Eliminating Unnecessary Work
In an earlier post, I talked about how working smart — avoiding low-priority and no-priority work — helps with employee retention.Today's Wall Street Journal provides some further ideas for how to eliminate activity that doesn't add enough value to be worth doing. In an article by Sue Shellenbarger, managers and employees at several companies describe steps they have taken to increase productivity while also improving work-life balance by reducing workloads.
- Cummins, Inc. set up two teams "to figure out how to jettison low-value tasks." The process involved identifying redundant work and then cutting it back as far as possible. Among the activities targeted: unplanned phone calls and reports that contained information available online.
- At Alcan, several top executives were coached on "how to be better role models, partly by speaking up about their own challenges managing workload." Employees were encouraged to push back when they believed they were being asked to take on too much.
- In staff meetings, CarMax regularly includes discussion of work that is "stupid, unnecessary, or doesn't make sense." Employees are encouraged to suggest time-saving ways of getting necessary things done.
- Boston Consulting Group tracks consultant hours. When someone is beyond a certain weekly level, the powers-that-be check to see whether the long hours are the consultant's preference, or are the result of undue pressure. "Also, managers who burn out their teams hurt their chances of promotion."
- IBM has a Web-based tool used to survey employees about what activities they believe are unnecessary and why they are doing these things. Managers review the data to decide what work is too low in priority to continue. Some of the changes that have resulted: fewer meeting requirements, improved testing equipment, automated server updates for customers, and consolidation of two labs to eliminate redundant efforts.
Labels: Productivity
posted by Karen Nelson @ 8:07 AM
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