Andrew Munnings
Working more hours is not an option or a plan
Often a business owner or manager finds that they feel the company is running them, rather than the other way around. The owner of any business has specific responsibilities - doing everything is not one of them - you are responsible but don't need to do it. Working together we are able to define what is your role - what needs to find a new person to do it (either existing or new) and how to do so without breaking your pay role, yourself or others who work with you.
Story of Sammy
Sammy owns a company manufacturing a food additive in the English midlands. The company has grown over the years, and is quite successful. One of Sammy’s largest clients has recently asked him to increase his production over the next 12 months - by 250% - about 100% of the total company's production. This was achievable by introducing a second shift to allow for a longer working day - however there was a problem that he could not see how he could do more of his time in the office. He was already working hours in excess of 60 and sometimes 80 hours per week, and often worked on the weekend.
Sitting with Sammy we established that he felt like he was the person who did everything no one else wanted to do. Most of the specific roles we covered - invoicing and order taking, shipping and logistics, and production - but other half roles were all on his desk - and he was often used to cover roles for people who were not in the office. For example he was one of only 2 people who were licensed to drive the forklift - so weekend deliveries and problems with the refrigeration always landed on him, as did a lot of the maintenance work on the equipment.
Working with Sammy, we were able to go through what he did, we defined what his role was supposed to be, and then defined what roles he needed other people to fill. This then meant that he was able to. The role of Sammy was defined as the manager looking forward to the strategic implication of how to cope with a 250% increase in volume - from sourcing raw ingredients, to working with logistic partners to improving the shipping of goods.
This left the manufacturing processes to his head of operations, the current head left in the middle of the process - which then meant that he was able to define a new job description and look for specific qualities in the new person that the previous manager did not have. With this key hire - Sammy was able to leave the manufacturing to him, and he was able to recruit new people needed in the manufacturing process with forklift licences meaning that they were able to do the weekend roles.
The result was that in just 8 weeks we were able to reduce Sammy’s hours to weekdays only, delegate more of the work that he did for historical reasons to others, and have him focus on his redefined role - resulting in the company not only meeting its new production goals, but also on his role. This meant that the rest of the company learnt their roles, and focused on
