How to Deal with Employee Downtime
30 Sep
Image Courtesy of Flickr
There’s another kind of Inventory you NEED to track – and it won’t be easy
I’ve recently been thinking about some of our operations and a mentor of mine one said; “Your company has inventory of time. Where is your company’s inventory of time”, meaning where are our time wasters and inefficient processes.
When you really look at what activities your company needs to do on a daily basis, what activities it actually does on a daily basis, and how many employees you have doing those activities, inventories of time can easily become apparent.
As an example, over the past year, we recognized that in our stores, we had a forklift certified labourer working full time who would be there to unload trucks, do regular facility maintenance as well as odd jobs around the stores. However there were times when that person was doing other more mundane work because they had some inventory of time available to them.
On the other hand, we had receivers at each store who would receive all the shipments into our computerized inventory system, help tag and label the products and help merchandise these products on the retail floor. When she was not busy doing these jobs, she would help out at the checkouts, or do other more mundane jobs around the store, again because she also had some inventory of time.
Both these positions working during the busier times were 100% warranted, but it was the cost of carrying these positions during the slower months that caused us to look at it closely.
What was our solution?
Easy – we reduced both jobs down to one. We now have Receivers who are forklift operators who are now responsible for unloading shipments, receiving them into inventory and doing regular facility maintenance. These tasks keep this person busy and eliminated their inventory of time. The other more mundane tasks, such as tagging products, merchandising, storing, moving, etc. were then put onto other more seasonal positions where we had much more flexibility in scheduling.
By doing this, instead of carrying two permanent positions, we were carrying only one permanent position and filling in with one seasonal position, lowering our cost by roughly ½ a position for the year.
That’s analysing your inventory of time and doing something about it.
~Andy
Loading ...
Andy Buyting has been in the retail industry since he was six years old. Today, he applies his entrepreneurial know-how to Green Village Home & Garden, one of Canada's most successful specialty garden stores. Green Village Home & Garden is currently expanding into multiple locations throughout eastern Canada.
That’s a great story, however, the strain on staff could be great. It would work perfectly if the casual employee was used frequently. In my experience, what happens, is to save salary dollars, the casual employee is not scheduled as often as should be. This causes a strain on other employees which inevitably results in short term disabilities, and also costly to the company.
I certainly believe in cross training, making an employee more valuable.I have worked 10 years in the Party and Tent Rental business I am the receiver/shipper/order taker/telephone response/invoice tax seperater/ office clerk/truck driver/set up and display personnel/maintenance man/complaints department/company paralegal/rentals specialist/catering co ordinater/painter part time electrician( minor jobs of course)to name just a few of the things I do. I get some ” extra gravy”,with my pay cheque now and then, and I operate a small catering business through the parent company that has not changed. but mostly I am called upon to do almost everything in the place The boss has “reasons ” for keeping some time wasting workers relying on some others to carry a brunt of the load.He is frugal to a fault, he will unplug,turn down,turn off,shut off equipment,meters and other things. This is where he uses his waste time . All in all I agree with the previous comment that too much undue constriction of the job causes dissention in the ranks. I needed that, got a lot off my mind just then am Icrazy or am I crazy
Kika,
I think you might be missing the point. I’m not saying that we should ever eliminate some positions and overwork others. I never want to put undue stress on anyone that causes more harm than good. What I’m suggesting that that you want to make sure that you use everyone’s time efficiently. If you have skilled full-time people who regularly do work that part-time people can do, simply to carry them, then I consider that a waste of company resources. As I described, I would rather have say two full-time skilled employees do the job of three full-time people, and then hire a part-time casual worker to fill in when the workload warrants three people.
Ensuring efficiencies and challenging good employees is good.
Overworking and causing undue stress, is bad.
Don’t confuse the message.
Ricardo,
It sounds like your boss is leaning on you heavily to do most of the work around the shop, all while carrying some other low performers. If I understood this right, what if you sat down and had a heart to heart with your boss and explain to him that listen, he has you, plus two other low performers (I’m guessing at the numbers). If he really wanted to become more efficient, why doesn’t he try to replace the two low performers with another high performer, an A-Player. Offer to help out by sitting in on the interviews and training the new person. That way you will feel much better about things, sharing the workload with another high performer, and your shop could probably get more accomplished with fewer people. It’s a win/win/win all around.
Then if you have a rush of work, you could easily hire a casual part-time person to help out around the shop on an as needed basis.
Just a thought.
ANDY, I WOULD AGREE WITH KIKA; GIVEN YOUR CONCEPT OF “INVENTORY OF TIME” THE PERMANENT EMPLOYEE, OFTEN SALARIED, WILL HAVE AN INCREASING NUMBER OF TASKS ASSIGNED TO THEM IN THE GUISE OF EFFICIENT USE OF TIME. HOURLY WAGES MAY BE SAVED, HOWEVER THE SALARIED EMPLOYEE NOW HAS TO FULFILL THEIR ORIGINAL JOB REQUIREMENTS AS WELL AS PICK UP ADDITIONAL DUTIES FORMERLY GIVEN TO LESS TRAINED HOURLY WORKERS. THE TASKS GIVEN THE SALARIED EMPLOYEE ARE OFTEN WELL BELOW THEIR LEVEL OF PROFICIENCY, TRAINING AND POTENTIAL; RESULTING IN JOB DISSATISFACTION, INCREASED NEGATIVITY AND REDUCED PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT; HARDLY BENEFICIAL TO YOUR COMPANY. ALSO, AS THE MUNDANE JOBS TAKE INCREASINGLY MORE AND MORE OF THEIR TIME, THE DILIGENT SALARIED WORKER WILL NECESSARILY WORK OVERTIME (WITH NO ADDITIONAL COMPENSATION) TO COMPLETE THEIR OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITIES. THIS WILL RESULT IN STRESS, BURNOUT AND RESENTMENT; SO WHILE IN THE SHORT TERM THE COMPANY MAY SAVE MONEY, IN THE LONG TERM THERE IS A HIDDEN COST. AS WELL, CHANCES ARE THESE EMPLOYEES WILL BE OPEN TO NEW EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES.
ALTERNATIVELY, PERHAPS ONE NEEDS TO USE AN “INVENTORY OF TIME” FOR SUCH THINGS AS TEAM BUILDING, MOTIVATIONAL RENEWAL, GOAL REVISION, AND INTELLECTUAL REPLENISHMENT. THIS WOULD BE “PAID” TO YOUR MOST EFFICIENT AND PRODUCTIVE WORKERS AFTER A PERIOD OF INTENSE ACTIVITY. IN THE LONG TERM THIS WOULD BE MORE BENEFICAL TO BOTH THE INDIVIDUAL AND YOUR COMPANY THAN THE SAVINGS OF FILLING THEIR TIME WITH ANY AVAILABLE BUSY WORK.
I ALSO WONDER, ANDY,GIVEN THAT IT WOULD BE YOUR MOST EFFICIENT AND PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYEES WHO WOULD CREATE AN INVENTORY OF TIME AND CONSEQUENTLY HAVE INCREASED DEMANDS PLACED ON THEM; WHAT ABOUT THE “B” PLAYERS? IS AS MUCH EXPECTED OF THEM OR DO THEIR INEFFICIENCIES AND UNPRODUCTIVITY EXCUSE THEM?
FINALLY, I QUESTION WHAT HAPPENS IF AN EMPLOYEE OF YOURS READS YOUR BLOG AND REALIZES THAT THEY ARE ONE OF THOSE ASSIGNED MUNDANE TASKS ON A ROUTINE BASIS: SHOULD THEY FEAR THAT THEIR POSITION IS THE NEXT TO BE ELIMINATED?
Mario,
I think you’re missing my point. I actually agree with you. I want to keep all my staff busy, happy and doing work that challenges them. I’m not talking about taking mundane tasks and giving them to full-time salaried employees. I’m talking about taking say three positions that might work 2/3 of their time on important and productive tasks and 1/3 on more mundane tasks, and merge them into two positions, both working closer to 100% of their time on important and productive tasks. Then the more mundane work can be done by an hourly staffer who works on a casual basis. This way there are several benefits, a couple of which include:
1. Full-time staffers are happier doing productive work that challenges them and gives them more satisfaction.
2. The company has the flexibility to increase or reduce hours for the more mundane tasks as demand changes.
Now I do agree that there is a place for other uses of the “Inventory of Time”, but as a business owner, you should know that this comes at a cost.
To address your other comments;
My A-Players want more and more responsibility. As long as they can handle it and it doesn’t affect their satisfaction level and performance, then I say, go for it. Some of my best A-Players have a never ending thirst for more challenges. I would never put additional tasks onto someone, when they cannot handle it or feel that it’s becoming too much. That’s not it. I’m just feeding their need for more. That’s how I keep A-Players moving forward and happy. As for the B-Players, they don’t get off easy at all. They can either rise to the challenge and take on new responsibilities or new positions, or stay where they are and hopefully become an A-Player at their current position. Regardless, my goal is to have A-Players in all positions. Keep in mind, being an A-Player means different things for different positions. And in our company, we can accommodate many different kinds of A-Players at different levels.
Finally, there is not problem at all if one of our staff reads this. I am in a seasonal business and all of our staff know our expectations and know what to expect from the company. Those who work in seasonal or casual positions know this going in. We are very open about the positions within the company and we are very careful to never over promise and under deliver. Everyone knows when they’re hired, what’s expected of them and how long they can expect to be working with us.
I hope this clears a few things up for you.