaffing, and how that, in turn, affects customer satisfaction. By creating this visual connection, teams can better understand systemic issues and propose targeted solutions.
4. Gratitude Journaling: A practice to maintain resilience and focus on small wins during long-term advocacy efforts.

Final Thought:

Advocacy is a journey, not a one-time effort. By approaching systemic challenges with intention, empathy, and data-driven insights, workers and managers can drive meaningful changes while fostering a more equitable and efficient workplace.

Potential Organizational Pain Points That Could Utilize This Information

1. Retail Chains: Companies with high employee turnover and rigid metrics (e.g., time-per-transaction) can benefit from understanding how these challenges impact both morale and customer satisfaction.
   • Pain Point: Inconsistent service quality during peak hours due to understaffing or unrealistic metrics.
   • Use Case: Implement tools like Ripple Mapping to address systemic scheduling flaws.
2. Fast Food Franchises: Franchises with drive-through operations frequently face bottlenecks and customer dissatisfaction due to algorithmic staffing decisions.
   • Pain Point: Algorithms that misallocate resources during high-traffic periods.
   • Use Case: Feedback Loop Trackers can help frontline workers like Chunky document and report issues in real-time.
3. Healthcare Systems: High-pressure environments often struggle with staff burnout and inequitable workload distribution.
   • Pain Point: Metrics that overemphasize efficiency at the cost of patient care and employee well-being.
   • Use Case: HR could use tailored development plans to integrate advocacy into employee counseling sessions.
4. Call Centers: Companies with performance metrics like call resolution time or customer satisfaction ratings may overlook the systemic barriers to success.
   • Pain Point: Unrealistic targets causing worker demotivation and reduced customer satisfaction.
   • Use Case: Advocacy Guides to help managers escalate issues like inadequate resources to corporate decision-makers.
5. E-Commerce Warehousing: Metrics-driven fulfillment centers often demand high productivity without considering worker fatigue or equipment maintenance.
   • Pain Point: Worker injuries or burnout due to overambitious packing and shipping targets.
   • Use Case: HR can incorporate empathy-driven leadership training to foster trust and address systemic flaws.