Although all the key indicators indicate that you should move forward at full speed, do you have a disturbing feeling, but you are going backwards? The US economy seems to be developing in this way now, and I have a theory to explain why this is the case. This is a person’s problem and how their situation makes them inconsistent with the employer’s expectations.
On Saturday morning, my phone reminded me of the new episode of the APM Markets podcast, titled "U.S. Recruitment Rebounded in October, Adding 531,000 Jobs." I started listening, then stopped to read a young man's text, which started with "just learned something that might be of interest to you". Between these two stories, the bitter anecdote told by the frustrated worker seemed more compelling than the professional news broadcast trying to explain official government statistics. It's not that the Marketplace article is wrong; I just think that the macro-level analysis does not provide insight into our current dilemma to explain why productivity, morale, and our various supply chains seem to be completely paralyzed.
This young man-we call him Arturo [1]-stopped by and shared the story of him drinking a pint.
"I learned something today," Arturo began. "The loaders in our warehouse complex are'graded' based on arbitrary personal performance indicators, which will actively prevent them from completing the work required by our website in order to achieve their company goals."
Arturo works in a large distribution center that employs hundreds of "unskilled" workers. [2] His work spans white-collar and blue-collar jobs because he is responsible for arranging outbound shipments. His role requires him to coordinate with the "picker" in the warehouse and the "loader" on the freight terminal to solve the problem. This is the origin of his new story.
"I found that the management personnel on the loading dock track and measure the scan rate of all loaders. That is, each loader uses their laser barcode scanner to record the number of actions taken on a piece of cargo every hour. For example. , When the picker transports the box full of compressor blades to the loading area, the loader scans the “input” box, then performs a second scan after adding it to the transport tray, and then performs a third scan when the tray is loaded This scan is allowed to be loaded onto the trailer.
"The dock manager has set a capricious indicator that an'ideal' worker needs to meet or exceed a certain number of scans per hour in order to be considered'acceptable productivity'. If a worker does not get it in a day" "Enough scan records, it shows that the worker is lazy."
"Why do managers choose'scans per hour' as their indicator?" I asked.
"Because this is the only'objective' indicator they can come up with," Arturo explained. "HR will not accept complaints from managers about their'deeming'employees' lazy'. That's all: during a normal working day, it’s very confusing for managers to check anyone’s metrics. The only time the dock manager checks the worker’s hourly scan The times are when they are looking for reasons to fire them...everyone on the floor knows this."
I nodded. I have seen leaders use similar arbitrary production metrics, such as truncheons, to motivate their employees to follow the rules when their cheesy motivational posters are insufficient. This is especially common in the workplace where front-line workers have no unions and everyone is their own. As you might expect, Arturo’s company strongly opposes unions.
"This is where it gets stupid," Arturo said, taking out his empty glass and preparing to refill it. "The staff all know that they have a target number of scans per hour, so they will scan things as their main focus until they'reach their number' every hour."
I nodded and filled Arturo's glass with wine. He is a college graduate, as are most of the people who work with him. Like most young workers of his generation, he followed all the rules for preparing for adulthood: he got good grades in high school, earned the rank of Eagle Scout, went to college, earned a degree, and completed an internship...according to According to auld standards, he and his peers should find entry-level white-collar jobs, which are paid enough to allow them to leave their parents’ home and start their own lives. The key word in this paragraph is "should".
For reference, the MIT Living Wage Calculator shows that single adults without a spouse or children in 2021 need to earn at least $15.21 per hour ($31,634 per year) to live independently in Dallas... in their student loan payments After leaving. Arturo and his partners all have huge loans to repay, which cost close to US$20/hour before the pandemic...At the same time, in 2021 alone, rents in Dallas have increased by 15.5%. According to the Dallas Business Journal, “The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Dallas in September is now $1,140.” This is equivalent to 43.25% of the pre-tax income of a single adult without dependents, which is equivalent to Massachusetts. "Living" wages in polytechnics. There is very little left for student loan repayment. Or unexpected bills. Or they have to rely on personal savings for the extended time between jobs, because the social safety net in Texas is a joke.
Painfully aware of how difficult the market environment is, Arturo University submitted dozens of applications after graduating from Arturo University, but never got an interview opportunity. He-and most of his partners-cannot enter the office staff field, where there are too few entry-level positions. In desperation, he found a junior job in the warehouse that was far below the "living" wage. He knew very well that if he did anything that endangered his job, it would be difficult for him to find a new job. HI's partners all found themselves in the same predicament.
So, it makes sense that dockers might focus on maintaining their personal productivity indicators, right? Do what you have to do to keep your bad job, no matter who it may affect. After all, the only person who cares about you is you...not your boss.
Therefore, these young, smart, and college-educated workers quickly discovered and exploited a flaw in their manager’s indicator system: parcels. According to Arturo, goods moving on the pallet require three scans (as described above). Package, but don't. In their warehouses, "parcels" are goods that are not suitable for commercial land, air, or freight. These are more like your consumer purchases on Amazon: boxes that arrive in a warehouse, put on a new label, and then are launched through the usual carriers (FedEx, UPS, etc.).
The package, Arturo explained while drinking beer, will only be scanned once. Loading dock workers need to scan the new outbound label of each package to "release" for shipment. Then they should deliver the package to the express truck. Except... they didn't. The scanned parcels were thrown into piles in the corner of the warehouse until the people in Arturo’s office went downstairs to figure out why the *#&¢a thousand parcels should have been moved out the previous week. Touched, intact, on the dock.
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Loaders can maintain the productivity indicators they need by scanning goods onto pallets or scanning newly labeled packages, but if they "waste" the time to load packages onto trailers, they will lose their indicators. The time spent moving the boxes is the time not scanning...According to their supervisor, this is the only "important" activity. Therefore, scanning becomes the highest priority, and loading cargo on the loading dock becomes a task that only fools and novices waste time.
The inevitable result of this optimization behavior is that the entire site will be condemned by the company’s management for failing to deliver small goods worth hundreds of thousands of dollars every month, because no one will release it before the manager of another department The box was loaded onto the truck causing discomfort. From a macro perspective, this is an extremely counterproductive behavior, but it is perfectly reasonable for young and desperate workers who are forced to put their personal survival above the company's income goals.
When the company sees employees as a fungible commodity, this is what you get... These young people have experienced working like disposable meat robots and are not worthy of sympathy, respect, or basic courtesy (not to mention Job security). In such a hostile work environment, why would any employees put the company's goals above (even on par with themselves)? The company is definitely not, so the loyalty the company gets from its employees is exactly the same as its loyalty to employees...nothing. After all, turning around is fair competition.
This is not to say that Arturo's friends on the loading dock are actively doing evil or engaging in sabotage activities. They did not "stick on"...just like anything a worker can do can meaningfully "harm" a billion-dollar company. These workers are just doing what they have to do to maintain a terrible job that they are overqualified and dislike, because this is their only salary option in a supposedly "rebounding" economy.
Therefore, I think Arturo’s “fundamental facts” will fulfill economists’ optimistic predictions of a return to normality after the pandemic. People will definitely "return to work", but this does not mean that output may return to pre-pandemic levels. Until we evaluate the importance of balancing labor relations in this country.
Keep this in mind when your small package arrives inexplicably delayed by a week. It is not because there are not enough containers to load it, nor is there not enough truck drivers to tow it, nor is it because a cargo ship is trapped in the canal. This may be because a desperate worker dare not "waste" their time loading on the truck, thanks to the productivity indicator solution of the poor manager...When a well-trained leader treats their workers fairly, No one needs such a thing.
[1] Not his real name, and these are not his original words. I am making enough changes to them to prevent his story from being tracked down by those who might want to retaliate against him because he disclosed the dirty clothes of his organization.
[2] Don't let me begin to explain why the word is condescending horse dung, otherwise we will say 50,000 angry words here.
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