My father, who was chief engineer at a small manufacturing company, had a favorite saying: “Work expands to fill the available time.”
His point was that as people we always seem to feel busy, no matter how much or how little work we actually have to do. His axiom is true only up to a point, as anyone who has ever suffered through an exceptionally slow work week can attest.
And yet, a corollary to dad’s theory is that even though we feel busy, we can always take on more work (again, up to a point).
All that is interesting when looked at in light of this month’s “Human Side” article about San Diego’s Public Utilities Department, Wastewater Collection Division. That team of workers didn’t know how inefficient they were until faced with a stiff challenge: Having to compete for work on a cost basis with private-sector companies in a specially designed bidding process.
All of a sudden, the team under principal water utility supervisor Mike Rosenberg found ways to get a lot more done per day, better than before, and with fewer people. It seems this bit of shock therapy helped employees reach toward their true potential.
A positive way
We read a lot these days about cutting the cost of government, and it usually involves laying off public employees or cutting their compensation. Here’s a city that did it differently, and much more positively — and most likely to much greater benefit.
It surely wasn’t pleasant for these workers to face the threat of essentially losing their jobs to private contractors unless they stepped up their performance. But in the end the city’s policy challenged Rosenberg and his team to find out just how efficient and effective they were capable of being.
The results were nothing short of inspiring. Of course it didn’t happen overnight or by magic. To make the improvements, the city had to invest, especially in equipment and training. People can’t do their best with limited knowledge and inferior tools.
Most likely the people on Rosenberg’s team already worked hard. Now they probably work harder, but mostly smarter, and in ways they know are effective and so make their jobs more satisfying. It’s a win all around, for the city leadership, for the taxpayers, and for the workers themselves. So this is a great story.
Making them partners
But there seems to be a logical next step here, which San Diego hasn’t taken, and that very few if any public agencies take. And that’s to incentivize public employees with more than the right to save their jobs. The whole idea of letting government workers act in an entrepreneurial fashion seems to be taboo, and may even be proscribed by union rules or government units’ own policies.
What am I talking about here? What if the members of a city crew were informed about their department’s total budget and were challenged to find ways to improve efficiency, in return for which the team would share, say, 10 percent of the annual savings, in the first year and going forward?
Part of the deal might have to be that their requests for better equipment and more training would be heeded — and so maybe costs wouldn’t go down right away. But in the long run there likely would be savings, because people tend to do what is in their best economic interests. That’s why capitalism succeeds where other economic systems fail.
Isn’t this approach — tapping the expertise of people on the front lines and making them full partners in productivity — a better approach to cutting costs than simply slashing budgets? The latter approach hurts people and causes resentment. The former empowers, motivates and energizes.
I’m tempted just to sigh and say, “Well, not in my lifetime.” But let me ask you readers who know an awful lot more about this than I do: Am I off my rocker? Or does this approach have some merit? Please drop a note to editor@msw mag.com and let me know your thoughts.
