As many of you know, time is one of our most precious and expensive resources. Calculate how much it costs the dealership to keep you employed per hour. Then do the same to determine the cost to run the dealership per hour. Research suggests that we lose 25 – 30 percent of our day to timewasters attributed to people issues, which doesn’t include the loss of efficiency due to sloppy processes. A dealership with which we worked estimated a loss of 45 percent because the body was not communicating with the left and right hands. A total mess.
I’m currently facilitating a course for a manufacturer and was told about the bad habit of people showing up late for meetings. Just imagine how much money that costs when several people are waiting while others are disrespecting their time. Our sessions start on time and I put a sign on the door to please enter quietly
after 8 a.m.
Given that we have a finite number of hours per day, there is tremendous variability as to how much people can achieve given
the number of hours. The secret is how we manage our time. For example, a vice president complains about his workload and has to catch up on emails into the late evening hours. But he is known to walk the halls engaging others in chitchat. Not only is he wasting his time, but that of his fellow workers. These behaviors become rituals and become hard to see as timewasters.
Here are pet peeves of mine: not completing paperwork on time or submitting paperwork that doesn’t include all the needed information. Just think about the time wasted with this simple and inconsiderate act. Ouch, that hurt.
Based on my work within dealerships, we’ve identified 40 timewasters that are common to many dealerships. Moreover, we’re confident we don’t have all of them listed. We use this content to help dealerships develop strategies to minimize or eliminate these expensive habits.
Common sense tells us that employees should be focused on making life easier and more successful for everyone rather than doing those things that cost us time and money. Your goal should be to create a corporate culture so that you’ve got every set of eyes looking for opportunities to eliminate timewasters and maximize performance.
Western Equipment Dealer Magazine Fall 2018
By Larry Cole, PhD
