Six Sigma Blog: Black Belts: Your Own Or Hired?

February 12, 2007

Black Belts: Your Own Or Hired?

By Priya Jestin, Staff Writer

It’s good to ensure that your organization deploys the Six Sigma method. However, the easiest part is the decision-making process with the actual deployment becoming a huge commitment. For instance, if an organization needs to ensure that the Six Sigma method is followed to a ‘T’, it may have to make a few sacrifices.

The company may have to foot the bill to train its own people as Black Belts and Green Belts by releasing them from their current duties. An alternative is to hire Black Belts from different organizations and have them lead projects.

Both options have their advantages and disadvantages and it is important that company leaders weigh all these pros and cons before taking the final decision. When you decide to get your own employees trained for the purpose, the investment is huge – both in terms of money and productive hours lost. However, the return on that investment in terms of moral and culture change may be even larger.

Another benefit of promoting your own employees is that it improves the employee-employer relationship. Those you’ve short listed for the Six Sigma training know they are trusted by the company and will want to live up to this trust.

Now, let us take a look at the other side of the coin. When you get in an external Black Belt who’s already completed Six Sigma training, you save on huge initial investments. However, you do have to pay for hiring costs to bring in external Black Belts. And you cannot get the Black Belt to work from the word go. They need time and resources to become familiar with your company’s processes. One other disadvantage with hiring Black Belts is that their need to learn more about processes to initiate Six Sigma projects, can lengthen project times and delay results.

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February 12, 2007 in Training | Permalink