Rodrigo Mogrovejo
National Coordinator
ILO Bolivia

If a workplace is safe and healthy, everyone can get on with their work effectively and efficiently. However, if workplaces are disorganized and full of hazards, it can lead to process breakdowns, injuries and high rates of absence through sickness. This in turn can result in loss of earning and reduced productivity. Employee-manager relations, working conditions, production processes and the way that workplaces are managed also have a bearing on productivity and the success of enterprises.

As national coordinator in Bolivia for the ILO’s SCORE programme – Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises – my role is to help small and media enterprises improve working conditions and productivity but it’s not always easy to get the message across.

When my team discussed the aims of SCORE Training with trade unions, they told us that the traditional training materials were seen as too technical for workers to easily understand and to put learning into practice. So we put forward an idea – turn the materials into comics and cartoons.

Step In the Superhero

Working with employers and workers, we created ‘Superhero SCORE’ – The person you call on when you want to improve your workplace.  He may not have superpowers – apart from flying of course – but he does know everything about the five SCORE modules: workplace cooperation; quality management; clean production; human resource management and occupational safety and health, and how they can help improve an enterprise.

Superhero SCORE appears in a flash, to lay the foundations of success in the workplace.

He unites employees and managers to boost working conditions that increase safety and productivity, and with the use of his strength, he helps staff resolve issues together through teamwork.

SCORE Superhero explains the Enterprise Improvement Team concept to a factory worker.

We were very pleasantly surprised about the rapid success, how these materials caught on quickly within businesses.

Workers and managers explain the benefits of SCORE Training implementations, such as a notice board, suggestion box, rewards and recognition system and introducing 5S in the workplace.

The comics were one thing, but the companies were also really keen to show the videos too, either on a loop at various stations around the factory, or in the canteen, and some even have internal TV channels which air the cartoons.

SCORE Superhero shows bottom line benefits of introducing the SCORE methodology in factories.

It’s really helped spread the key messages of the SCORE Training to the widest possible audience, greatly improving the impact on individual enterprises.

The teaching of SCORE methodology through this new media has been an effective tool to reach factory workers across Bolivia and continues to contribute to improvements that support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in reaching bigger and better goals.

You can watch the second episode of the cartoon here.

Please follow the links for the SCORE superhero comics: 

• Module 1 : Workplace cooperation: The foundation for business success
• Module 2: Quality – Managing Continuous Improvement
• Module 3: Productivity Through Cleaner Production
• Module 4: Workforce Management for Cooperation and Business Success
• Module 5: Safety & Health at Work: A Platform for Productivity