Time in Motion

thomasparker430

A new manager has just joined our team and wants everyone to do a time in motion, he wants to know what we are doing every 15 minutes. I heard of people doing this if they are being on poor performance. I really don’t see the point in doing it and it will just cause a lot of tension within the team as everyone works a different paces

Jillanddy

So? It's not my style, but you don't need to see the point in it. And if everyone is working at vastly different paces then maybe the point is kind of obvious!

74jax

thomasparker430 said:

A new manager has just joined our team and wants everyone to do a time in motion, he wants to know what we are doing every 15 minutes. I heard of people doing this if they are being on poor performance. I really don’t see the point in doing it and it will just cause a lot of tension within the team as everyone works a different paces

Is there a question? 

unforeseen

It's time AND motion, not time IN motion. 

DayDreamerandGeneralWaster

I did one about 20 years ago to understand how long tasks were taking and if it meant more resources were needed. Bit old fashioned but effective. 

Jillanddy

unforeseen said:

It's time AND motion, not time IN motion. 

That might depend on just how poor some people are. I have met a few where measuring the amount of time they were in motion might be the only thing you could measure. 

74jax

Jillanddy said:

unforeseen said:

It's time AND motion, not time IN motion. 

That might depend on just how poor some people are. I have met a few where measuring the amount of time they were in motion might be the only thing you could measure. 

Sunday morning.... Coffee.... Everywhere... 😂 

Diamandis

They are pretty useful, I did one with an admin team i managed way back. It helped me understand how long each activity took, what tasks thet were dealing with (some of which shouldn't have been dumped on them), allowed me to set targets and also gave me the information needed to push back on other teams when they asked them to do other work or request additional staffing.

TELLIT01

As long as the performance expectation is set at or slightly above the average of all who complete the task I don't see the problem.  If the average is 10 widgets but somebody is only producing 3 there is obviously a problem with how that person is working.  It may be down to training, old equipment, or simply not being up to the job.  The problem can occur if one person is producing twice as much as everybody else and is held up as the shining example of what can be done, without actually checking the quality of that person's work. 

We had exactly that situation when I worked at DWP on claims processing.  It was only when the 'super performer' was on leave and somebody had to finish off their work that it became obvious that they were only producing twice as much as anybody else because they were not doing all the checks, and gathering all the information required before processing the claims.

bartelbe

There are allot of managers/trusting types on here. Me, I am a cynic and look on such on a study as a potential bomb about to go off. Your employer may well be looking to make cutbacks and seeing who they can get rid of.

My advice is, if you know in advance when this study is going to happen, make sure you have plenty of work on that day. Better to appear busy and indispensable, than someone who is dead wood or can handle more work for the same pay.

Jillanddy

bartelbe said:

There are allot of managers/trusting types on here. Me, I am a cynic and look on such on a study as a potential bomb about to go off. Your employer may well be looking to make cutbacks and seeing who they can get rid of.

My advice is, if you know in advance when this study is going to happen, make sure you have plenty of work on that day. Better to appear busy and indispensable, than someone who is dead wood or can handle more work for the same pay.

You clearly don't really know anything about how these studies work, because if they were that easy to fix, they would serve no useful purpose. And you also know very little about management if you think that managers aren't cynics as well.

Managers aren't all "bad" or "evil", but being a good manager doesn't mean that managers get to only make nice decisions that employees all like. I am currently having to manage staff reductions which are being forced on my teams, against my will, because (a) there is no money to pay their wages and (b) MY management refuse to consider any other alternatives despite the fact that in my opinion reducing staff will lead to significant further financial risk. The one thing that I have partly in my control here is the method of reducing the staff, and I have managed the whole exercise without a single redundancy or loss of pay or terms. Because I care and because it was the right thing to do. 

Managers have managers, and they have managers, and then there are more managers - it is not as easy as saying that "managers" have control over everything. And whilst I do disagree with my own managers decisions in this matter, it is also true that there is no money to pay the wages. There might be other cuts elsewhere that would, in my opinion, be wiser - but no cuts anywhere in anything is not an option. 

Yes, there are bad managers in places. There are also bad employees as well, and it also happens to be managements job to, as you put it, "get rid of them". And if cutbacks are necessary, or efficiency needs to improve, why on earth would any employer choose the least productive employees over the most productive???