What a waste

My boss yesterday said something that got me thinking – He was forwarded a request for a report from his boss. The report being requested seemed unnecessary and was destined to collect dust having never being looked at. I asked my boss ‘do we really need to do this?” the response was ‘we don’t question the boss we just do what he says’. I still can’t stop thinking about this statement. This particular report took two days to prepare at a total labour and resource cost of probably $50 ph – totalling $800 for two days. My predecessor in this role flagged a number of reports as being redundant however they are still required by management – I am confident in saying that these reports, 16 in total are not viewed – ever. At 30 min preparation time per report x 16 reports = 8 hours or $400. with these reports being prepared on average weekly, that’s a cost of $400 pw or $20,800 annually.

$20,800 p/a for reports that no one looks at. Now this wasted output is generated from just one position within a workforce of 1,000. Who knows how many others are producing such waste.

Organisations focus on output per worker but they often don’t consider the quality or usefulness of that output.

Imagine if I worked in an environment where management valued and actively sought the opinion of employees. Without even thinking, working or doing anything, my boss could have saved the company 20k annually. A saving attributed to just one employees idea. Imaging what could come out of one thousand.