Are your managers sluggish, lazy and lacking in initiative? Is there nothing to talk to them about? Not generating new ideas, directions and themes? Don't want to change anything, think, rebuild? Fantasies - did the cat cry?
You just don't know how to cook them. No, you don't have to run to the pharmacy for magnesium B6. Just give them the right goal and tell them you'll fire them if you don't. The result will surprise you. And the method of achieving it will delight.
A big, old, kind Soviet factory, where pieces of iron are forged. The owners are a large and respected corporation. On excursions, we are first taken to the shops - the head of production. Proudly showcases a 50 ton press, a bunch of railroad axles, heat treatment furnaces, titanium products and other manufacturing joys. Everything is clear, beautiful, large-scale, spectacular.
The tour continues at the plant management, the baton is passed on to the IT chief - who else is so well versed in office processes? At first, we don't see anything special - well, people consider their salaries, drive in orders from customers, and plan production. At the end of the corridor is the accounting department.
The IT chief stopped in front of the door, made a theatrical pause, and said, "Please!" and led us inside. In a small office, there were five lovely aunts who smiled affably when they saw us. I was surprised by the strange order in the office - the tables were practically clean, there were no boxes and cabinets with documents anywhere. Just like a programmer's office.
The IT chief proudly said that accounting is the most automated service in the plant. The key criterion is the number of employees (five accountants for a plant of this size are really rare). Learn, he says, the city rush, how to do automation.
We stood, listened, watched and wondered what the secret was. It was a long time ago - then there was no electronic document flow, normal recognition of pieces of paper and mutual integration between suppliers and customers. Five cute aunties could not cope with the usual volume of primary goods for such a plant - you have to drive a huge amount of invoices from suppliers of goods and services into the system, and do all the other accounting matters - distribute, verify that "it beats", close and write off.
Then, suddenly, a skeleton fell out of the closet. Another employee entered the office and loudly announced: “Lena, yesterday they drove in”, after which she quickly retreated. The IT chief was a little embarrassed, but we immediately pestered him with questions about who the sixth was and what they had driven in.
After a little thought, he suggested that we go to lunch. He said he was busy, and called his deputy and asked to accompany us to the dining room. That, apparently, was not so tormented by pride, he told everything.
Once the plant was run by a handsome, polished Moscow manager. He read somewhere that the degree of automation of an enterprise should be measured by the number of personnel who cannot live without this system. In particular - accounting. At that time, 40-50 people were registered in the factory accounting department.
A Moscow dude set a new KPI for the IT chief - reducing the accounting department by several times. Desirable - 10 times. Rumor has it that one of his goals was to expel the IT chief for incompetence, but this could not be done right away. Firstly, the village, and the second, even this, is difficult to find. Secondly, to invite some familiar Moscow IT chief, an appropriate rate was needed, several times higher than the current one, and the budget for the year had already been agreed upon.
The IT chief, being a truly Russian purposeful manager, without hesitation, did the same as the average salary of doctors and nurses was raised in hospitals. Can you guess how?
He simply transferred 40 accountants to the position of Data Entry Operator. It is clear that he did not do it himself, but by agreement with the chief accountant. The choice, after all, was simple - either to the operators, or to go home.
Now 40 aunty were engaged in only one thing - they were driving primary documents into the system (invoices, invoices, production reports, etc.). They even carried out some kind of optimization - the operators worked in pairs, one drove in, the other dictated and checked.
And so that no one got to the bottom, the accountants were not just changed their positions - they were transferred to the IT service. Where does the operator enter the data? The information system. This means that he is an employee of the information technology department.
Apparently, the number of IT employees was not included in the KPI of the chief, so the scheme was successfully rotated. The Moscow director has long since sunk into oblivion, but the beautiful automation and accounting of 5 people remained in place. Just in case.
Well, since such a thing, why not “sell” it a couple more times as a result of automation?
You have automation ...
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