"According to a groundbreaking new study by the Department of Labor, working—the physical act of engaging in a productive job-related activity—may greatly increase the amount of work accomplished during the workday, especially when compared with the more common practices of wasting time and not working" - the Onion. Don't tell us we do not have diverse resources when it comes to researching organizational performance. The sad thing is our opening statement sounds more like the typical morning news than satire.
We can certainly get an idea of productivity, especially relative productivity, with a measure like revenue per employee. You could also get an idea of productivity by asking an employee, "did you have a productive day, or was some of your time wasted today". If clarity exists regarding the mission of the organization, members have little confusion over whether they have contributed or not. We will go out on a limb and state that time spent desperately trying to stay awake in meetings would not qualify as productive.
There are five value-creating processes in any organization. The core process is that which creates the value customers are willing to purchase. Information management is a process that supports smart decision making, awareness of performance, and development of business wisdom. Talent management delivers high-performing workers and a leadership pipeline. Change management enables an agile organization that is able to keep up with its changing environment. Last, but not least, supply chain management helps leverage internal resources for optimizing competitive advantage.
Stratification of types of work helps to maintain focus on resourcing for greatest impact. Advantage work is that which creates distinction in the eyes of the customer and the potential customer. Strategic support work may be invisible to the customer, but it is enabling of advantage work. Transactional work is that which is necessary or required. Non-value-added work is not necessary and should be stopped. Some work gets done because it always has been done, but nobody can give another reason for it. Just stop it!
Certainly, advantage work must be kept inside the walls. With strategic support work we should consider whether it is proprietary or generic. For instance, information management might be proprietary on the information side, but generic on the information infrastructure side. Outsourcing of the generic piece, i.e. the data center and network maintenance, might make sense. Since this is still strategic support, the mode of outsourcing should be a collaborative relationship with a trusted partner. Transactional work might also be proprietary or generic, but outsourcing of generic transactional work can be on a contracting basis. Regardless of whether we are dealing with generic strategic support or generic transactional work, we must embed accountability into our outsourcing, and that, as opposed to awarding contracts for low bids regardless of performance, is the optimal value created by supply chain management.
For the Co3Organization advantage work and strategic support work are the basis for its being compelling. The appropriate assignment of internal resources vs. outsourcing is a critical component of congruence - these decisions make sense to everyone in the organization. Cognizance, based on transparency of performance whether internal performance or supply chain performance, allows everyone to see for themselves the collective productivity.
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