You think you know a recipe by heart. You have driven the same forklift a million times. You know how to draw blood during a routine exam. In reality, once we know a process by heart, we sit back and run on autopilot.
In 2019, I worked for an immigration company where I had to perform a series of repetitive steps when legislation changed. We couldn’t automate the process and were tackling abrupt deadlines. Technical issues sidetracked me and, because of the complex logic, the probability of error was high.
My CTO gave me The New York Times Bestseller, The Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande. After reading story after story of lifesaving checklists used in complex situations like operating rooms and cockpits, I could have never imagined that such a simple tool could yield so much influence.
At John Hopkins ICU, they implemented checklists to decrease the number of patient infection rates among nurses and doctors in their hospital. The volume of infections dropped from 11% to 0%. It was a staggering result no one expected. Some surgeons were offended by requiring a checklist. Why would they need to be reminded to wash their hands before surgery? But the numbers tell us—we forget and make mistakes.
The Preflight Checklist for pilots is a famous checklist used across airlines. This checklist single-handedly standardized a critical process across the board for pilots regardless of the education, plane, or crew. It has undeniably saved lives. Providing checks and balances in the form of a checklist can be critical, free tool to avoid legal action in the world of HR.
The Power of a Checklist
A checklist is an easy to create, simple form of communication that covers the essentials. It is typically short, but can run long. The format supports new hires and is a permanent training reminder to avoid errors when running on autopilot.
Stressful transitions that happen during the first 90 days can make it harder to remember information while training for a new role. When I started live recording my initial orientation meetings, I got caught up to speed at double the rate. Training in a permanent, written format is invaluable for a new employee.
When my predecessor took over my role at the immigration firm, she felt entirely overwhelmed before we started. Once she saw that a series of checklists were created for each process, she felt confident in her ability to jump in. It wasn’t complex. It didn’t take a certain level of education to follow. She just needed to know the most important things to remember to do.
Documentation Matters
Through most of my career, I’ve experienced the total absence of documentation. Focusing on knowledge transfer is a great way to influence training and can save time, money, and effort. According to Gawande, one of the top reasons a checklist is superior is to collect consensus from the prior managers and the group.
As a training format, reading a 75-page training manual has the potential to fail because of the lack of time to digest, but a checklist will survive through multiple hires while allowing fresh perspectives to make the process better.
HR employees also have a high distraction rate because of the nature of their work. Our CEO, Dave Rietsema, who worked in the field for 12 years, wrote a story in our newsletter about his experience as an HR manager being pulled in a million directions. It was “a day like any other”, he wrote. We all know losing focus can cause massive repercussions to our productivity. How often has a process not been fully completed because you were interrupted and forced to take shortcuts? For processes in HR, legal consequences for the entire company are on the line depending on how closely you, or your team members, follow compliance.
The more you can develop quick reminders on vital processes, the better off you’ll sleep. Can checklists replace every process? No. But, operationally, a high stake process deserves back up measures to bring you peace of mind.
Where Can Checklists Relieve Me in HR?
There are repetitive, lengthy steps for HR to take action on, especially in the cases of following new or updated legislation. Think about a process in your experience that has those high stakes that get missed by HR professionals depending on their education or experience level?
Top HR Checklists
- Harassment Investigations
- FMLA
- Calculating PTO
- Termination of Employment
- Sourcing Talent
- Onboarding
- Recruiting
If you are operating without an HRIS, onboarding can be one of the most influential places for developing a checklist. There are specific legal documents to sign and particular procedures you must follow, depending on Covid or legislation, among other factors. These details could easily be missed due to human error or a lack of knowledge, and result in high level of consequence for the company.
Wonder how McDonald’s does it? On one of my projects, the packaging department, received a complaint about the way our product looked when it arrived. The manager did a demonstration of the correct process – but just for the five people who worked that day. How widespread do you think that piece of training got to the rest of the team members? Laminated checklists posted near work stations is the easiest way to ensure quality and consistency.
Using a series of checklists can also bring transparency to the labor involved in your role when advocating for more resources or prepping for automation with AI, but Gawande cautioned that employees need room to adapt and respond to unpredictable circumstances. That’s why checklists are a guide. Decision making should stay in the center with those managers on the front lines.
How to Start with Checklists
Analyze what company goal and associated metric you are trying to increase or decrease and then determine if a checklist would help solve the problem. For example, the most common way you can impact your accident metric is to implement checklists around safety measures.
Many CEOs are focused on cheap labor, but cheap doesn’t always mean quality. This is where checklists can be a powerful transfer of knowledge. Instead of relying on the employee’s dedication and level of accuracy, where can you add in a checklist as a back-up measure?
Consider where you want quality and consistency to be followed. Perhaps, if you’re in the restaurant business, it’s focusing on customer satisfaction where service staff follow the same steps when serving your customers. This repetitive process is followed every time, but still allows for servers to have their own individual flair. Operational consistency differs from micro-management.
Challenges of Integration
After a team has been doing things a certain way for so long, it’s hard to pivot into adopting any new system of training. The new way just seems to take longer, is sometimes harder to follow, and people just have a way of doing things the way they like to do them. We are creatures of habit.
One of the best ways to implement checklists is during a training or a transition. A transfer of knowledge is the prime time to suggest a series of checklists for the most critical functions of the role and takes less time to produce than a training guide. It’s easier to introduce new ways of working when a new hire hasn’t already learned an old way.
If you don’t have the luxury of a new team, the existing leadership and the team must have buy-in. Introduce it as something that will benefit them, and that you hope they can weigh in on. Or take a lesson from John Hopkin’s ICU and try the “let’s try it out and see” approach. Your numbers will tell the story of success.
The Power of Group Consensus
Checklists are about group communication. When it’s written out in a simplistic form, different points of view can be added and revised. When you don’t have this transparency, it’s difficult to determine the best way to do something. Finding the optimal solution takes multiple voices. You also retain your investment when a manager moves on by having them collaborate on checklists. Gawande says, “believe in the wisdom of the group.”
During our last survey, 44% of HR managers were focused on solving problems in training. Experimenting with checklists for yourself and your team will save you time and bring you peace of mind in terms of accuracy. Checklists are your safeguard, to catch you when you are too tired and running on autopilot. They provide clarity for your employees and protect them and the company from high stake consequences. Preparing your workforce with such an easy-to-use, simple tool is a great (and free!) training technique worthy of your toolbox.
