5S Guidelines for the Office

Jonathan asked:

“Hi Jon,
Recently, I was tasked to head a 5S project here in our department (Purchasing) but I have limited knowledge on what is applicable and what should be implemented. I was thinking that some guidelines could possibly do more harm than good. Can you please help me out in establishing 5S guidelines here in our office.”

Garnering Agreement for Waste Removal in Office 5S Implementation

Nothing can stir up a group of placid professionals like informing them that those time-saving principles of workplace organization known as 5S will be coming soon to their office. Even among die-hard lean thinkers, there is an alarming number who think that 5S “can’t be done” in the office to any similar degree that they do in a factory, warehouse, or even the retail floor. Perhaps it’s something in the carpet.

 

I have seen 5S in the office taken to the nth degree with both laudable and laughable results. The difference is largely in the attitude of the people. Either they are making 5S work for them, or 5S is making them work. Rather than discuss 5S in any depth, let’s assume that the people leading 5S have done their homework and have a good understanding of what it is and isn’t. In the Archives under the 5S section, there are a number of articles that may be helpful if this isn’t the case.

Although 5S is the place many organizations start applying lean principles and tools, there can be some initial resistance from office people due to its manufacturing heritage. In the office we work with information and not things after all, so what does “sort and straighten” really mean? People are often surprised at how much stuff there is in the office and how the disorganization of this stuff affects the quality of their work, productivity, and even job satisfaction. Just watch people do their work, time it, and look for the non-productive bits. So the first guideline is to gain agreement on waste removal.

There is clearly something to this resistance to Office 5S. Process is process and waste is everywhere. Very few office workers would say that their processes are waste-free or that there are no problems that need to be solved. Those few who say this are experiencing a failure to communicate, are delusional, or are lying to maintain the status quo. I’ve worked through all three. Each requires a different sort of intervention before even attempting to talk about 5S. Once that is done, the first step is to gain an unwavering agreement that waste exists, categorize and name them, and develop motivation to remove this waste. Put the customer first, team members next, and then quality and cost metrics after that. Once that is done 5S becomes one of several means to the end of waste removal, often the simplest and most convenient means. Rarely does 5S fail to address at least some of the root causes of problems in the office.

However, be pragmatic and change course and use whatever tool you need to solve the problem rather than insisting on 5S. Having said that, from the point of view of promoting 5S successfully in the early stages, the second guideline is to look for the nail.

Implementing 5S in Offices: Looking for the Nail in Resistance

When you have a hammer and you know there are nails about, it’s not always bad to go looking for the nails. Nails can be trip hazards and should be hammered in to shore up the structure in any case. But the expression “hammer looking for a nail” exists because well-intentioned people learn about improvement systems such as the 5S and try to prescriptively deploy it across the board without understanding the original intent of the tool, or the unique characteristics of the workplace in which to apply it. In short, if you are on the path to office 5S then look for motion waste. Time searching for information is a waste. Time rearranging information or stuff is a waste. Clicking through multiple screens on the computer is a waste. Focus on quick and accurate retrieval of files, data, tools, or anything required to get the job done properly. Make it easy to retrieve any bit of information in less than 30 seconds. Once the usefulness of 5S has been demonstrated in one specific way, it becomes easier to expand the application of 5S towards reducing errors, waiting, and other wastes.

As a side note, sorting the first S can have a large positive impact on available office space. This space savings aspect of Office 5S has been largely overlooked. The main reason for this may be the fact that it is harder to convert open office space into useful space, while open production space can be used for more value-added output. On a per-square-foot basis, there are also more walls and monuments in an office than in the typical factory. People in the office also tend to personalize and root themselves to space in the office in many Western companies in a way that is almost unhealthy. This brings us to the topic of culture and its effect on how to deploy 5S in the office, and our second guideline. Whenever we attempt to adapt kaizen techniques beyond their place of origin (the shop floor) we need to go to the new environment to study the natives.

Study the Natives: Understanding Cultural Differences in Multinational Teams

Those of us who have lived overseas among the natives of those cultures, or those of us who work with multinational teams have some understanding that people are different and beg to be understood. Even those of us who live in the least culturally diverse and most racially and linguistically uniform communities are fooling ourselves if we think our workplace is a monoculture. They will find that in fact we all work within a multicultural environment. People are people, but there are different cultures between the shop floor, the office, the sales force in the field, and those who work among mahogany walls. If you want to be a missionary of your ideas to these different tribes and cultures you need to learn their language and customs.

Unpacking Office Culture: The Key to Effective 5S Integration

Professor Nitza Hidalgo has written some interesting things on the topic of teaching within a multicultural context. She helps us understand culture by looking at three levels:

1. The Concrete: The most visible and tangible level of culture which includes the most surface-level things like clothes, music, food, games, etc. These parts of culture often provide the focus for multicultural “festivals” or “celebrations.”
2. The Behavioral: How we define our social roles, the language we speak, and our approaches to nonverbal communication. The Behavioral level is a reflection of values. This includes language, gender roles, family structure, political affiliation, and other items that situation us organizationally in society.
3. The Symbolic: This includes our values and beliefs. It can be abstract but it is most often the key to how individuals define themselves. It includes values systems, customs, spirituality, religion, worldview, beliefs, morales, etc.

So what does this all mean in terms of doing 5S in the office? Any workplace can and should be understood from a cultural perspective, but the office needs to be seen as a second culture, which makes an organization immediately multicultural. The office is many times more of a clear reflection of the culture of the people working there than a warehouse or factory. This may be due to the fact unlike a factory full of machines, offices are more “homey” and easier to customize and personalize with our own symbols, behaviors, and concrete artifacts of culture. There is furniture. There is food. There is the internet. There are photos of your family. It’s like home. To a far greater degree than on the shop floor, 5S in the office threatens people’s sense of personal space, and by extension their sense of self.

From the point of view of Concrete, we need to understand the existing office culture in terms of surface-level things such as furniture, equipment, files, food, and so forth. This is what most often gets 5S-ed. But we can’t stop there. At the Behavioral level, we need to understand how these things reflect on how people communicate, how groups of people are structured, their formal and tacit roles, and so forth. These things become more important determining factors in making change happen the higher up we go in the organization. Finally, the Symbolic aspects of the office culture are very important and easy to miss. These are the real values and beliefs – how people see themselves, how they see others around them, and how they see the work they do. At the simplest level, this gets us back to guideline #1:

Do people have the will to improve, even excel or do they “just work here?”

The challenge with 5S in the office is to modify the Concrete aspects of culture in ways that also alter the Behavioral and Symbolic. Just as 5S makes process waste visible, whatever hides or enables the negative beliefs and values needs to be made visible through Office 5S. That in the long-term is what makes Office 5S work.

Final Thoughts: Beyond Traditional Guidelines for Office Management

Hopefully, that helps, Jonathan. If you were looking for more mundane guidelines such as recommended window cleaning solutions, how long to keep paper files, or how many pencils should be kept as standard items at each desk, I don’t have them. Rather, the guidance I provide dives deeper, aiming to transform not just the physical space, but also the cultural and behavioral underpinnings of your workplace. Remember, implementing 5S in the office is not about ticking off a checklist of physical changes; it’s about cultivating an environment that embraces continuous improvement and efficiency. It may not be an easy journey, and it’s certainly more complex than sorting stationery or cleaning windows, but it’s a journey that could redefine your workplace for the better. I hope this perspective assists you in your 5S project and beyond.

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