Employing people’s time effectively, genuinely improves your business at little cost.
A survey published in The Times newspaper in an article entitled ‘Beat the clock: How to make your time work’, stated that 27% of employees would like to waste less time in meetings. 26% admitted they fritter too much time away on office politics, and 36% think they can achieve just as much work in fewer hours. (The Times Newspaper, 23 November 2004)
Outstanding leaders not only take on responsibility for the careful, productive management of their time, but also that of their workforce.
Traditional methods and processes within a company can swallow up valuable time. The excuse? ‘We’ve always done it that way’ – a phrase I have come to loathe, because I have heard it so many times in my life already! What people mean is ‘I can’t be bothered to change, so leave me alone’.
This is a cultural issue, and change can only come from the leader of an organisation, in terms of what they determine is acceptable and what is not, and through the targets they set for achieving greater efficiency.
I worked for a while in a large organisation that had become so institutionalised that it became almost impossible to break away from procedures that had been created over the years. The organisation had lost sight of the need to focus on their simple core activity – in this case selling goods to customers.
Too much time was spent checking stock and counting items at various stages of the delivery process. Staffing levels were exceptionally high yet there were always ‘never enough people’ to carry out the work – work which to an extent was self-generated. Checking deliveries by exception was introduced (random checks) but some staff still counted all their stock just to ‘put their minds at rest’.
The introduction of computerised ordering systems saw duplication of the data by some who insisted upon keeping old paper records – ‘just in case’. These people felt they were acting from the best possible interests – those of the customer and the company. Their view was always of their own work, with no thought for the wider picture. These employees were genuinely busy working hard, but at the wrong things.
The potential savings in terms of freeing up time to do more effective tasks were huge. We worked hard to provide a ‘value focus’ to each individual’s role within the business.
Even the maintenance team had such examples. If a handle fell off a timber door the joiner would fix it. If it were a metal locker door then a heating engineer had to be called because although equally as capable of the task, joiners only dealt with objects fastened to wood! Whoever was first asked to respond to the problem should without question have provided the solution.
A good manager will have discernment in assessing what he actually does each day, and weighing up its effectiveness for the business. This process should also be applied to the rest of your business. Eliminating everything that is irrelevant from the working day is essential to improve your effectiveness as a manager.
Going against expectations and mind-set of a company workforce can be a daunting prospect, and be a real test of how effective your own leadership is. The challenge is not to go in and change everything, but to win over enough individuals with the compelling reason for change, to ensure they themselves want to change to become more efficient. When change comes from within, it lasts, and the pride each individual achieves through working smarter, is a reward in itself!
