by Isaac Galang, AEV Transformation Team
Who would have thought that ditching ideas can actually be a buzz within an organization? Most of the time, we attach a negative connotation to the word “ditch”. However, the Aboitiz Group managed to turn things around and added a little sweetness into it.
Super Ditch Day (or ‘SDD’), an initiative that aims to hear out the team members and know their sentiments, suggestions, and ideas on what are the existing practices, processes, services, (you name it) that should already be ditched.
If you want to know more about the initiative, you can watch this short video reel:
The different SBUs have now ditched over 300 ideas/suggestions since the launch late last year. As the group continues to review and ditch ideas, we have asked around teams about ideas within their business units that they feel deserves a recognition spotlight.
These are the milestones that they have shared:
AEV
As soon as the mighty hammer was lifted, there were a number of ideas that were suggested to be ditched all surrounding an all-important part of our day-to-day lives–managing our emails. Since emails easily pile up and are a concern for the team members, the project team immediately launched their “Road to Zero” game plan wherein they reviewed and shared various hacks and information to better organize, manage communications, and clean their inboxes.
Aside from this, this effort also paved the way to evaluate communication sending practices to minimize the volume of materials being released on a daily basis, as well as managing available channels to maximize what works best.
Super Ditch Day was an enlightening activity that provided a platform for team members and leaders to tackle significant issues and really push them to find creative and innovative solutions. For HR, we were thrilled at all the suggestions that were raised as they have helped us gain better insight on our TMs needs and the improvements that they wish to see in our organization.
-Zabs Tan Chong
There are other exciting ideas that have been approved and are ready for implementation thanks to the efforts of the CSUs in AEV. For instance, they are now ready to ditch the long list of supplier accreditation. With this improvement, accreditation requirements are cut down from 24 items to 6-10 items or no accreditation at all (e.g. If Annual Purchase is less than 500K and not requiring advance payment, accreditation will no longer be required.)
Another improvement that is about to take shape is the streamlining of the Fixed Asset Transfer Advise (FATA) document. With the influence of SDD, they are now ready to remove multiple signatories that are required in processing the document. Launch of Online FATA is also coming very soon.
Other ideas that they are about to implement are:
- Ditching the submission of the original copy of the boarding pass that was used for official travels (no more boarding pass submission)
- Validity of official receipts – from 3 Months to 1 Year (within the Current Year)
- And other processes that require long approvals.
Being open to feedback and converting challenges as opportunities to improve will really go a long way and provide better user experience.
-Rebecca Bautista
AP
AboitizPower has also shown full support with the program when it was launched. With their enthusiasm, they were able to also ditch a lot of ideas during the SDD. Here are some highlights from our power business as successfully ditched by Anjho Ilagan and Shane Awe:
First, they were able to zoom in and place a solution to ditch problems on their Manual Calculation of Plant Performance. This task takes certain team members to allocate a lot of time and decision making in order to finish the data, but now, they were able to cut down a half day of work to almost two minutes to get the job done!
How did they do it? Clever– by having automated data extraction from multiple google sheets with an embedded data cleaning process. It helped them reach their goal of reducing the time, effort and errors in measuring and calculating the plant performance.
This initiative has greatly improved our performance monitoring since we have more time to analyze and has given us opportunity to perform other performance related tasks (with the ditched manual calculation of steam rate).
-Erwin Duarte
Let’s agree that routine activities are time consuming and boring. With the advancement of our data science skills, we are starting to move away from it and use our time more on analysis. In our case, from reporting monthly, we now see the Steam Rate result combined with an analysis anytime we want.
-Quninter Magtoto
Another idea that our team from APDU shared as an outcome is busting their dilemma in terms of Unharmonized and unstandardized methodology in handling projects across their unit. With the emergence of various SBU-wide initiatives, they realized that there should be a need to find a way of Harmonizing and Standardizing Project Management Processes.
The project team created a procedure document on the steps in proceeding various types of projects that would be helpful to Project Owners / Leads / Managers. With this, they have drafted three (3) Project Documentation Procedure namely:
- Process Stream Project Documentation Procedure
- Process Automation Project Documentation Procedure; and
- CI or PEx Project Documentation Procedure
What was the outcome of this ditched idea? Reducing project delays from 80% to 40%. Amazing, isn’t it?
Great idea and initiative from Shane in ditching the old habit/practice of unstructured project management. Teams in AP DU now have a common reference and understanding on how to handle projects under different categories. This has resulted in more/faster project completion.
-Dexter Ompad
One Food Group
The Food Group is another SBU who had very exciting SDD outputs. From internal processes to quality checking, they had it all covered.
For instance, they have ditched the habit of producing long email threads when working. They have realized that this practice takes a lot of time going back and forth, and are causing miscommunications within the team. By ditching this, team members are now reaping the rewards of clear communications.
They have also come up with an idea concerning the QA monitoring of on-hold products. They already bid goodbye to the manual checking of products that are still on-hold in their monitoring file, instead, they have now automated the process and daily email notifications are sent to the QA team for products that need to be checked.
The idea was readily accepted by the team and immediate implementation was done. For instance, I have also gained the benefits from this idea as I no longer open the file every morning to check on the products that need QA’s immediate attention and disposition. I only now check the email notifications.
-Kristine Benitez
Other ideas that the group has taken into consideration are ditching the habit of not living the the value of being “Student Always”, and getting rid of long meetings that take most of the time of the team members.
AboitizLand
The concept of SDD is already familiar to AboitizLand, thanks to their Remix Innovation Council. Through this group, the team members were already reviewing current processes and identifying which ones they needed to ditch or improve. Come SDD, idea generation came naturally to the team members, which produced 67 ditched ideas on the day.
The most recent ditched idea that came to realization is the tedious reimbursement process for communication allowance. Team members used to submit receipts to admin monthly, and get separate approval from HR and TL monthly to process the reimbursement. With the new process, the communication allowance will be auto credited through payroll every month.
The new process is very much appreciated. Having it made part of the payroll is a welcome change as it makes it easier and worry free for the employee. Now we don’t need to worry if the receipt we have is good for a refund. Spontaneous purchase of load can now be made even when no receipt is available, and we don’t need to file for a refund which can sometimes become tedious when piled into all the other tasks lined up.
–Naomi Sun
Including communication allowance in payroll processing is a great statement for our employees that we listen and are open to other ways of doing things. Our employees need these in a timely manner to carry out their work functions effectively- going back to the objective of why we have this allowance. With the help of the Accounting and Tax Team, we are able to execute this remix effective Jan 15, 2023 payroll.
We’re glad that we received positive feedback from our team members from the time that we cascaded this remix initiative. They no longer need to file applications or submit official receipts. From 2 process owners to a single one and from an end-of-month release to an earlier time. Not only that, we increased the amount of allowance to support our team members in our work from anywhere set up.
-Ahra Magracia
AIC
One important realization that the initiative gave the team members is the realization that there are a lot of simple things around our daily tasks that we intend to forget, where our values also tend to also play a big role within these changes.
For example, AIC was able to ditch the Team Leader Approval of Standard Expenses. With this change, they are now implementing self-approval of reimbursements for certain amounts assigned to specific positions. This has allowed everyone to save time in filing for reimbursements as they no longer have to go through the long process of going all the way up to the Team Leader. Moreso, this also aims to build more trust, responsibility, and integrity.
It’s so convenient for the regular monthly reimbursements, like the one for my mobile plan. The turnaround is so much faster now, and I don’t have to worry about following up with anyone.
-Samantha Masiddo
The new Self Approval policy makes the approval flow better. It promotes transparency and accountability, and removes processes that don’t add value.
-Gwen Oracion
What are the team members saying about Super Ditch Day?
Read on what other team members across the group are saying about this program:
- “There is a clear impact in our day to day operations, it allows the TMs to pursue and think of innovative ways to conduct our work more effectively and efficiently.”
- “Ditch Day is an opportunity for us to reflect, revisit, collaborate on our obsolete processes, products, and services that can be eliminated in achieving a more efficient workplace. Through this rally, FUN is not complete without U truly fits, I can still feel the energy and ideas buzzing from our Partners. With that, here’s to more activities like this and to hearing the outrageous roar of our team members in improving our working environment.”
- “The SDD was a fun event reminding A-People how we value innovation and creativity in the organization. The initiative empowered everyone in the organization to pitch in their ideas without the fear of being criticized and being shot down.”
- “The SDD was a very simple exercise. It is so simple that we tend to forget to do this as we go through our daily stuff. I like it because it forces me to really check what we can simplify, substitute, or even eliminate.”
- “SDD is a productive and fun way of working with your team to identify potential innovations within your organization. It helps create structure when looking for and thinking of innovative ideas of improvements.”
- “We had the opportunity to get rid of things or procedures that were no longer necessary on Super Ditch Day. Since we were able to collaborate and share our own ideas, it also served as a way for us in Collections to become closer.”
Innovation in the Aboitiz Group
Innovation is not something new to the group. In fact, Innovation is one of the conglomerate’s core values which each employee continues to practice. The GT 2025 however, highlights this value and puts the meaning of innovation for the group on a whole different level. Super Ditch Day plays a part in the bigger picture of achieving the group’s goal of being the first Philippine’s Techglomerate.
Groupwide initiatives help achieve this aspiration, for instance, the Innovation experiment project wherein each team member is given a 5,000 peso budget which team members can use as seed money to start any innovation idea. Aside from this, several other efforts like transformation workshops, embedding innovation as part of each team members’ scorecards, having innovation champions across the group spearhead and maintaining their idea platforms are well observed in the organization.
Our most valuable asset, our people, is the key to success in achieving the organization’s innovation aspirations. We still have a long journey ahead of us, but all hands are on deck to do their best everyday on our way to become the country’s first techglomerate.
