Improving Efficiency
Your job as a manager is to deliver the best service at the lowest cost. Cost and service are all that ever worries the guys upstairs. Conventional wisdom is that the easiest way to do that is to keep your staff fully occupied. Ensure they are always working as fast as possible without any downtime. 100% utilisation is the goal.
If conventional wisdom isn’t telling you to do that, then I am pretty sure your boss is.
If you fully utilise your staff, then:
- You make sure your team don’t slack off
- You minimise your costs
- You show strong management
- You get the boss off your back.
Or so the logic goes.
Let Them Slack Off.
Far be it for me to challenge conventional wisdom, but scheduling your staff at 100% occupancy is foolish. Putting 10 or 20% slack in the system is a far more sensible approach.
If your staff is under-utilised, then:
- You can absorb spikes in demand.
- You won’t get backlogs and chase calls.
- You won’t spend all your time re-prioritising tasks.
- Your staff can spend their downtime improving their work, using their initiative
By improving your work, you will create more space and more slack. Then you can bring work in
That way, you will deliver the best service at the lowest cost, which is where we came in.
Three Small Problems
There are three issues you need to overcome to reach nirvana:
1. You must create space
You can’t start the virtuous spiral without it, and it isn’t easy to create space if you are already 100% utilised. It sounds insoluble, but it isn’t so hard. Not all tasks are equal; some of what you do is less valuable than the rest. Stop doing the unimportant stuff. Say no.
2. You need to trust your staff not to slack off
Either change the people to some you can trust, or — more likely — change the manager to someone more trusting.
3. Your boss won’t like it
Chances are he will, particularly when he sees the results. But if he doesn’t, do it anyway and don’t tell him. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
Create Some Space
Your staff, boss and customers will thank you for it. And if your boss insists on 100% utilisation, then find another job. Do you want to work somewhere like that?
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Read another opinion
Image by Mad Wraith
James,
I think the pressure for staff to be 100% utilized also leads to burnout, which leads to other problems. 100% utilized seems unreasonable from several angles. I like your list of things that happen when they are under-utilized.
Annette :-)
As a middle manager, I have noticed that I am tempted to pressure my staff to be 100% utilized because then I don’t have to really analyze if my unit is succeeding. If every one is running around super busy, that must mean we really are super busy and succeeding. In actuality, it might be the exact opposite. Just because my staff is really busy, does not mean we are operating efficiently or effectively.
Great post! Thanks for the insight.
Thanks Josh, maybe aiming for 100% is just lazy management, you don’t have to think too hard
Hi James,
I understand the idea behind ‘scheduling your staff at 100% is foolish beyond belief. Putting 10 or 20% slack in the system is a far more sensible approach.’
How do you deal with variances in capability/skills?
Adrian
Maybe you could use some of the slack time to bring everybody up to speed. Lots to be said for a little coaching and development time.
Hello James,
It occurs to me that you have identified the challenge: creating space for intelligent business practices to show up in the workplace. Not sure, that you suggestion is workable for many who find themselves in management positions. The organisational world is run to the same logic – that of efficiency, utilisation, and productivity of a particular silo over the short term. So a manager can move from one organisation to another, and when he gets there he finds himself enmeshed and ‘slave’ to the same organisational logic. Interestingly, this is also the root cause of customers sticking with existing (poor) suppliers rather than switching – despite what these customers say in surveys or social media.
All the best
maz