New ways of doing things

I'm thinking that problems which my company is currently experiencing at work could also provide opportunties for finding innvoative solutions ...

1. Over the last week there have been lots of different people doing very standard jobs that are normally done by others. Sometimes despite thinking that directions on how to do a task are clear, people are finding different ways of doing the task. Where they think they can improve on the instructions then they are doing so, and where they need to improvise, they do - it's great to observe this and it's also a real team building experience as people work together to really help each other. Maybe if I look carefully enough over the next few days some of our "new recruits" to the operation will come up with better solutions than the usual team can see

And if they can, how can I try and get the normal team to look for ways to do the same old jobs differently or better rather than just "doing it the way we always do it"

2. These same problems also mean that some days the "demand" in production terms (amount of work to do) is double the normal level yet the supply hasn't changed (of people to do the work). To get back on track everyone is being challenged to find ways to up production as quickly as possible (without changing the supply levels). Some of this is about people working harder, but there must also be a bit of people working smarter .... it will/would be great if we can carry this on when all gets back to normal.