The biggest key in any business environment is having a good understanding of what the strategic focus of the
business is. There must also be an understanding of what is affecting each process,
both upstream and downstream.
But, sometimes it gets cloudy when you
talk to employees as to what they contribute to the company’s bottom line.
Many employees maintain a heads-down
approach and just focus on their jobs.
“I’ve spoke to hundreds of employees in
multiple industries to understand what
they were seeing on a day-to-day basis,”
says Fred Pratt, CEO of DYONYX. “Each
one had so much to do they could only concentrate on getting those tasks done; there
was no knowledge or caring of what was
happening around them.”
Smart Business spoke with Pratt about
this employee/productivity business dilemma, technology’s role in it and how to make
it better.
If employees aren’t as productive as they
should be, shouldn’t they be let go?
In an effort to reduce overhead costs,
many companies have cut back their staffs
to the point that the remaining few are so
concerned about keeping their jobs they
are working longer and harder to pick up
the slack. They are working longer and
harder, not smarter and faster. Rather than
focus on cost reduction, a company
should focus on productivity improvement. If the product you produce is truly in
demand in the marketplace, producing it
better and faster will gain you a competitive advantage.
The problem with just reducing staff to
cut costs is that the productivity contributions by each employee are not capable
of increasing as rapidly as the layoffs
occurred. Instead, the cost reduction
allows for a short-term backlog of revenues and this will make it appear that
things are better. Eventually, productivity
levels return to match the staffing output
levels, and it becomes a death spiral.
Employees in these situations usually
feel uncomfortable because they don’t
see anything changing as far as how the
work is going to get done; all they see is
that it means more work for them, and
they were already working hard. Instead
of better methods, they get bigger and
faster computers.
Doesn’t new and better technologies only
enhance employee productivity?
I believe that many times a new technology comes into the marketplace, IT installs
it, and the business is negatively affected.
There seems to be a lag time of new technology being introduced until productivity
catches up. It seems to take about a year
per major introduction. For instance, in
2000, the business world was blitzed with
new technology as a result of the Y2K bug.
In 2001, there was a huge decrease in productivity on a worldwide basis. Do you
believe in coincidence?
How can this productivity problem be solved?
In order for the productivity problem to
be solved, we must find a way to measure
productivity and then bring in methods for
increasing the individual productivity of
each user. By increasing the production of
the individual, we can then affect change
where it will be most effective — at the
single-user level. The only kind of change
that will have a lasting impact on performance is to change each user, one at a time.
By increasing a person’s output, we may
save jobs and heal a wounded production
environment.
However, the thought of optimizing one
user at a time is scary to most IT people,
especially since IT typically thinks in terms
of technology, not productivity. Not to
mention the fact that each user will probably have his or her own ideas about what
he or she needs to do their jobs.
How can a company get started with this
process?
Present solutions that will cover the most
important bases first and then assign teams
to optimize work group by work group,
employee by employee. Once the business
processes are optimized, the IT group overlays the optimized business workflow with
technology. This is the best scenario since
you do not want the IT group dictating how
the business workflow moves based on the
package they select as a core system.
The key is to get the business units
involved in the definition of the problems
and then assist them in the definition of the
solution. If you get the business units to
define how they do things now, and then
give them the opportunity to optimize their
processes, you just created a requirements
document for productivity improvement. It
may be optimized technology, but more
likely it will be the optimizing of business
processes. Either way, the business will
become more efficient.
By instructing business unit members on
how to document their workflow and then
allowing them to tune their own workflow
activities, they become part of the solution.
This also helps them see upstream and
downstream inside the corporation. This
experience is invaluable in creating an educated employee base. The most important
education an employee can have is in how
the business operates. That, coupled with
the strategic objectives of the corporation,
makes each employee work toward a better company.
FRED PRATT is the CEO of DYONYX. Reach him at (713) 293-6305 or [email protected].