This reminds me of something I wrote in my book ‘Employee Engagement’ recently. In Japanese Production Management (JPM) waste was defined as anything that was absolutely unessential to production. All costs associated with non-value added functions are considered a form of waste that should be eliminated, whether it involves buffer between operations, slack time, waiting time, walking time, holiday and vacations, resting time, walking space at workstations, or more generally indirect labour such as skilled trades and maintenance workers. Rest time breaks, bathroom breaks, or time to wipe away sweat are regarded as waste. Obviously it had huge fallouts – one of them being Karoshi or sudden death of employees due to overwork. The Call centre in Australia and similar organizations should draw a lesson from the same.
Obsession for efficiency is always devoid of effectiveness of a system. And I define effectiveness of a system as the degree of acceptance among its various stakeholders, especially those directly affected by the same. Efficiency without effectiveness is a waste in itself. Such policies shall disengage employees on both rationale and emotional plane in a form similar to erosion of sand ridges by sea waves. Short-term profitability dreams shall ruin long-term sustainability chances of the organizations.
