MPS and the Human Element
Recently, DocuMentor posed the question “Should MPS Providers Hire Psychiatrists?”. His reasoning behind the plus of psychologists is that MFP devices have become the new water cooler and there is a distinct human element involved in all of this.
Documents are sent to the printer/MFP and then workers congregate, gossip with their co-workers and wait around the device for their documents. If the device is old and outdated, or the network is particularly slow, the workers might be able get 10-15 minutes of chatter in. One of the printers in our office doesn’t particularly like full-page PowerPoint presentations and you might as well plan to work for another 20 minutes before you even bother getting up to grab five out of the 20 slides that have printed.
Now, if Mr. MPS Specialist comes into the office to optimize your fleet–taking away your congregating point there could be some resistance. Are you happy with this change? No! Could this affect your job satisfaction and in turn your work? Yes! Are you going to riot? Well, probably not, but you get my point.
How people will react to even the smallest of changes is many times unpredicatable. Everyone has their own, unique personality, and that personality will determine how they adapt to changes in an organization. To not consider the human element could be the difference in a successful or non-successful MPS engagement.
Plan for the change, communicate the changes well ahead of time. The response you receive from communicating your plan will be your window into how individuals will react to changes and allow you to prepare your organization to manage these responses effectively. You might just need to plan on bringing in that psychologist–especially if you plan on taking away any personal devices.
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