Work Smarter, Not Harder

Rhonda Ridge of Ab Initio’s AdminBase, the tried, tested and trusted installer management system, talks about the very real problem of overworking and explains why the solution is easier than we might think.

It was Allen Morgenstern that first coined the idea of working smarter, not harder in the 1930s. It was after the industrial revolution and in his field of industrial engineering he was looking for a way to maintain productivity while treating workers fairly. While industry has come a long way since then, businesses should still always have an eye on improving systems to boost productivity, while making employees lives better.

A widespread problem that needs to be addressed in today’s workplace is overworking. It happens for lots of different reasons, including individuals not wanting to ask for help, and employers being unaware of how much some team members are taking on and the detrimental effect it is having on them. In a BBC report published last year, research from institutions such as the World Health Organisation and the International Labour Organisation, showed that people working more than 54 hours a week are at major risk of dying from overwork. The research suggested the problem was killing three-quarters of a million people each year. Overworking isn’t useful to anyone because it can’t last forever. And ill health is bad for employees and employers alike.

Overcoming the reverence towards overworking

We need to address the wider culture where overwork is acceptable and even revered. This is a huge undertaking, but individual businesses can make a difference by addressing inhouse. Keeping a closer eye on how work is shared out among employees is a good place to start. You will always find there are some people that take on more and more work without complaining, even when they are struggling, while others sit back and try to get away with doing as little as possible. This shouldn’t be deemed acceptable and while managers don’t want to micromanage entire teams, there are systems available that will monitor workloads for you.

CRM software systems, such as AdminBase which was designed specifically for installation businesses, are a great way to monitor the spread of work on any given project. For example, in AdminBase fitters’ hours can be tracked so that if one team is really busy and another has hours to spare, work can be reassigned for better balance. This information can be gleaned from easy to use reports at the tap of a button 24/7. Which means busy managers can just check in on projects at a time that suits them.

Job boards both physical and digital have always been a good way of tracking work across the lifetime of a project. The AdminBase system includes its own digital Taskboard facility so that installation businesses can monitor the detail behind the projects. It highlights bottlenecks where people may be overworked, and any areas deemed to still have capacity. The system also ensures there is visibility and accountability across the business so that no individual takes on more than they can handle, and no one gets away with hiding in the shadows and not pulling their weight. In short, it improves teamwork.

As someone who used to work in an installation business myself, I appreciate how daunting introducing new software might be, but once installed, AdminBase is so intuitive and easy to use, the whole team can start interacting with it straight away. And managers don’t need to be sat monitoring a screen all day, they can run reports for the information they need quickly and easily. It becomes a similar process to checking e-mails. And in a similar way to e-mails, notifications can be set up as needed.

Avoiding overworking is a critical part of any business today, for the benefit of employees primarily, but also for the benefit of employers. A business can’t thrive if work is not fairly distributed because it affects motivation levels as well as physical and mental health. AdminBase offers a fantastic solution with an easy-to-use system to monitor workloads across the business simply and effectively.