Time in Motion

Thrugelmir

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.

No one is indispensable. Nor are measurements made over one day........

Jude57

@Jillanddy and @Thrugelmir away with your logical, knowledgeable and fact based advice! Although I'm not sure I'd be taking employment advice from anyone naming themselves (albeit misspelled) after the Scrivener. I'd caution anyone to read to the end of the Scrivener's tale as it's not a finale most would want😱

TELLIT01

Usernames are generally chosen more to protect identity than to indicate their outlook on life!

bartelbe

Jillanddy said:

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???

You make my point for me, managers have to sometimes sack people. Why you have to do it is irrelevant. from an employee point of view. So when an employee deals with a manager like you, they should be careful. It doesn't matter how friendly you appear to be, any information given to you could one day be used against the employee.

As for Time and Motion studies, they were originally developed by a man called Frederick Taylor. He claimed he came with the idea when working at a pig iron factory and used such methods to improve their productivity. Tiny wee problem, it was all a lie, complete non-sense. His methods didn't improve productivity in that factory in the slightest.

Didn't stop business and management courses teaching his non-sense. In fact management is full of fads, woo and utter bulls**t. Modern equivalent are complete non-sense like Lean Startup and AGILE. Cult like non-sense, which incompetent managers buy into and inflict on their poor employees.

Even if such management and consultant fads work and they don't. Managers often abuse and misuse such ideas to go on a power trip or get rid of people they don't like. Britain is full of incompetent useless managers, the thriving woo consultant industry proves that.

bartelbe

Thrugelmir said:

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.

No one is indispensable. Nor are measurements made over one day........

Some people are indispensable. Easy enough to work out who they are. If they ever take a day off, everything grinds to a halt. Oddly most workplaces seem to function perfectly fine when managers are off sick, funny that.

As for time and motion studies, as I have said in another post, the person who came up with the concept was basically a fraud and the whole idea is built on sand.

Jillanddy

bartelbe said:

Thrugelmir said:

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.

No one is indispensable. Nor are measurements made over one day........

Some people are indispensable. Easy enough to work out who they are. If they ever take a day off, everything grinds to a halt. Oddly most workplaces seem to function perfectly fine when managers are off sick, funny that.

As for time and motion studies, as I have said in another post, the person who came up with the concept was basically a fraud and the whole idea is built on sand.

You obviously have an agenda about any management.  That's weird.  And sort of paranoid. I've never met anyone indispensable. Anyone.  Whatever label you put on them. 

And as for what you said in another post,  yes,  in your opinion. Luckily your opinion counts for very little. 

TELLIT01

bartelbe said:

Some people are indispensable. Easy enough to work out who they are. If they ever take a day off, everything grinds to a halt. Oddly most workplaces seem to function perfectly fine when managers are off sick, funny that.

If anybody truly was indispensible that would be a failure of management as they should never permit that situation to arise.  There should never be any job within a company which only one person is capable of doing.  In my close on 50 years of work I never came across anybody who was indispensible as they would never have been able to take leave.  I came across a few who thought they were, but they were quickly replaced when the need arose.

In fact, the sales office at one place I worked (I wasn't in sales) had this poem on the wall to keep the feet of their staff firmly on the ground.  http://www.mick-armitage.staff.shef.ac.uk/poems/poem-im.html

Jude57

TELLIT01 said:

Usernames are generally chosen more to protect identity than to indicate their outlook on life!

Yes of course. It was meant as a light comment only.

Thrugelmir

bartelbe said:

Thrugelmir said:

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.

No one is indispensable. Nor are measurements made over one day........

Some people are indispensable. Easy enough to work out who they are. If they ever take a day off, everything grinds to a halt. Oddly most workplaces seem to function perfectly fine when managers are off sick, funny that.

I'll rephrase my response. There's few people that aren't replaceable. Over the years I always found that teams resent one of their own that doesn't pull their weight.  Doesn't take long to determine who they are. 

MalMonroe

bartelbe said:

Jillanddy said:

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???

You make my point for me, managers have to sometimes sack people. Why you have to do it is irrelevant. from an employee point of view. So when an employee deals with a manager like you, they should be careful. It doesn't matter how friendly you appear to be, any information given to you could one day be used against the employee.

As for Time and Motion studies, they were originally developed by a man called Frederick Taylor. He claimed he came with the idea when working at a pig iron factory and used such methods to improve their productivity. Tiny wee problem, it was all a lie, complete non-sense. His methods didn't improve productivity in that factory in the slightest.

Didn't stop business and management courses teaching his non-sense. In fact management is full of fads, woo and utter bulls**t. Modern equivalent are complete non-sense like Lean Startup and AGILE. Cult like non-sense, which incompetent managers buy into and inflict on their poor employees.

Even if such management and consultant fads work and they don't. Managers often abuse and misuse such ideas to go on a power trip or get rid of people they don't like. Britain is full of incompetent useless managers, the thriving woo consultant industry proves that.

My ex studied to be a time and motion officer in the 70s. When he got a job as a consultant Time and Motion Officer, everyone at the companies he was sent to hated him. Not very good for his confidence. But of course his studies were a threat to jobs. Companies wanted efficiency but workers didn't want to lose jobs. And contrary to what you say, all the studies did prove that time and money was saved by using employee time more effectively and efficiently. His recommendations did not necessarily mean that staff were sacked but that suggestions and/or improvements were made or they were moved to areas where they were more productive. He also made suggestions that staff be sent for proper training and received recognition for using initiative - morale boosting goes a long way to encouraging staff to do their best. If they feel appreciated, they will make more effort. He discovered that many managers did not know how to manage. There's far more to time and motion study than you may think.

However, it sounds as if this OP's employer is just carrying out an amateurish study in a haphazard and disorganised way. Which will improve neither productivity nor morale.

Time and motion studies were actually developed by Frederick Taylor AND the Gilbreths, Frank and Lilian. While Taylor was conducting his time studies, the Gilbreths were completing their own work and motion studies to further scientific management. [The Gilbreth name may be familiar to anyone who has read the book Cheaper By The Dozen (there's also a movie) a biographical novel about the Gilbreth family, their twelve children and the often humorous attempts of the Gilbreths to apply their efficiency methods in their own household.]