Impressions - March 2023 - 28

other elements. "
Fortunately, while these two goals-efficiency
and job satisfaction-may at first blush seem
worlds apart, they are not only compatible,
but in many ways two sides to the same coin.
" If you understand what being efficient is, it
has a tremendous number of secondary benefits, "
Coudray says. " When you have more
time to think, you have more time to refine
what you're doing. You make better decisions.
You choose different kinds of work instead of
just taking anything to pay the bills. "
" Take a look at the orders coming in, " says
Atkinson. " If you want to be more efficient,
why are you working on jobs that are not profitable
or hard to do? If you remove those,
imagine how much time you'll have for more
profitable work? "
One way to assess the profitability of your
work, Atkinson says, is to value each piece of
equipment. " Are you making $300, $500 or
even $1,000 per hour? Total up all the jobs
you produce on one machine for a month.
Then figure out the employee hours for the
entire crew on that machine. "
By way of an example, Atkinson says,
" Let's say your machine printed 60 jobs totaling
$51,243.82 worth of sales and employee
time was 153.27 hours. What you end up with
is $51,243.82 divided by 153.27 hours, equaling
$334.34 per hour. Imagine if you could find
clients who better valued your services and
creativity and were willing to pay enough to
earn $500 an hour? 153.27 hours x $500 per
hour = $76,635.00. The result is $25,391.18
more for the same amount of work.
Ultimately, Atkinson says, " The place to
start is to prioritize what kind of work you
want to do. This goes back to a topic I am
always talking about which is business plans.
You should know your target customer. It's the
one who pays you double what everyone else
does you want to be working with. "
Make sure the work you're doing is the kind
of work that will earn you the most profit.
No Judgement Zone
Observing your staff is key to successfully conducting an evaluation with an eye to improving efficiency.
However, as you do so, as much as possible, you want to avoid making staff feel uncomfortable or judged.
" It's been my experience in the 40-plus years I have been doing this that the people doing the work know
what needs to change. So, when you show up, they know things are going to get better or worse. They're not
going to stay the same, " says Mark Coudray, principal of Coudray Growth Technologies.
" I use a technique that is non-confrontational, " Coudray says. " It doesn't make any kind of assumption or
judgment about employee performance. The way it works is you choose one person in an area to approach
and talk to them one on one. "
As you are asking your questions, Coudray suggests employing phrases like, " Help me understand why you
are loading shirts this way? " They might respond, " That was how I was trained to do it, " after which you can
ask them whether or not it is truly important to do it this way or whether there might not be a better way of
accomplishing the same thing.
" What I have found is it causes the employee to connect the dots. If they can't tell you why it's important,
they realize it is helping the consultant understand how it can be improved. The goal is for it to feel like an
open, collaborative dialogue. Everyone feels like they are being heard, " Coudray says.
" Mirror or repeat back what they said to ensure you correctly understood. This allows you to get valuable
information without introducing your own point of view, " he says, adding, " What you want to avoid is [what
is known as 'confirmation bias,' a situation in which you suggest what you think is the right answer, but in
reality, it's not what is happening, " .
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