The Efficient Takahina, 2012 Week 28

Efficiency, work rate, progress, fast and accurate.

These are just some of the terms that drives people and work. Essentially, how fast the work revolves depends on simply, efficiency.

Efficiency is actually, something really simple to understand. Simply put, it's the work rate; how much work we can do in a certain time period like an hour for example. I can put it into many examples for many different types of environment, mainly into my own context...

Bands: What is the % of a song ready to be showcased in the public in gigs in 1 jamming session. Currently the fastest band I'm was in to learn songs had been Grover with up to 4 songs ready to gig in just 1 jamming session.

Data Entry: How many entries has been typed in within an hour. My record is 70+ conscripts. That's like less than 1 min per con.

Work: How much $ do you earn for the company for every hour that you work. I work like 8hrs per day but only spend like 4hrs fully on work.

Projects: What is the % of project is completed by every week. Ask my uni-cliques, I make up for their lack of efficiency HAHAHAHAHA..

School: How much % of the syllabus could you study in an hour. If it's science or maths, 0%. If it's econs, it's almost 50%

Blog: How much blogs can I write every week. 1?... I guess?

Weight: How much weight can I lose per week. Well to be frank it's 0% or even negative right now. 

I think it's fair enough to say that almost everything in this world has it's efficiency level, it may be difficult or ambiguous to determine, but it's definitely there. Similarly I think it's fair to say everyone in this world wants efficiency. FAST FAST FAST FAST they said.

However after working in NS, and currently in my job. I can tell that efficiency is only but a notion. I'm quite thoroughly convinced that despite the emphasis on efficiency, things aren't really working efficiently.

Many guys in Singapore would know, NS is a big freaking waste of time. I don't mean the waste of 2 years of your youth (because I believe in the value and necessity of NS), but the inefficiency of the whole "corporate" NS itself. Look at any clerks there sitting down, how many of them are really doing stuff? I know very well when I was in my camp as an sergeant I play Puzzle Fighter for like 25% of my time there. Like really a great big waste of time. We go to reservist, how many of us literally sit there and sleep our asses away? There's a very big reason why some people love going to reservice, because you gain $ there for sleeping.

You know Chun Li is f**ked.

Then bring in the normal working environment here. I sit in my office and I look around, some are surfing Hardware Zone Forums 'pres huan.', some are looking at facebook, some are looking at the latest transfer news going on in EPL right now and I'm sitting right here writing a freaking blog.

That's what HWZ EDMW do all day long... 

And you claim that you want efficiency?

The thing is this, everyone here knows how to do stuff, and we do it fast and well. So in a sense we're really efficient, but imagine the amount of pay given to us for sitting around growing round asses. From the society and corporate point of view, how much money could have been saved if we are only paid for the amount of time we actually work? Maybe if the corporate one day does a test and understands how fast we can work, you could retrench or transfer like up to 25% of the people here and save up on tons of cost. The fact is that this world is not efficient, at least the society from my point of view is far from being efficient.

It actually sucks to know that because people's full potential and capacity are not fully explored. My supervisor is doing an evaluation on how "fast" we can finish our task upon the hours that we work, however he dares not submit it up to the higher ups. Reason being we're "too" efficient. You submit such a report, they will surely cut the amount of estab that my department can have and next thing you know, BAM the whole department will be merged with another department, ultimately resulting in retrenchment which NOBODY WANTS except for shareholders who wants to save cost.

So it's actually a big political issue behind all this. Efficiency in real life is actually hindered by a lot of red tapes around. Also, if suddenly there is a surge increase in the job load, the department will need extra hands in to help, what will happen then? A company can't suddenly increase their estab because of additional cost involved. Besides that there's a whole bunch of procedures and systems to adhere to, resulting in a very much delayed process. So to be safe than sorry, a company will rather spend additional cost for inefficiency to save up for the rainy day.

Secondly, even if let's say this department is very efficient and they fully utilized their time, there will still be a situation whereby they have to wait before something gets done, that is the effect of procedural compliance.

Let's say we finish some paper work and we want to get on to the next phrase of the work but before we can do so, we have to let some superiors check through, cover the whole department's asses before it's approved and could be carried on by the lowly officers. By right it should be fast and immediate, but no. Normally such higher up people control tons of people under them and numerous departments under them. They have to check through every little single details of every department which could be like hundreds of emails, reports, documents etc to check through. You think your paper work could be accessed immediately? Nope... you have to wait like for 2-3 working days before it gets access. Now you understand why banks and companies always say you have to wait certain amount of working days before the process could be done? I mean for my wage to come to me, it has to go through this additional process of my employment agency to view my payslip for a week, then it'll come to me. So by right my pay should have arrived every end of the month? Mine takes like an additional week. I can't blame them, cause there's so many payslip to go through and so many departments/hands for the work to get process through it's almost impossible to get it done within like 1 day.

Don't even get me started on government organizations. >_>

And I'm sure, that's not the end to how "efficient" this society is. Things like budget constraint etc are a freaking big pain in the ass.

My Ass is pain.

If so then why do you even emphasis efficiency? It will only result in a Rush to Wait and Wait to Rush situation; something that we are so familiar in NS.

Since I'm already waiting, might as well take a pic...

 All in all, to me it boils down to management.

The current way of how companies run is standard throughout. Different departments handled different jobs and they will pass to the next in hand for it to be done. All this processing takes waiting. All this checking takes waiting. The more wait there is the more inefficient things become. Yet at the same time, all this checking can't be done without. So is there any way to bypass all these processes?

Well, I doubt it can be bypassed. but then at least to prevent people to have too much time, so much so they have to surf the web and do nothing, why can't the lower end departments or departments who are very much "free" in a sense, merge? So in a sense rather than just "you do your stuff I do mine", it becomes "you do your stuff, I do mine. But if you finished doing your stuff and I'm not done, you come help me until you got things to do." At least efforts and time are not wasted.

Secondly, I find firms can actually learn something from NS. Train your workers/sergeant/cadets/officers.

You always see things like to acquire this position you need like how many years of experience etc. Sure, it's clearly understood why they need experience to get a high position. If so then why not you train any existing staff that wants to be promoted with relevant knowledge, and when a position is open, these existing staff who ARE trained can apply confidently?

I'm a lowly settlement officer in a bank and I want to build up my career in this bank. There are internal job postings coming up every month, but they all require this knowledge or that experience etc. I will only be accomplished in my knowledge of settlement, how am I expected to know other expertise such as maybe compliance or analyst unless I work in it? If this is so then I'll be stuck in settlement for the rest of my life, which is totally unfair cause I won't be able to enter any other jobs unless I get any experience. In the end I'll be sick of it and transfer to another job or another bank, breaking my loyalty to the bank.

If you train them up and prepare them for upcoming positions, you won't need to go around looking for external sources cause you have already capable personnel working for you. Save up on the many labour turnover cost and you make staff happier as there is a very sizable career opportunities open to everyone.

Training is not only for them to gain the additional skills and knowledge, it's for them to have the confidence to be able to perform in that job. If staff have no confidence in applying for jobs, they won't try it out even if they may be really good in it.

You save up on labour turnover, save up on time since it will mostly be internal transfers and they are already trained so they know what to do. All this time and cost savings, won't that be much more efficient? Plus even if there is no open position for their new expertise to be utilized, they are in a sense "qualified" to do checks and hence help higher-ups with their checking. Like this they can filter through a big part of their procedures and utilize their time.

Thirdly, a firm can actually choose to pay via efficiency level. You do your task, you finish your task, you can go home, then you pay them accordingly to how fast they can finish their work. The faster their work rate, the higher you pay them. Then since workers can go back earlier, in a sense they are rewarded for their efficiency. It creates incentive for people to push for efficiency and hence you get your FAST FAST FAST effect. More time for workers to be at home with their family, go for another 2nd job if there is time and maybe even the country earns by having more babies. ;)

You won't be thinking of 'hey shio hey shio' with bushes like those...

Actually if the firm goes via the 3rd method I proposed, I need not even be at the office in the morning. Just be there by 2pm and I can finish everything by 7pm tops. But oh well, stick to the system.

All in all, I just want to say this. If firms and corporates want to look for ways to up their profit, look no further than the inner working of your own company and you can notice the many flaws of the systems. Systems and procedures can be tweaked around to provide for a more "fruitful" job experience. Efficiency are being compromised to these systems to such an extent certain procedures are totally redundant and it makes completely no sense to keep adhering to such redundant systems or procedures.

When people are truly efficient, you will start to realize actually there's so much time we can save. So firms, corporates, government bodies.... wake up please.