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For the "busy work" problem -- Let's say you need to keep staff for certain job functions, which require a certain amount of institutional knowledge (so you can
by derekp7 13y ago
For the "busy work" problem -- Let's say you need to keep staff for certain job functions, which require a certain amount of institutional knowledge (so you can't easily hire off the street for them). And, you only need those skills periodically (once a month, a few times a year, etc). What do you do with those people when they aren't needed for the important periodic work, except to give them busy work that is somewhat related, to keep them skilled in that area?
Take the reports generation example in the article. Now sure, those specific reports can be automated. But everyone once in a while, they may want to issue new categories of reports. Someone has to design them, and put out the initial prototypes. And the people best qualified in designing them may be the ones manually generating them every month. If you automate it, and employees eventually cycle out through attrition, then there may be no one left that remembers how to put that style of reports together.
So, how would you normally handle that type of situation, besides avoiding the automation so that this skill remains fresh in the institution? (i.e., you may assign this task to each new crop of junior employees).
One example we had at a large telecom equipment manufacture I used to work at, was whenever someone new came into the group, the first thing you would have them do is physically inventory all the servers. At that time, they were spread throughout the main data center, several data closets in a large building, and some were off site. This ended up getting the new staff familiar with the equipment, and location, and how to navigate the building. Even though we could have automated the inventory through software.
- thomaslangston 13y agoHow do you keep knowledge fresh? First question the assumption that it must be fresh. Optimizing documentation to make rediscovering knowledge easier may be more beneficial. If knowledge must be fresh, then either apply the knowledge or share it with someone else. Knowledge can be applied by trying to improve a process instead of merely repeating a process (research and development). Knowledge can be shared in many contexts that give business value (marketing, selling, supporting, documenting, training).
- memracom 13y agoYour telecom equipment manufacturer probably did not exclaim that the inventory taking was high priority and needed to be done in overtime as well. In fact if their goal was learning they probably would have spread the work out to only a few hours a day so that you get maximum retention of the knowledge. It's the hurry up busy work that is so bad. In one of my jobs, I was providing technical support to sales for major accounts. It was challenging work which involved reading RFPs in languages that I did not know very well to catch where the sales team was misunderstanding technical requirements. Sometimes there was hurry up work to meet a prospect's deadlines. And we only won about 5% of the bids that I worked on. But it still felt good to do the work. I knew that it wasn't wasted any more than a football practice session is wasted. It was a competition. I wonder if there is some way to incorporate gamification into the enterprise to solve this problem.
- antris 13y ago>> What do you do with those people when they aren't needed for the important periodic work, except to give them busy work that is somewhat related, to keep them skilled in that area? Train them. Let them do their own projects. Anything is better than busywork.