Copyright © 1995-2007, Ethan A. Winning
Work is either time- or output-based. Considering that the United States has been moving away from manufacturing and toward a service orientation, we are rapidly becoming predominantly time-based. Time is bought, sold, and wasted. Oddly, most companies do little in the way of reducing the amount of time wasted, although the latter is exceedingly costly.
Consider, for example, that company hires an individual at $25,000 a year. Not to carry the mode to extremes, that's about twenty cents a minute. Assuming that the employee wastes an hour a day, that $12.02, and in a year amounts to $3,005. We haven't even taken into consideration that benefits and taxes on the base wage amount to 34% to 38% of base wage, which really means that the wages paid but unearned are $4,090.
How does a company reduce such waste and increase productivity? There are a number of steps which can be taken, but perhaps the best is a planning process which includes writing job descriptions. A job description, well written, can reduce the number of people it takes to do a job, since responsibilities are defined in such a way that the time necessary to do the job are spelled out in detail.
In smaller companies, proper staffing is critical. If a company is overstaffed, is it because employees do not know what is expected of them? A better guess would be that the company has but a basic understanding of what it takes to perform the responsibilities of the job. Most small companies staff when the work is perceived to be too much for the principals to accomplish by themselves, and that is when panic staffing takes place.
At that point there is only a vague notion of the what, where, and when of the job. The why and how, which should be listed on personnel requisitions and job description forms, are nonexistent. (This is one of the principle arguments for help from temporary employment agencies. Such agencies should be able to help define the why and clarify in the employer's mind the minimum requirements for getting the job done.)
Unfortunately, after staffing has taken place there is a tendency to overstaff in many organizations. Then, as the company prospers, there is a tendency to add some additional staff as backup. Then, some organizations even go so far as to become involved in empire building.
Of course, as revenues diminish, there are layoffs. In 1974, I published an article in which I asked, If companies are organized properly to begin with, why is it so often necessary to reorganize, and is there a corporate Murphy's law which dictates that initial staffing leaves inevitably to layoffs? My answer was that neither the initial staffing nor the organization were done properly at the company's inception.
Optimum levels of performance are dependent on defined performance, and that is dependent upon goal setting. Over 25 years ago, I had the good fortune of meeting the late George Odiorne, author of Management by Objectives, and I began instituting a modified system with my second employer. Simply, the process I developed was as follows:
1. Administration determined the necessary responsibilities and specifications to do many jobs. Then we asked employees to complete their own job descriptions while supervisors filled out the same form. This was to determine whether or not the employees were performing responsibilities which were truly theirs (as perceived by the supervisor). Simply, these forms represented the difference between what was supposed to be done and what was really being done.
2. Next, the supervisor and employee met to determine what the real function and responsibilities of the job were. Corrections were made in basic responsibilities to fulfill the function (i.e.,why did the job exist?).
3. Third, the goals were set on an annual and quarterly (monthly, if necessary) basis. These objectives were tracked by me, if not by the supervisor. Taking into consideration the unpredictable, erratic market and variables which cropped up rather suddenly, reaching objectives had a great deal to do with performance evaluation and, hence, increases in pay.
4. Reports were made to the HR Department, as well as the supervising department. The reports had a great deal to do with whether or not a requisition for increase in staff was accepted or rejected. An example which still exists is that of an accounting department, snowed under in the first quarter of every year, asking for permanent additions to staff when temporary help would have been sufficient.
In a sense, we had gone back seventy years to Frederick W. Taylor's "Scientific Management," but we did not do time-and-motion studies, per se. Much of what we were doing and we do today, is based on observation of nonproductive time versus time worked, with the idea that few employees can work without physical or mental rest.
However, in critical situations, there was an expectation on all parts that an individual would work to get the job done on time and correctly. Do employees resent these expectations? No, so long as there is a reward. Employees want to know where they stand and how they are doing.
Job descriptions tell a company what needs to be done, as well as allowing a company to obtain accurate market value for the position. Job specifications state the skills necessary to do the job. Goals set priorities. And, the entire process should allow the employer to maintain an adequate staff to accomplish the tasks at hand, thereby reducing costs inherent in employment.
All Rights Reserved. Copyright ©1996. E. A. Winning
Associates.