Time Study

HCCADC

Hi,
Just wanted some opinions. Has anyone ever done a time study with an employee? The kind where you sit and watch an employee for 15 min. increments? What is your thought/feeling on this? Anyway to make it easier? We can't trust the employee to do it on their own. thanks for your thoughts.
Have a good day!

ritaanz

What does the employee do? A little more information might help.

HCCADC

She does our clerical work for daycare and other programs that we have. We are trying to find out if she has too much or too little work. We have had problems in the past with her complaining of too much work and asking that certain things be taken off of her. We reconstructed her job description/duties.

Zanne

HCCADC:

I did this once. It's (in my opinion) a no-win situation. We observed an employee (at her choice of days of the week and either a morning or afternoon)for four hours. After the study she complained that she had been observed on a "slow day". We were strapped for time and resources ourselves in HR so we didn't really have the opportunity to observe her work for more than that four hours.

I guess if you are going to do it - I'd observe for more than 1 day AND I'd let the employee pick a day and you pick a day.

Other than that - it's usually incredibly BORING to get to do this.

Zanne

HCCADC

I agree with you. I am doing it in 15 min increments for the next week. It is very boring. I am not sure it will help either, I figure the ee will keep all her work until I am there. Any suggestions on how else to evaluate time & duties? thanks for your reply!
Dawn

NaeNae55

When I have run into situation where the employee claims too much work and/or too little time, I handle it a bit differently. I ask questions about their work and try to narrow down the scope to a few items and how long it takes to do those particular jobs. Then I follow the instructions and do their job myself on those few items. Most of the time you just need a small adjustment to who is doing what.

Twice, however, I found a big difference. On one occassion we found that we had added way to many steps to a procedure that, over time, made the job take at least twice as long. We made appropriate changes and the employee was happy.

On the other occassion I tackled a monthly reconciliation of a client's account. The employee had been taking a MINIMUM of 2 days to reconcile the account, and complained that we had her loaded down with way too much work. I took the account and reconciled it in 4 hours. 2 hours of it was devoted to going back and fixing past month's mistakes she had made when reconciling the account, and 2 hours to do it the current month. Even though this was the first time I had reconciled a client's account, the employee claimed we weren't fair as I was more 'experienced'. We moved the employee to a job more suitable to her skills.

Hope this helps.

ritaanz

Is this the first person in this job? If not, did previous employees also complain? As NaeNae indicated, you probably could try doing a few of her tasks and see what is involved. Whenever I sat down with the compaining employee and tried the job for myself, I usually discovered the person was either poorly trained or did not like the work she was assigned. Try looking in that direction.

PAhr

We had a time study done in one department a year ago which involved six people keeping a log of their day for four days and the fifth would be observed by the supervisor. It consisted of writing down each job as it was done and how long it took. Two males and three females. The two males and two of the females completed their duties with little time to spare. The one female completed all duties and did extra jobs such as cleaning, paperwork and making supplies. The last didn't finish her work all week. Each employee was then taken aside to explain how the work was done. The employee who always had extra time explained that while she was doing one task she would start another while waiting for the results (testing) or would check data sheets on the lines. She also explained that when she dropped off paperwork she would perform tasks while already in that area (very large working area). It turned out the employee was just very efficient with her time.

The employee who did not complete her tasks explained that she believed the employee falsified test results and was taking speed and insisted she did not want to work with a drug addict. All for a time study. We wanted the appearance of fairness so we pulled the two aside and discussed it with each. The efficient one volunteered for a drug test and at the same meeting announced her pregnancy as well. She came back clean. She moved up to Group Lead a few months ago, implimented her time saving methods and the only one that complained was, you guessed it. She asked for a transfer because the Group Lead expected too much from her and she still thinks the other employee is doing drugs.

JulieP

When I first began in HR, I felt like I was swamped with work all the time. Finally, I took a time-management course which was wonderful. As part of implementing the time-management techniques, I kept a log of my time as was mentioned in a prior post. Then, I went back and studied how much wasted time I had and where I could be more efficient. Between the logs and the time-management techniques, I learned to do my job in a lot less time. I used to work 50+ hours a week. Now I normally work 30 hours a week and do the same job. Thank goodness I have a boss who lets me work these short hours! x:7

Whatever

We have done time studies in the past. The ones that worked best were the ones in which we also asked the employees for feedback. It is important for the ees to understand that the company is not looking to punish anyone. That what we are trying to determine is if there is a better way to the job.

Zanne

You know, I do remember reading something about a time-management company that when the experts came in, they would look for the laziest person there. Why? The lazy person figures out how to complete their job in the least amount of steps so that they can spend their time on other things. Interesting way to improve things, eh?

I agree with some of the above posts - you may want to do some of the employee's job yourself. I have done that recently with my employee and we both found out that it doesn't really take as long to do certain things as she had told me. She's become a little more efficient since that.

Zanne