Transcript
Workplace productivity improvement The Workplace Improvement Collection is a series of guides for you to make improvements in your workplace. Improvement means productivity. Not a subject discussed much and all too often misunderstood. Essentially improvement means making work quicker, easier, simpler, safer and fun. These are the important factors when producing the goods and services in our workplaces on a dayto-day basis. Available either individually, or all together at a discount, each of the guides will help you bring about performance improvements, when measured against current performance levels. An understanding of productivity and the search for improvement is a must in developing a dynamic approach to work. The Workplace Improvement Collection will develop in you the edge needed to make the difference in your organization, your department, to the working lives of those you are charged with and of course your own career prospects. Ordered common sense These guides will provide you with many ideas, tips, insights and techniques to make a tangible difference in your area of responsibility and hopefully beyond. At the heart of these guides is the application of ordered common sense, so often missing in our daily work lives.
The conceptual model (above) of how process time is made up is your starting point. In just a few short hours, deployed over a week or so, you can get this invaluable breakdown of your process time. This guide to productivity and its improvement will enable you to:
Understand the concepts of productivity, efficiency and utilization. Understand and quickly use the productivity measurement / improvement techniqies known as activity and work sampling. They WILL get you quick immediate results plus stand you in good stead throughout your career.
Understand the importance of reporting, not just this month/quarter/year but what graphingthe data you have in your corporate database - much will be revealed if you can go back 5 years or more (using monthly data.) Use visual management even if you're a junior supervisor / middle manager. Start taping your production / output and productivity charts to your office wall; people will notice – what’s going up, what’s going down and what’s not changing. What't the short, medium and long term trend in… Be independent in your thinking! Show no allegiance to any one faction, but only to the concept / mission of improving productivity (and dare we say humanity.)
If you manage on productivity, you'll become a star sooner or later. This guide will give you all you need to know to make improvements plus develop the correct mindset. Details: Format: PDF A4 size Pages: 81 Contents:
What is productivity How to measure productivity using ratios What influences productivity How to measure efficiency and utilization Ways to improve productivity How to measure and improve clerical productivity Profit from productivity Setting up a productivity improvement program Where to start checklists plus ideas to make an initial impact
Stand-alone module price: $12.99
Description The aim of this guide is to provide you with the basic tools, techniques and understanding of how to make a difference in your organization. Making a difference on a day-by-day basis means reducing the time it takes to do tasks. Reducing time taken ( work content in formal terms) involved in doing jobs saves costs (e.g. overtime), increases profitability, improves competitiveness and generally improves moral.
There are opportunities to reduce work content in every workplace situation all of the time. Even in your workplace, if you are prepared to spend a little time developing the skills in this guide. The skills and techniques are easy to acquire and require little time to deploy in measuring current work content, then finding a better way, then measuring the difference (improvement) in time taken. Who this guide is for Managers, supervisors, and employees at any level who wish to reduce the work content of resources deployed in their areas of responsibility. Armed with this guide you'll find plenty of opportunities to make improvements, then go about getting the improvements embedded as standard. You will find the guide simple, practical and highly effective. It also provides a new outlet for your creativity and absorbing dimension to your job— a constant challenge to do things better! Key Benefits
Simple, practical and effective techniques to improve productivity Quick, easy to learn techniques to measure current productivity Measure and improve single resource productivity (SRP) ratios Easily measure and improve total resource productivity (TRP) ratio Trend SRPs ratios and TRP ratio over time to develop and maintain improvement culture Uniformly report results using a Productivity Index (PI) from a base starting point in time
Concepts clearly and simply illustrated Includes learning objectives Applicable to any business organization Career long skill enhancement benefit, those that improve productivity go a long way in their chosen careers Quick start checklists will save money in your organization today, next year and beyond.
Contents
Learn and define What is productivity. Production process. Service industries. How production is measured. Production v. productivity. How productivity is expressed. Importance of improving productivity. Measure productivity Importance of measurement before improvement. Single resource productivity (SRP) ratios how they are expressed - how they are evaluated. Effect of changing inputs and outputs. Sources of standards. The Productivity Index. Total Resource Productivity (TRP) ratio measuring overall productivity. Importance of using common bases. Factors that influence productivity Physical and psychological influences. Utilization of resources. Efficiency of resources. Work methods. Supervision. Motivation. Measure utilization and efficiency How to do activity sampling. How to do work sampling. Time study, rating, allowances and standard time (time study techniques required in certain circumstances.) Ways to improve productivity explained Methods analysis. Method improvement. Value analysis. Loss control. Overcoming resistance. Gaining cooperation. Measure and improve clerical productivity Principle of self management. Measuring clerical utilization. Time logs. Task measurement. Establishing standard times. Establishing workloads by departments and sections. Improving clerical productivity. Profit from productivity Short and long term investments. Return on assets managed. Productivity of fixed assets. Productivity of current assets. Role of productivity improvement. Every employee a finance manager. Setting up a productivity improvement program (PIP) Gaining management commitment. Selecting team leaders. Training the teams. Keeping it going. Quick start productivity improvement checklists Causes of poor productivity, areas for inspection (time, ideas, methods, supplies, machinery/
equipment, manpower, accidents, non cooperation, space) checklists. Human factors checklists.
How to get the best outcomes when measuring productivity 12 JULY, 2011 | BY RACHAEL CHARLTON, CANDACE IMISON, JUDY CURSON
Effective use of metrics to drive workforce productivity improvement means carefully defining the inputs and outcomes you need, say Rachael Charlton and colleagues. Healthcare demand is continuing to rise at a time of increasing financial pressures. The challenge this creates for organisations requires leaders to drive significant increases in workforce productivity. Here we look at the role and choice of metrics in driving improvements in workforce productivity. The work is the outcome of a collaboration between NHS North West and the King’s Fund, both of which have been looking at the factors that can improve productivity. It was informed particularly by a joint seminar with senior clinicians and workforce leaders held in March this year. Measuring productivity What do we mean by productivity? How can we measure it? How can we use measures to engage clinical staff in making real changes? Productivity is defined simply as: output per unit of input. In a healthcare context, outputs should ideally be outcomes. However, these can be both difficult to measure and to relate to the inputs. To take an example from the NHS outcomes framework, the incidence of acquired pressure ulcers can be measured relatively easily. Productivity is increased if there are fewer ulcers for the same staffing inputs. In the relatively stable environment of a nursing home it is easier to match the outcomes with the specific inputs than in an acute hospital, where patients may spend time in several clinical areas. So, in practice, activity measures are frequently used. Defining relevant outputs and inputs that will help to drive improvements is not always straightforward. There are three broad levels at which productivity can be measured – for different purposes:
System-wide or organisation-wide measures: to assess performance, for example, costweighted activity per cost-weighted staff capacity. Benchmarking measures: which allow teams/services/organisations to make comparisons between and learn from each other, for example, tariff income per consultant PA by specialty. Team indicators: which enable individual teams to measure their own incremental improvement internally without necessarily making comparisons.
View options for productivity measures What are the features of a “good” productivity measure?
It must be clinically relevant. The more clinically relevant the measure, the more likely it is to sustain the engagement of clinical and other staff. Ultimately, it is clinical staff who commit most of the resources in any health system. Structured patient feedback and patientreported outcome measures can be related directly to the work of a team, individual or system.
Where direct outcomes are difficult to measure, audits of best practice and observations of staff behaviour are useful tools. Staff satisfaction is also an important indicator: staff do not like to waste time and they get satisfaction from good patient experiences and outcomes.
It must be valid – to reflect the real variation it is trying to capture. There are substantial variations in clinical practice. Tackling variation is crucial in the drive to improve quality and outcomes as well as productivity.
System-wide measures may highlight an area for investigation in one part of the system or reinforce the importance of looking across the care pathway; not just improving productivity and/or quality in one part of the system. For example, increased productivity in accident and emergency or in community teams could have unintended consequences for inpatient productivity. Benchmarking metrics can motivate individuals and teams to compete with their peers, particularly if they relate to quality and outcomes.
It should incentivise a desired change, rather than just a different way of counting. The direct personal incentives for increasing workforce productivity are limited and therefore non-financial incentives assume greater importance. For example, a respiratory specialist nurse trying to keep patients out of hospital will not be enthused by a measure which infers admissions are a desirable output. But an indicator of quality of life could be highly motivating. It should reflect the contribution of the team, so that measures continue to be useful through changing skill mix and support the development of teams. Since organisations may be relying on increased productivity to generate income, it is also easy to relate activity to tariff and convert both input and output measures to pounds.
For example, in an acute trust it is possible to compare pay costs of each consultant (inputs) to income generated through the tariff. It is apparent that increasing the productivity (measured in this way) of cardiologists and orthopaedic surgeons will have more impact on the bottom line than increasing the productivity of, say, dermatologists. The contributions of anaesthetists, plastic
surgeons, and other staff who contribute to service and productivity delivery may not be reflected at all as they are not the named consultant. Broad improvement All these measures should be used as tools to open the discussion and engage those who need to make a change. Suites of indicators are widely available but need to be used selectively. The diagram on the opposite page suggests a framework for conceptualising the productivity improvement process – of which measures are just one part. Productivity can be improved through reducing inputs – through skill mix changes, team working and improving use – or improving the outputs – through changing the model of care, adopting best practice and changing how staff relate to patients. Some go hand in hand. The metrics may indicate a need for change and help show the impact changes have had. Patient and staff engagement is a critical enabler to change and needs to be part of the process throughout. Rather than seeking a “perfect” measure, a range of measures that are clinically relevant and owned by clinicians engaged in a wider strategy for productivity improvement need to be deployed.