subject: Finding A Balance Of Labor [print this page] Lean is the hot word right nowLean is the hot word right now. Everybody wants to be lean, but in organization it might be the only way to survive. With the way the economy had been down and even now coming out of the recession which is officially over, but still lingering in peoples wallets, it has never been more important to run lean. You want all of your processes, from shipping and receiving to accounting and production running lean and efficiently.
This doesnt mean that you want to be running any of the divisions with less manpower than necessary; you just do not want to run them with more manpower than you need. Everybody is looking for ways to cut expenses and reel in the cost of doing business, but cutting indiscriminately is not the best way to go about. Sure, you could just wipe out the entire middle management team and save some money, but you should have a plan in place first.
The thing is you most likely could eliminate these positions if they werent truly an iatrical part of getting the work done. Frequently, these types of positions, while important at the time of creation, morph into something that isnt always necessary. Actually, many times these middle management positions muddy up the water between the workers and their supervisors, the ones that should know what is going on down on the floor.
That doesnt mean that these positions do not offer something of value, but they have to be looked at to make sure they are necessary. In truth, by being more efficient, many times a organization will find that they dont need so many layers of management. Especially if each layer is working closely with one another and everybody is working towards the same goal. The main concern is with overworking one area and not having enough to give another area.
This can lead to a disconnect between the workers and the middle management, but if the time allotted is used efficiently, much more can be accomplished. That is to say that maybe there is some waste in this position and maybe these men and women could be of better use in another manner or with different responsibilities. Sometimes, even when things get back to normal, you will find that eliminating or tweaking certain areas can be for the better, and they dont have to be replaced even when there is extra money in the budget. That money can go into something more useful that could help boost production.
