Paul increases holiday capacity

The evenings were drawing in and there was a distinct chill in the air in the mornings. Paul quickened his step to reach his warm office in the short walk from his reserved parking spot to the main administrative building. This morning, after reading some emails and ringing for coffee from his personal assistant, he opened a file on seasonal demand based on last year's figures. There were the predictable peaks during the holidays, at major national events and he noticed one particular tall bar on the chart that corresponded to Christmas.
He leant back and recalled last Christmas, when they had been flooded with orders for work but had only been able to fulfill about half of these due to the skeleton staff that was working that day. How many customers had they turned away? Ones that might never return. He must stop this happening again.

On the company noticeboard outside the canteen at lunchtime, the workers saw a new notice pinned up.

"In order to maximize workflow and to maintain as efficient service as possible this year Christmas Day will be a normal working day for all staff. This time can be claimed back in lieu later in the leave calender. Paul (MD)."

They were speechless. How could this be allowed? There must have been some mistake. They must talk to Paul as soon as possible to rectify it.

And so it was that as Paul prepared to leave that afternoon, shrugging on his overcoat at his customary half past four, he found a deputation of drivers and washers and fuel pump attendants waiting for him.

"Paul!" they cried, in obvious distress. "What's all this about Christmas being a normal working day? Is this a misprint?"

Paul smiled. Of course - his higher plane of strategic thinking has evaded them. Whilst it would make him late for 'Countdown' he had better explain the issue to them.

"No. Not a misprint. Christmas Day is an extremely busy day for orders as people want to criss-cross the country visiting family and friends and going on holiday. Last year we turned away half the potential customers - that is very bad for business."

"But Paul," the workers replied, still clearly distressed. "You can't just cancel Christmas. Even the Prime Minister can't do that."

"We're not canceling it," smiled Paul. "Merely relocating it to optimize profits."

"But everything else will be shut. Schools for example. Will the company provide childcare?"

"That is of course out of the remit of the company. We are not a creche!" joked Paul.

"Paul, we understand that it is a busy day but you can't just unilaterally cancel a public holiday. How about trying to make some arrangements for better cover that day by asking for volunteers but making it worth their while. Just having a different day off at some other time isn't really enough."

"OK. We'll say only those without children need to work that day." Goodness, thought Paul to himself, a brain like greased lightening: that'll silence them.

But it didn't.

"With what sort of incentive?" some asked. What an ungrateful bunch!

Paul sighed. It looked like he would have to stump up some extra money to make this work. That would erode into profits. Didn't these people see that?

"Time and a half," he compromised.

"But what about those with children?" asked one. "We are being disenfranchised from earning that extra money simply because we are parents. That is unfair too."

Will this never end?

"Okay, okay," he said fearing some Equal Opportunities legislation being quoted at him. "We''ll arrange for a limited creche on that day so people with children can take part if they want to. Happy now?"

"We'll think it over," said the workers. "But it really would have been better if you had consulted us all first and come to a mutual agreement rather than issuing an ill-thought out order."

"By the way," asked one. "Will the administrative staff be working that day too?"

Paul smiled. "I hardly think that they will be needed on Christmas Day. Everything else will be shut."

Paul cuts costs

Paul's plan of arranging the drivers, washers, fuel pump attendants and all the other workers into groups had been in operation for some time. The central Sedan and Hatchback Agency sat in the centre of this web monitoring the criss-crossing of paperwork and issuing edicts, fines and amendments to rules at regular intervals.

It was getting expensive though. Even Paul saw that the extra layers of bureaucracy had to be paid from somewhere so that although initially the costs could be hidden under such account book headings as 'Deferred Profits' or 'Expenses Offset Against Future Earnings', eventually these monetary pigeons came home to roost and something had to be done. He thought long and hard. He conferred with his managers. He examined the problem from every angle. It was quite clear: what was needed was a slimming down of the extent the company ran every aspect of the business. Paul decided that the workers should be given more responsibility. He called a meeting.

"These are difficult times for us all," he began. "In order for us to regain the levels of success that we enjoyed some years ago we need to make some changes."

The workers looked nervous.

"At the same time we shall be recognising your outstanding contributions and talents and therefore shall give you more control over your working lives. Some of the service activities that have gone on in this place in the past will need to be reduced but we are going to offer you the chance to perform them yourselves - possibly better, but also cheaper. Successful groups can then bid for work and the most cost-effective bids may win contracts."

The workers looked nervous.

"We are calling the initiative 'The Big Opportunity' and it is a programme of enablement to empower you to take over many of the services previously provided by the company and to use your special skills and knowledge to improve on the current situation."

The workers looked nervous. And blank.

"Do you mean that you want us to do for free some of what we are currently getting paid for?" they asked, not unreasonably.

Paul beamed reassuringly, evasively. "I am sure that the spirit of competition and enterprise coupled with your enthusiasm and mix of talents will blend to form a unique, cohesive enterprise."

The workers now looked just blank.

"From tomorrow," Paul continued seamlessly, "the Car Washing Facility will only open on Mondays and the Fuel Pumps will operate from eight until nine in the morning only. Clearly, suitably qualified workers will want to organise themselves into groups to enhance this service and in so doing reorganise the work patterns and protocols as we recognise that ground-up initiatives may have beneficial effects on efficiency."

The workers remained blank and again looked nervous.

Paul was disappointed that his announcement had not fired the men with immediate enthusiasm but assumed that, as they lacked his managerial training and vision, the positives would only percolate through to their collective consciousness later. Nevertheless, he felt it was time to leave them and beat his retreat.

The drivers, washers and pump attendants looked at each other and had the uneasy feeling that very soon they would again be giving 'more for less' but tightened their collective belts and carried on working as before.

Paul makes sense of economics

It was a fine summer's day. Paul sat by the open window and gazed at the activity outside. Presently he heard two of his workers - one driver and one of the fuel pump attendants - in conversation.
"Hey, Billy!" called the driver. "Can you give me a hand with this roof-rack. I need to remove it from the car before the next trip and it's a bit stuck."
"Sure thing Jack," replied Billy. And they set to work.
Paul was incensed.
How was Billy going to account for this time. He was not working on his designated tasks - he would doubtless be late for something. And Jack - he was being paid for work not all of which he would have done himself. It made him seethe with anger.
He got to work with pen and paper and by the evening he had come up with a plan. The very next day he called all the workers together for a meeting.

"It has come to my attention that tasks within the company are being performed by random personnel," he began. The drivers and washers and pump attendants and all the other workers looked nonplussed.
"Work is being performed by personnel outside of their usual occupation, which will have downstream knock-on effects on productivity."

The staff looked mystified.

"To combat this I am from today introducing a new system whereby individual groups can both sell their services to other groups and purchase others within the company. The drivers' grouping will be known as the 'General Performance - Car Concern'; the fuel pump attendants and washers will form the 'Forward Taskings' group; the management in this building who oversee and regulate all the work will be known as the 'Sedan and Hatchback Agency'. All will have budgets for which they will be accountable and from which they need to purchase services from other groups. They may of course attempt to turn a profit - either by also offering their services elsewhere, or by looking for services that are cheaper outside and thus saving money. This degree of competition will, I am sure, drive up the quality of what we do."

The staff looked mystified.

"How on earth is that going to make us more efficient, Paul?" they asked. "For a start it'll take half our day just to manage all this new paperwork."

"Ah!" countered Paul, pleased that he had an answer to this. "We will employ new people to do this for you. The 'Profitable Car Traders' will work with you to achieve maximum profits."

"Surely this just adds to the expense, Paul? These extra layers of bureaucracy won't make us work any better."

"Oh, I think they will." smiled Paul knowingly. "Once you have your individual budgets to safeguard you will understand the meaning of efficient, cost-effective and accountable work. Competition with the outside world is no bad thing."

"Maybe not," argued the workers. "But we have fuel pumps and washers here on site. Why would we go anywhere else? For a start it would take us miles out of our way and so increase the time spent on a job."

"Other companies can now tender for providing these services more cheaply. Once you see you are saving money you'll change your minds."

The staff looked mystified. "Saving what money, Paul? This all comes from the over-arching budget of the company. There's no real money behind this initiative - only numbers on a spreadsheet, accounted for in a different way."

"Wait and see," said Paul, and got up and left.

And so the drivers and washers and fuel-pump attendants all convened into their nominated groups and started to buy and sell services to each other, though did not notice much difference in the way they worked, other than there was a lot more paperwork.

The Profitable Car Traders closely monitored the number of interactions between the General Performance - Car Concern and the Forward Taskings groups and the Sedan and Hatchback Agency set targets for the maximum allowable number of these interactions. At the end of the year there was very little change in the number of journeys the drivers had undertaken or the way in which the company was perceived by the outside world but there was a large amount of data on how this had come about.

And the drivers noticed that as attentions were now so focussed on the flurry of paperwork that pervaded the buildings no one really gave much thought to the customers anymore.

Paul tackles training

They were busy times for the company. The drivers could barely keep up with the number of requests for their services. Most of their assignments passed off satisfactorily but sometimes they wished they had different vehicles for certain jobs. Even more than this they wished they could learn to drive their current ones in new and different ways in order to achieve more. But these extra expenses were hard to come by as there was a recession and there was little money for career advancement and the acquisition of new skills. The drivers found this sad but got on with their work, complaining but little.

Paul too had been thinking about training. He had been on a management study day and saw that many coloured bar charts could be produced analysing the number of course modules employees had attended. These in turn curried favour with the executives who liked to feel that they were providing a good learning environment as this in turn ticked many legal regulatory boxes.

Thus it was that he sat down and thought of the many areas that could be addressed by such a training programme. After several days of chewing his pen he came up with an extensive list. He composed a memo to all the drivers informing them of this splendid new opportunity to advance their knowledge and advised them that once they had attended all these modules they would only need to update their knowledge once a year. Topics included 'Keeping Fuel in Your Vehicle', 'Opening and Shutting Car Doors - the Risks and Benefits', 'Car Washing', 'The Importance of Servicing', 'Vehicle Identification', 'What to do in a Breakdown', ' Talking to your Passengers', 'Tyre Care', and many more.

"But Paul," cried the drivers as if with one voice when they saw this catalogue. "Apart from the 'What to do in a Breakdown' one, these are all useless. We know this stuff anyway and it is very patronising of you to think that we need to go on a course to learn how to shut a door. What we wanted was the chance to go on courses to learn how to drive in the snow, or change a fan-belt on the road, or how to load a removals van correctly. Not how to wash a car, which we do every week anyway."

Paul looked annoyed. All his efforts on their behalf were being spurned.

"And another thing, Paul," they said. "Doing all these learning exercises will take lots of time - time that we could otherwise be working. We are barely keeping up with customer demand as it is."

Paul looked annoyed. He needed those bar charts.

"It's not negotiable," he retorted. "It is a part of company policy that you do these and your annual increase in wages depends on their successful completion. We will lay on days when all work is cancelled and you can attend these lectures."

"But Paul, that will increase delays for our customers even more though," cried the drivers.

Paul looked annoyed. He hadn't thought of that.

"We will also pay you extra to do some weekend and evening work to clear any backlog," he replied, pleased at this idea. How generous he was!

The drivers shook their heads sadly. "But Paul. That's a huge extra cost to the company. If you let us go on the courses we wanted to go on, instead of these, we would probably even do it in our own time. Some of this extra money could be spent on the course fees instead. That way you wouldn't lose any work and we would all get better at our jobs."

But Paul simply looked annoyed. "It's compulsory," he said. And walked off.

Paul's productivity drive

One morning Paul walked into the office through the car park where the majority the company's fleet of vehicles was kept. He looked at all the different models and types but was most taken by the row of red Ferraris. It was a picture of this row that appeared on the company's advertisements as they were the top of the range.
'We need to get more of these,' he thought to himself as he passed the other rows of less photogenic vans, estate cars and fuel-efficient Smart cars. And he called his managers together in his office.

None of them had ever driven a Ferrari, nor indeed any of the other cars that the company owned, and rarely met the drivers who did. Nonetheless they made plans for changing the make-up of the fleet and energetically wrote business cases to this effect.

On his way to another such planning meeting Paul bumped into one of the drivers in the corridor and casually mentioned this plan to him. The driver was aghast.

'But Paul,' he said. 'The Ferraris are only hired by young executives for weekend jaunts. They don't make up a very large part of the business. Most of what we do is long-distance driving of both people and goods. A Ferrari wouldn't be much use there. The biggest growth area we are seeing is people wanting to hire cars to tow caravans.'

Paul remained obstinate.

'They are our top of the range. We need to get as many people as possible to use them as quickly as possible. We can only do this by having more of them.'

The driver looked incredulous. 'But Paul. The Ferraris are the most expensive vehicle for the firm to run. They cost more to buy, to maintain and to fuel. Why use them for anything other than their specific tasks?'

Paul remained obstinate.

'It is good publicity if people know that we are associated with high profile, high performance vehicles like these'.

'But Paul,' the driver persisted. 'Getting a Ferrari to pull a caravan is not only inefficient practice but it will break the car if it goes on for any length of time. Not only is there no need to use such a car but it can be positively damaging.'

Paul remained obstinate. He had had an idea and he was determined to see it through, evidence notwithstanding. 'We'll call the initiative 'SPECIAL International Superior Transport Service' - or SPECIAL-ISTS for short.'

The driver shook his head sadly and wondered why his opinion counted for so little.

Paul assesses profit and loss

Once upon a time there was a man named Paul. He ran a company that hired out vehicles with drivers for a whole variety of different tasks. On the whole the outfit worked well with all the drivers working very hard at their assignments, which were many and varied. But Paul, who had never driven a vehicle, began to feel as if he was being cheated by the drivers and started to think of ways to monitor them. The drivers, who were an honest bunch, were unaware of this and in any case often met up to see how they could do better as they liked their work and were seen by most outsiders as being good at it.

However Paul's suspicions grew and grew until finally he decided to perform checks on the performance of his staff. Sadly, not understanding the work they did, he was unsure what to measure or how to interpret what he did measure or even whether the methods he used to measure things were at all valid. Undeterred however, he set up a complex system that he hoped would calculate the number of miles each driver with his vehicle had driven each month. He argued that as all the vehicles would have to fill up with petrol frequently, monitoring this would be useful and so he managed to put some very expensive sensors in place in the surrounding petrol stations. These would then send him data every time one of his vehicles filled up. He realised that the amount of petrol used depended on a number of variables including the engine size, the type of journey, the condition of the vehicle and the way it was driven so he calculated complicated formulae to factor this in. From these equations he derived his estimates as to how far each vehicle had gone in the last month.

He was shocked. There was a huge variation. Some drivers seemed to be working far harder than others; some appeared to be doing next to nothing and must surely be losing him money. Still he did not ask the drivers as to why this might be but went to lots of meetings with other managers in the company and between them they made even more complex formulae to interpret the data by aportioning it in different ways. Finally though, they decided to meet with the drivers to explain the system to them.

"But Paul!" they said. "If you wanted to know how far we drive why didn't you just look at the milometer instead of setting up this complex arrangement? We do it ourselves every month anyway so we could have just given you the data."

Paul looked a little embarrassed but said nothing.

"Sometimes," they continued "we fill up in far away petrol stations that don't have your monitoring systems so you aren't even capturing all the data."

But Paul wasn't listening.

"And Paul," they said. "Not all our vehicles are the same. Many of them do other tasks as well as simply going from A to B. Just measuring the distance they have driven won't tell you much about what we do."

But Paul wasn't listening.

"Look at Vehicle number Seven," he said, pointing at the spreadsheet. "Last month it only drove three miles, whereas Vehicle Number Two managed over two thousand kilometers."

Ignoring the disparity in units the drivers replied: "But Paul! Vehicle Number Seven is a bulldozer. It can't go very far and in any case its main task is to flatten out the route between the depot and the main road every day. That track is in such bad repair that if the bulldozer didn't flatten it out every day none of the other vehicles could even leave base, never mind do all their work."

But Paul wasn't listening.

"And Vehicle Number Two is a removal van. Of course it clocks up long distances. What you should be measuring is how successful it is at transporting furniture and how much it breaks, or how happy the customers are with the service."

But Paul wasn't listening.

He was dreaming of rolling out his system to all the other branches of the company. He would call it Paul's Longitudinal Investigative Car Survey. Or PLICS for short.

It made no sense but might make his name in the management world.

And the drivers wondered how much all this had cost and whether that money could have been better spent on improving their vehicles or the road, and they wept to see such ineptness all around them but carried on doing what they did very well anyway, much as they had done before.