Corporate efforts to streamline work are driven by employee dissatisfaction, not budget-cutting.
Employer purposes are not only increasing productivity but improving work-life balance and retaining employees. "Overwork has become the big issue right now," says Brad Harrington, executive director of the nonprofit Boston College Center for Work and Family.
At Alcan, based in Montreal, a 2005 survey of 55,000 employees revealed dissatisfaction with heavy workloads and long hours, says Steven Price, a human resources director. In a series of steps, a half-dozen top executives got coaching on how to be better role models, partly by speaking up about their own challenges managing workload. Executives began encouraging employees "to push back and say, 'I'm not working on weekends as much,'" Mr. Price says.
After a 2004 survey of 42,000 IBM employees revealed that four in ten thought 15% of their job duties were unnecessary, IBM developed a Web-based tool for managers to use in routing out low-value work. The goal: to eke out "more time for customers and, as a byproduct, more time for our families and our personal life," says J.T. Childs, IBM's vice president, global diversity.
Some techniques employers are using to reduce workloads:
Eliminate or shorten meetings
Reduce internal reports
Measure and monitor hours spent at work
Urge employees to speak up about unnecessary work
Rout out redundant tasks
Source: Work & Family in The Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2006