Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/178275
36 • OCTOBER 2013 • WORLD FENCE NEWS If you recall, last month I spoke about improving efficiencies, productivity and profitability by looking at how we work – I mean really looking at both direct and indirect labor and what gets accomplished and by whom. Now I want to take that concept one step further and ask, "Can we get more done in the same amount of time and with the same people?" I want to look at working "better" and making employees themselves more efficient by implementing tools and work and production standards (or goals) for your employees to follow. These standards, however, need to be measurable, attainable and goal oriented, with success monitors and failure indicators. Almost every company in the Increasing your company's profits by working smarter – part 2 BY TOM LUBY, PROFIT BUILDERS INTERNATIONAL fence industry looks to improve and become more productive and therefore more profitable. Managers and supervisors look at cutting overhead, value selling jobs for the most profit, effectively collecting past due accounts, buying materials at the right price and so on, but how about the persons who actually do the manual work? What can you, as a company, do to be sure you are getting your money's worth for your direct labor, and even indirect labor, paychecks? The short answer is, you can do something, and employees can work better, smarter and probably harder, if they want to and are incentivized to. But, really, few fence companies are actually working as smart as possible and measuring and enforcing labor and performance standards. Let's look a bit closer, OK? For what I want to help you create, we need to look at different areas of the company from the perspective of best workers vs. worst workers, and try to reward best workers and improve or eliminate worst workers. To do this, we need to look at direct yard, shop and field labor one TILT-A-WAY RESIDENTIAL & INDUSTRIAL OPERATORS Compare our quality! You will see there is a difference! Commercial Residential All operators meet UL-325 and CSA-247 (800) 523-3888 www.tiltaway.com info@tiltaway.com way, and office and other indirect labor another. First, however, for the company in general we need to establish some ground rules. This could begin by understanding a few basic principles. Accountability – It is the job of every supervisor in the company to be sure that the employees under their supervision perform in an efficient and timely manner. This would include crew foremen and yard and shop supervisors. As I mentioned earlier, sadly, this is currently not being done in many fence companies across America, and certainly is reason for concern. Although it may seem that most employees are working as hard as they can, if you are not measuring what they actually accomplish, and, moreover, you are doing nothing to track and improve employee efficiencies, then almost certainly you are losing time and money. Tracking productivity and a regular review of the performance of all your employees is necessary to survive. You must ask, "How long is it taking a particular employee to do a particular job?" and, conversely, "Could another employee have done it quicker, more efficiently or with higher quality control standards?" Also, if you do not already have one in place, a strict attendance policy must be established. This policy should be explained to all employees and it must be posted and enforced. Incredible – but true – in the fencing business many basic operational efficiencies are all too often misunderstood and/or overlooked completely. Let's look at direct labor and shop, yard and field crews for setting labor standards. One way this could be accomplished could be as follows: Accountability is the job of the general manager, superintendent, operations manager, production manager, yard supervisor and even the individual crew leaders, to ensure that the best and most efficient job is done by everyone in their area. This can only be accomplished by setting labor standards for each individual job and task that is repetitive for that particular crew or production personnel. Before we even start, please be warned not to try to overdo it; do not try to capture standards for each and every little thing, just the big stuff, the repetitive tasks that are the most time consuming for most production employees. This will give you a very good idea of the attitude and productive nature of the individual, which is what you are looking for. Also an important factor in the entire process is simply the fact you are looking and watching, and that alone