News

This is a translation of the bulk of Bodo Wiegand’s latest newsletter, followed by my comments:

“As long as our support professionals and staff spend less than 50% of their time on their core activities, we have no shortage of skilled workers . But it’s coming — mercilessly, and we are not doing anything about it!

Whenever I ‘m in a company and we discuss about efficiency in the indirect area , the first reaction is disbelief and astonishment, with statements like “Mr. Wiegand, certainly not with us.” When, in the 10/2007 issue of Focus, I wrote “the labor productivity in administration is about 50%” [of what it should be], no one wanted to believe it , or admit it … and it was and is dismissed by most with a ” not with us.”

In fact is it is below 50 % , today as well as yesterday, and if we do not start worrying about it soon and finally wake up from our slumber , we will run into real problems that will jeopardize the existence of our German business model.

Now my dear  “not with us” unbelievers and  friends – wake up : The facts are coming. According to a study by the AKAD University in Leipzig, each week, office workers spend a whole day in meetings and one whole day processing email. You don’t think so? The proof: Based on a Varonis survey from 2012:

• 4.8% receive 300-500 emails a day ,
• 17.6 %,  100-300 emails a day ,
• 44.8 %,  50-100 emails a day and
• 32.8 %,  1-50 emails a day .

According to a survey conducted by Mimecast and Microsoft Exchange from 2012, from the recipients’ perspective, 61 % of the emails are unnecessary, 25 % are at least useful, and only 14% are “really important.”
Once again in plain text: Nearly 70 % of employees working in offices receive more than 50 messages/day.

Assume only 50 emails/day. The processing time per email is about 1-2 minutes, Here is some additional information for the smart alecks who think they only 10 seconds per email: they are among  the 70 % who get more than 50 emails/day and don’t read them. The additional mental setup time in normal office activity for one mail is 64 seconds, as calculated by Loughborough University psychologist Thomas Jackson.

It follows that,  in the best case , the processing of the assumed 50 mails / day takes at least 2 hours, which works out to 10 hours a week or 55 working days/year. It devours 1 day per week (see also the study by Leipzig’s AKAD University) .

Considering that the processing of 61 % of the mail is a waste of time . This corresponds to 6 hours a week or 38 days per year or 17 % more time for the employee.

Studies have shown that when engineers and developers work constructively or on complex problems , the mental setup time is up to 12 minutes. This group of people needs 250 minutes/day for just 25 mails/day and 10 minutes of mental setup times. It is already makes 50 % of their time. With an average salary of €100,000/year,  makes € 50,000/employee for email processing !

So, if we eliminate for this group the 61% of unnecessarily emails , they would receive only 10 mails/day and would thus have 120 minutes more time for their actual work. Then we focus on processing the email in the morning and afternoon , and save another 100 minutes.

Now, how doe we fight this email flood?

1. Introduce email etiquette to reduce the number of messages and raise their quality .
2. Analyze the structure of the information enhance the quality of information and communication , and stop the sending of unnecessary emails.

Moreover, we should take heed of a more serious study and begin to protect our employees . 63.6 % of all managers believe that is expected of them that they should be accessible in their free time. An survey of German executives in 2013 asked what measures were taken to put limits on their accessibility?

81 % of the executives responded : “None.”

Which is at least one reason for the rise in the burn-out syndrome. If 81 % of the companies do not take this problem seriously , it’s actually only a matter of time before the executives burn out.

It is the duty of the companies to care about this.

Next, let us discuss meetings. How often has each of you experienced meetings

• That have no agenda ,
• Where there no clear tasks have been defined,
• Where there is no clear outcome or agreement on actions and responsibilities,
• Without any follow-up on actions from the last meeting,
• Where the allotted  time was exceeded,
• That did not start on time,
• Where someone came too late ,
• In which one or more persons ( Mr. or Mrs. Important) left to make a call ,
• Where computers with emails were answered during the meeting ,
• Where there was little conversation,
• Where documents were issued at the meeting for “fast” decisions,
• Where all agreed at the meeting on a decision and afterwards said “Maybe,”
• Where everything was discussed except the real issues ,
• …

All waste – pure waste .

What can you do so in order to curb the meeting madness and to cut one day meeting per week to four hours ? Change the meeting culture , and take actions to reduce the number of meetings and radically shorten them, such as:

• Put out a guide for improving a culture of dialogue .
• Analyze the structure of discussions to establish which types of meetings are needed. For example, keep routine meetings to up to 30 minutes, standing in front of a whiteboard, and discuss only anomalies. Time savings immediately 50 % guaranteed!

Summing up the potential for meetings and email processing together , can get a relief of more than 15 to 20 % of the time for each .

Hello my dear ” Not with us” friends, if you stick your head quietly in the sand, you do not have to even deal with these issues.

A manager of a large automotive supplier once said to me : ” Mr. Wiegand, in production, we are chasing cents and leaving euro notes on the floor in administration. “So what in the world is holding back our managers from raising their efficiency and thus to relieving much-needed management resources from this senseless workload. They just look and pointlessly waste our most important resouce : our employees , our specialists and managers , our engineers and developers.

Relieve this group from distractions like secretarial work , travel planning and other non-core activities , and you generate further potential , and that without even tackling interface problems , optimizing the processes or breaking down silos.

For this you do not need a consultant , you only need to invest in training your employees.

[…]

In my 15 years of experience with administrative Lean projects, I can see that there a total of at least 20 to 30 % increase in efficiency is  possible.

In Part 2 of this topic , we deal with the other 15 to 20% of improvement and how to realize them.”