Worker cooperation boosts enterprise productivity

LAGUNA, Philippines (ILO News)- Engagement of workers, including dialogue and cooperation with an automobile firm's management helped improved productivity and competitiveness.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) partnered and trained the Moriroku Philippines, Inc. (MPI), a Japanese firm specializing in the production and assembly of plastic injection components for automobiles. The MPI, founded in 1994 and based in Laguna Technopark, manufactures for customers such as Honda and Toyota.

The company learned about ILO’s Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE) programme. Mr Rex Del Rosario, an ILO-trained SCORE trainer who is also actively involved in the delivery of OSH training under the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP), reached out to company officers to offer the programme as an approach to improve the productivity and competitiveness of the business.

MPI welcomed the offer and commenced participation in May 2023. As a participating enterprise, MPI representatives particularly those comprising the Enterprise Improvement Team (EIT) were engaged in both practical classroom training and in-factory consulting on SCORE.

Part of the initial process was the conduct of a baseline assessment of the company. Using the SCORE approach, the trainer looked into the company’s management systems to identify areas for improvement.

Working closely with the EIT, Mr Del Rosario recognised MPI’s well-established systems for productivity improvement, quality assurance, and occupational safety and health. However, the EIT raised that specific aspects of the operations can be further improved through strong cooperation with its workers.

Among those noted were the need for better facilities for storing finished products, the housekeeping issues in the production area, the need to ensure work-life balance with efforts to increase productivity, and how risk assessment can be conducted better.

These aspects were included in the enterprise improvement plan, which MPI implemented over a period of five months from May 2023 to September 2023, closely guided by the SCORE Trainer.

Through coaching and mentoring provided by the SCORE trainer, MPI has improved employee engagement by encouraging them to submit improvement ideas and recognizing their contributions, activation on the Kaizen proposal at the workplace, monitoring cost savings, and improvement of occupational safety and health.

The 5S, which stands for sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain patrol was re-activated. The workers were actively involved in improving the housekeeping in their respective areas. Additionally, the management developed a mandatory rest day policy. The enhancements resulted in cost savings for the company and fostered better relationships between employees and management.

“The SCORE programme helped us improve our 5S activities and strengthen our safety and health team together with our Emergency Response Team. It greatly improved our best human resources practices through work-life balance,” said Nerlita Rodulfo, Senior Manager of MPI.

SCORE is an ILO global programme, which aims to improve productivity and working conditions in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) based on a strong foundation of enterprise-level social dialogue mechanisms.

The ILO's Bringing Back Jobs Safely (BBJS) project funded by the Government of Japan supported the SCORE implementation in companies such as Moriroku.