The entire time I’ve lived in the region, I’ve watched unskilled and semi-skilled labour with a preponderance of intrigue given the acceptance of sub-par performance by its leaders. I’m shocked when leaders turn their heads the other way and look past opportunities to improve performance by hiding behind the mask of “low-cost” employment.
Watching handymen and gardeners trounce through my house shines a spotlight on cost-consciousness reigning supreme over efficiency. They show up with unworkable tools, guess at what to do, repeat the job in an attempt to find a solution only to have to do it again. I wish this were only problematic in the Weir household, but all across the region mediocrity is accepted because of the belief it is cheaper to replace workers than to properly train them.
The historical low cost of migrant labour tricked many businesses into thinking its easier and more economical to throw more people at a problem and allow the revolving door as there are always more low-cost workers willing to do the work.
This isn’t the first time that the world has faced such an industrial challenge. During the rise of the American workforce in the early 1900s when there was a heavy reliance on unskilled and semi-skilled migrant labour, which surprisingly resulted in a high labour cost coming from low-wage employees.
Frederick Taylor — a co-labourer on the factory floor — recognised that workmen were not working their machines, or themselves, nearly as hard as they could and that this resulted in high labour costs for the company. Compounding the fiscal impact was the loss of productivity coming from an environment that allowed each man to do his work they way he thought best.
I’m sure you’ve seen this first-hand when you watch workers. When we built our swimming pool, I spent days watching them and to my amazement different workers doing the same task did it different ways. I kept thinking to myself — “There must be a best way to do this work...”.
Taylor though the same thing, “They [his co-workers] could not all be right. There must be one best way.”
Frustrated by the slack that could be tightened, fat that could be trimmed, seconds that could be shaved off flawed processes...
Thus began a set of experiments that would change the working world for generations. Taylor was a habitual optimiser who set out to make more faster and with less. He knew that throwing more low-cost workers at a problem was an efficiency charade and the focus should be on labour output per hour. He expected more from his workers.
This is exactly what owners and leaders need to become obsessed with — helping workers do more.
Now Taylor wasn’t just any labourer. He had turned down admission to Harvard to work in a factory, which he credits as the most valuable part of his education. He came from a privileged background and was an intellectually gifted child.
The first time he got to know people who worked with their hands for a living was during his apprenticeship at Enterprise Hydraulic Works. His hands-on work on the floor — doing the work of the labourer — is what gave him these insights.
He wasn’t confined to a desk looking in from the outside; he looked at the business from the shop floor and it was there he discovered the opportunity to enhance productivity.
By actually doing the work, he discovered labour inefficiencies, how workers could produce more per hour and the company could make greater profits. He was the pioneer in applying engineering principles to the work done on the factory floor. Sitting behind his thinking was an internal goal to cover the greatest distance with the least expenditure of energy. He rigorously studies practices that had been accepted as good enough so he could find “the one best way”.
What would happen if senior leaders actually spent time at the cold face of the business? They may, too, find the best way, improve labour output to the point that they it breaks the myth of cheap labour being the good enough way.
By being fascinated by the precision of machines and applying this to the unscientific processes of employees, it produced undeniable results. The cost of overhauling boilers dropped from $62 (around $2,000 today) to $11; machining a tire could now be done in one-fifth of the previous time; making a cannon projectile now took just 90 minutes instead of 10 hours. And 1,200 workers could now do the work that would have taken 2,000 people at any other company.
If you want to know if your employees could do more, then go to the shop floor and discover the pockets of improvement. Create best practices for your business.
— The writer is a CEO coach and author, including ‘Leadership Dubai Style’. Contact him at tsw@tommyweir.com
