Workforce Optimisation is a Profit Centre

Start to think of working with the workforce of a company for what it truly is: a profit centre. Like any good profit centre manager, those who manage the areas of a company that affect the job performance of the workforce are really looking to maximise return on investment. When we talk about how this translates into optimising the workforce, I’m referring to the concept of getting more job results out of the people you have to work with.

If this were a financial analysis course, I’d refer to it as one of the efficiency ratios. If we can get higher performance from the same number of people or faster time for a new person to reach a level where he/she is fully performing, both through the techniques explained in this book, then the company is more profitable.

These, then, are the two basic ways in which workforce optimisation contributes as a profit centre:

• Higher performance results:

• more output from the same number of people
• the same output from fewer people
• more output from fewer people

• Faster ‘time-to-performance’

I’ll explain each in just a moment, but first realise that we need to fully understand what ‘results’ means, and we also will need to know, once we know what ‘results’ mean, how to get people to achieve those results. The majority of this book is an attempt to explain how things done with the workforce will contribute to higher results. ‘Results’ in terms of how to identify what results you should expect, how to measure their achievement, and how to raise the bar on them.

For a quick definition of what ‘results’ are, think of the clue you’ve already read. When I say ‘results’ what I mean is higher job performance, which leads directly to higher job output, which leads directly to higher financial results for the company. Once we know, from the business’ perspective, what ‘higher’ is, then we can apply the techniques throughout this book to get the workforce to ‘higher.’ Essentially, it’s through better techniques for recruiting, hiring, developing, rewarding and even terminating.

A quick fix: workforce optimisation defined

If we’re going to consider the two areas of pay-off (higher performance and faster time-to-performance) for undertaking this workforce optimisation journey, then we’re going to need a quick fix for a definition of what the term ‘workforce optimisation’ means.

Everyone likes a succinct relating of a concept they’re trying to master, so I’m sure you’re already looking for a working definition of the term so that you can begin to attach a broader and deeper meaning to the skeleton of understanding. To get us off to a good start, let me offer this quick definition of what is meant by the term ‘workforce optimisation.’ Workforce optimisation is the management practice of influencing events and environment so that individuals and the collective employee workforce achieve(s) to their/its maximum potential. The events and environment influenced are both single areas of involvement, but even more importantly, management of the combined affect of multiple factors on individual and collective job task performance.

OK, now we’re ready to explore the ways in which workforce optimisation operates as a profit centre . . .

Higher performance results explained

When a group of people is doing a job, let’s say making widgets, there are standard ways to perform the tasks of the job that result in widgets. Clever manufacturing departments will tell you what is the average number of widgets per person, per hour, and when to expect peaks and valleys in that output. For example, let’s say that 50 people can produce an average of 200 widgets per hour, that’s an average of four widgets per person, per hour.

Now, in come the experts in tinkering with the people-aspect of the company, the workforce optimisation practitioners. They begin to study the job, not just time and motion, although that’s a great place to look, but also motivation, backgrounds of top performers and all sorts of things explained here in our recipe book. Through intervention, these professionals identify techniques for working with the employees which result in a 10% boost in job results (notice I carefully avoided writing 'job performance' because what really matters is not the job performance, but rather what effect did that have on the results delivered).

Now instead of those 50 people turning out 200 widgets per hour, they can collectively produce 220 widgets per hour, or an increase equal to adding five new people if they all produced at the old level. It’s like getting free output just for finding better ways to engage the workforce in their job.

But how do you know what kind of performance to expect? One of the great outcomes of workforce optimisation movement is the discovery of theories and methodology to boost total workforce output by understanding and replicating the successes of the company’s top 10% performers.

There’s something about a champion that makes a person a champion. If you put them in a quagmire with the rest of the group, they’ll always come out on top. It’s not a bad thing, it’s a factor of the human experience. Some people have the spirit of a champion and some don’t. Some people have it, and it takes a good coach to help them realise it and apply it to its fullest potential. What the ‘champion spirit’ tells us is that those who lead your workforce will always lead your workforce, but they also help you understand what others could do to become more like a champion. We’ll explore this more later, but here are some techniques you’ll want to keep in mind:

• Invest in your top performers – help them get higher
• Help everyone, but invest in your top performers
• Dissect the background and habits of your top performers so you know how to advise others
• Compare top performers as a peer group, and let them challenge themselves higher –you can manage to potential (no limits) not expectation (goals and standards)

CAUTION! Some people only appear to be champions because they’re at the top, while their path to the top is strewn with those whom they’ve abused and stood on in order to reach higher. These are merely the ‘pigs at the trough.’ They will eventually undo themselves. One element of dissecting the top performers is to make sure we look at ‘how’ without wearing rose-colored glasses before jumping to conclusions. We want to repeat what leads to top performance without compromising teamwork.