Productivity 101

Well, the brain-washing advertising is beginning. I request only that the Howard government leave me a few of my happy memories of childhood before they erase everything.

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Now that we're going to be forced to increase productivity in order to get any sort of wage increase, let's be realistic, and look into ways to do this.

Time is money. Productivity is time, or work units, over money.
To put it another way, productivity is how close your wage is to zero, for any set amount of work in a given time.

Walking.

This is an inefficient, and quite commonplace method of transportation. As healthy as it may be, there is a potential productivity gain by encouraging employees to sprint from place to place. Running can be considered healthier than walking, higher impact considerations aside. Studies show that the average employee walks between 0.5 and 3% of the day, some as high as 50% - the median sitting around 1.25%.

The speed increase, and this is considered on the basis that stretching is done in the employee's own time, is considerable - averaging at roughly twice as fast. There is a median productivity saving of 1.25%.

Sleep.

With the prevalence of unpaid overtime about to increase, sleep is a redundant luxury. ‘Crunch-time’ periods of necessary high productivity are widespread – these are hampered by the extended breaks required through slumber. Techniques and medications to avoid sleep requirements during intense work periods are nothing new. Pseudoephedrine and caffeine tablets are all available locally, and presently are frequently used in the heavy vehicle transportation industry, for example.

Compensation payments can be made to offset the medication side effects and any illness risk (mostly this would be of the psychological variety.) Recent pharmaceutical advances can also be used to counteract the effects, many often ‘elated’ with the results within hours. Studies show that sleep costs the manufacturing industry $5.7 billion in exports a year.

Eating/Drinking.

The advent of drip-feed nutrient or fluid distribution has been used in the medical industry for some time, and is nothing new. 1 in 2 people will be hydrated or fed via a ‘drip’ at some stage in their lives. Focus groups have shown that public perception of automated consumption is at record levels of acceptance. Break periods, used for rest and sustenance, cost Australian companies millions of man-hours each week.

Bathroom Activities.

Currently there is a phase of people’s lives that is spent unable to control either bowel or bladder. For most, this occurs early and again towards the end, and requires measures that benefit both hygiene, and work flow. Interruptions to continuous operations process workers, for example, can be incredibly costly – halting an entire line. Measures to avoid this situation are cheap, easily obtainable, and don’t inhibit lifestyle. These would include, but not limited to, nappies, bedpans at workstations, or extended open communal troughs. The productivity benefits of constipation should also not be overlooked.

Illness/Injury.

Cures are elusive, and expensive. Painkillers, on the other hand, in combination with placebos, serotonin reuptake inhibitors, etc, can be issued by supervisors at low cost, to ensure work continues despite any perceived pain, distress or injury. There are many scenarios in which complete ignorance from pain (commonly known as a stupor) can improve worker performance during these difficult periods. In most cases, even severed limbs or digits can be placed on ice until the workers shift ends, and reattached outside working hours without risk.

Social Activities.

Socializing and talking take up too large a portion of working hours. Apart from the obvious simple draconian silence rules to enforce a reduction, other possible solutions could be: a decrease in media stimuli, in order to diminish the number of topics people feel the need to discuss – this can be addressed by a nationwide ignorance of politics, news, etc brought upon by ‘fluff’ infotainment of little substance (see News Limited’s great strides in this area.) The ability to read and write also is shown to have a negative effect to efficiency.

Hygiene.

Industry loses millions of work hours to hand washing, decontamination and other hygiene reasons. Respect for health and safety will need to diminish into insignificance over time for output rates to increase, but workers may need to be occasionally deloused, hosed down, etc to prevent costly disease and time lost from deaths.

Motivation.

The following chart shows studies done overseas to determine the effectiveness of corporate violence on the individual:



These ‘civil liberties’, often blown out of proportion in popular media, are obviously disadvantageous to productivity. In order to avoid any backlash from liberty loss, the population may need to be distracted, and reforms introduced over time, with some vaguely suitable reason appropriated.

Automation.

Human muscle is, and in the foreseeable future, cheaper and more efficient than any form of automated robotics. This is only the case once heavy pressure is applied.

Holidays.

Holidays should be abolished, but over a period of time.

Genetic modification.

Glycolytic muscles, for example, are superior, and should be genetically engineered where appropriate into employee clones. Preferably, these clones could be purchased from a suitable biotechnology company. Work needs to be done on this early, as even with growth hormones, and other escalation techniques to speed the gestation period, there will be some lead-time. Modification to existing employees might have to suffice in the interim, until suitable units can be manufactured.

Human beings themselves, although for lack of want of sentimentality they should hereon in be referred to as human resources, seem to be the ideal genetic base for workers. History has shown them to be the easiest to subdue, as all other existing creatures always retain at least some respect for their own freedoms when all should at that point seem hopeless – from horses bucking, to dogs escaping, to elephants and orcas snapping.

Workers should be working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with zero faults, at the highest possible rate, given the limitations of muscle exhaustion, lactic acid build-up, overheating, speed of light, etc.

If we take the above measures, I am confident we can all manage to gain some wage increases through these productive ideas.