1. Introduction

 

1.1   Introduction about Johnkeells Office Automation Pvt Ltd (JKOA)

JKOA Established in August 28, 1992. John Keells Office Automation (Pvt) Ltd is a fully subsidiary within the retail sector of John Keells Holdings PLC, one of the most respected conglomerates in Sri Lanka. JKOA is the leader in office automation solutions, comprising a product portfolio of world-renowned brands. Continually listening to the needs of customers and focusing on social, environmental and economic responsibility has helped JKOA achieve significance and success in an aggressive local market. The corporate sector is serviced directly and consumer markets are covered by growing base of resellers located island wide.

JKOA is the authorized distributor and agent in Sri Lanka for the brands Toshiba, Samsung, Riso, Asus, Hitachi and many other quality office automation brands.

To be the leading provider of technology driven office automation solutions supported by the highest standards of the service in the industry.

Product Range

·        Digital Duplicators                                  
·        Multifunction Printers
·        Mobiles and Accessories
·        Computers
·        Multimedia Projectors
·        Television and Video Walls
·        POS Machines
·        3D Printers
·        Audio
·        Interactive Smart Board

             

                                    

      Top Management

What is top management

The most senior & authorized staff of an organization or business, including the heads of various divisions or departments and Chief Executive Officer

Middle Management

the managers in an organization at a level between senior and junior managers.

Example – Regional managers, Sales Managers, Product Managers

Bottom level Management

Also known as Supervisory management who refers to those executives whose work has to be largely with personal oversight and direction of operative employees. They are concerned with direction and controlling function of management.

1.2  What is Inefficiency of the work place

Inefficiency is defined as a lack of organization or skill that wastes time, energy, or money of the organization. It leads to poor productivity and low morale. Inefficient people, organizations, systems, or machines do not use time, energy, or other resources in the best way.

People don’t put their maximum to their organization because of different reasons.

Inefficient processes in the workplace start with management. Management should make an effort to review processes and listen to your employees when they tell you procedures are not working for them.

There are several factors that affect employee productivity and efficiency in the workplace, such as work environment, leadership, job satisfaction, training, processes and culture

1.3   Why employee become inefficient

Researches show that employees are only 60% as productive in their workplaces as they could be. Due to this, businesses are not able to satisfy their customers’ demands, which leads them to losing billions of dollars every single year.

There are lot of factors are affected for inefficient working environment. Some of them are as below.

1. Multitasking

The top management of the company want to hook up the staff with as many tasks as possible. But this way, they will never be in a position where they’ve got nothing to do.

If there work load and pressure was high the focusing will be missed. It will be cause to happen lots of mistakes. Some people has ability to do lots of things at same time. Therefore HR and respective management should have proper understanding about different skills of the different people

Ex – JKOA HR try to do cost cutting by reducing administrating employees in the office and try to convert rest of people multitasking. Then what happen is retain employees become disappointed about company and the management.

2.      Workplace stress

Another big issue that causes low productivity is workplace stress. when employees are being pursued by job-related anxieties, they lose concentration, get distracted and are unable to complete their tasks in the best possible way.

In case workplace is too stressful, employee start thinking of ways how to change that, otherwise, he will be faced with the problem of having significantly low levels of productivity. But stress was heap continuously, employee will be disappointed about his job and try to find better opportunities.

3.      Lack of Sense of belonging

Most of the time employees do not feel that they belong with the company that they are part of that. Because there is not proper engagement with senior level management. Sometimes bottom level employee even can’t access to top management. Therefore, there is a gap will be created between them and it will be badly affected to performances. 

Especially when new recruitment happens, they will feel that they are not in the right place. Because there is no proper communication with each other. So HR should make sure that the environment in their business is welcoming to new hires and does not make them feel underappreciated. Before hiring a new member should communicate the principles, values and culture of the company. Also need to be given rough idea about job role. Otherwise, he or she will be straggling.

Considering our organization, it can be seen as a weakness. When recruit new one, he or she doesn’t receive appropriate guidance to implement his or her works until he gets experience. So, when doing works he or she struggling and disappointed about his selection. It automatically directs for inefficient working environment

4.      Lack of recognition

Providing employees with acknowledgment of the good work that they have done is one of the easiest management tasks to increase employee efficiency. But lot of company management easily neglect it.  This small effort that they put in, employees get demotivated, which decreases their productivity. It will be directed to create un happy customers within organization and increase the conflict between management and employees. This can be seen between middle level management and bottom level employees as well as between top level management and middle level management. Because of these reasons attention will not be directed towards doing their work in the best possible way. So inefficiency is created naturally. Recognition is the highest form of feedback and it is simple to provide. Therefore management have a responsibility to appreciate good works of their followers.

Likewise HR should be created mechanism to appreciate their employees.

Example – Get feedback from bottom to top level management when doing employee appraisals and bottom level employees should have opportunity to give their feedback as well.

5.      Toxic workplace behavior

toxic behavior in the workplace happens because there are some people trying to sabotage and manipulate the work environment. This type of behavior will make the affected team members unhappy, which will force them to think about their position in the company in the long term. Sometimes this behavior limited the freedom of the employees and it will be created stressful working environment. Setting up rules for good behavior between people within organization is crucial to their productivity. But if it is become tough people are disappointed. Any human doesn’t like to limit their freedom. So this is very sensitive.

Therefore HR of the organization should be highly consider when create this policies. Policies should be needed to make punctual environment. But it should not be limited human freedom.

6.      Damaged organizational structure

This might take many forms but usually happens when you fail to optimize your workflow in the best possible way. Consider about lot of companies there are some conflicts can be identified between different departments.

All of the individual parts of one company must work towards the achievement of the same goal. HR should clearly mention this to their employees and need to be create a culture to work as one.

7.      Too many meetings 

Meetings are one of the major part of a company. This is how ideas for business growth are being generated, get different forecasts, discussed further improvement and team performance evaluation. Meetings should be short and need to be discuss only main points. however, some organizations tend to schedule meetings between employees for even the smallest cases. This is a wasteful activity that consumes a lot of the time of your workers and reduce the productivity of the organization. Therefore meetings should be effective. Need to be arrange according to proper order without wasting time.

8.      Poor Management

Another major reason for low productivity levels in the workplace is poor management. There are many managers in organizations who act as autocratic leaders to their subordinates and take the form of bosses whose only consider about works. Leader or manager is also an employee in particular organization. Therefore he should be a part of the goal. So he should motivate the team and drive to the organization goals.  Businesses nowadays do not require bosses but instead leaders who drive change and carry their companies forward.

Consider about our company most of the top management has an idea about this concept. But lots of middle level management don’t have proper understanding about leadership. They fear to flow their knowledge and experience to his followers. Most of the time they try to put the pressure on their followers and don’t try to build moral of them. Some managers are afraid to come up educated people who are in under their supervision. They put lot of pressure on them and try to make disappointment about the job. It will be cause to inefficiency of the employees and loss of valuable resources to the company.

Therefore HR should have a responsibility to train middle level management how to respect and supervise their followers. Need to create their mindset how to become a leader not only a manager. 

1.4. What are the bad affects toward organization due to inefficient workforce

1. Extra costs of money

when you spend more money than you needed to in order to arrive at the same result

If people become inefficient administration cost become high. If a worker gets one day to complete particular task when it became inefficient it will be two or three days. With that, electricity cost, administration cost, transportation cost, stationary cost and other financial cost are increased.

•  Cost of inefficiency x frequency = inefficiency cost.
•  Cost of lost opportunity x frequency = lost opportunity cost.

 

2. Inefficiency waste of time

If you waste time at work it might mean that you’re not doing high-level, priority tasks that you were assigned to do.

There are lot of reasons can be identified for time wasting. Some of them are as follow

•                     attending all meetings

•                     getting assigned with tasks of lesser priority

•                     taking on requests from other people

•                     making useless phone calls

•                     working in a noisy environment

•                     Not having proper guidance from supervisors

Every minute squandered is lost forever, never to return. Time is priceless.  When it comes to efficiency, time is not just measured in minutes and hours, but also in potential output. If organization time is wasted, their productivity become lost. Then their quality, revenue, profit and reputation are damaged. Employee sentiment has a great deal to do with making the most of your company’s available hours. If make workplace more enjoyable, cleaner, safer, or even simply less boring can go a long way.

3. Inefficiency reduces quality

every defect or missed quality benchmark is an inefficiency. Unhappy employees and older machinery tend to cause more errors than their more efficient counterparts. correcting inefficiencies across a process can have a major impact on success rates in any business, but there is an additional cost. It will start to affect your customers, which can begin to change your business negatively. employees sometimes struggle to deliver quality customer service because of a lack of effective processes.

4. Damages morale & productivity

Employees cannot effectively do their jobs with procedures that are not working or are not conducive to them being successful in their roles when employees start to become disengaged in their work, lack motivation, and may feel like a failure. Therefore, employee become disappointment about their work place. Inefficient workplace processes can lead to issues retaining employees. It will cause the best employees to leave.

A lack of trust which is the direct result of an inefficient project management process.  when upper management tout’s dedication to goals that are not aligned with their actions, employees become more disenchanted.

References

Lazear, Edward, P. 2000. "Performance Pay and Productivity." American Economic Review, 90 (5): 1346-1361

Awalkar, Vivek. (2020). A Study of Work Autonomy and Its Impact on Efficiency at the workplace; with reference to employees working in Pune City. 13. 6-8.

Shaw, K. L. "Insider econometrics: A roadmap with stops along the way" Labour Economics 16:6 (2009): 607–617.

Ichniowski, C., Shaw, K. L. "Insider econometrics: Empirical studies of how management matters".  Handbook of Organizational Economics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.

https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/De-Ele/Effectiveness-and Efficiency.html