National Clothesline

Today I want to discuss the real facts of life. Last month, Barbara and I took our oldest son and his family out for dinner to celebrate my birthday. Both grandsons were yelling, “I want to sit next to grandpa.”

Naturally, one boy ended up on

my left and the other on the right. Their demand to sit next to me was worth everything in the world. It brought into focus the fact that the only things in life that matter are your health, the people you love, and the people who love you. The rest of what goes on does not mean much.

For Super Bowl Sunday, I invited friends to watch that great game and join us for dinner. Within the previous two weeks, two of those friends were diagnosed with cancer.

Both of these friends are in their early 60s. One is having radiation treatment before he undergoes surgery to remove the tumor, and the other is having a mastectomy.

This kind of situation brings me back to what I said earlier. Take care of your health so you can enjoy your loved ones and they can enjoy you. Those are the real facts of life!

Does this situation sound familiar?

“My pressers are all on salary. I want to put them on hourly basis because business is getting slow. How should I handle this?”

On top of this issue, the man never counted pieces because the finishers were always completing their work early. Time off is a great incentive. His pressers knew that as soon as soon as they were finished with their work they could go home or to their second job.

My response was really rather simple. When you make changes in your organization, have a meeting with the employees who will be affected. Do not make the change and then tell the employees, “This is the way it is going to be.”

It is important to share your information with your employees. They need to know the truth of what is going on with your business. They are your employees, but in truth, they are also partners of yours. When you succeed, they earn more, and if you fail, they are out of a job.

When you sit down with these salaried pressers, show them the number of pieces that were processed the previous year during the same month or months. The pressers know they are handling less work and will not be surprised.

Now that you have their attention, it is important that you create an atmosphere of, “How can you help the business and work as a team?”

You could consider telling them, “I don’t want to cut your salaries but I need to keep this business profitable so I don’t have to lay anybody off. The only way I can do this is to change your pay to hourly.”

Now they are looking at you and thinking, “This rich boss wants to take my money.”

In order to change that line of reasoning, it is important, at this point, for you to ask them for their help.

You might say to them, “If you can think of a better way to handle this financial difficulty, please let me know. I am open to any suggestions you might have.”

Now you have made the finishers part of your team. They want to help you solve the financial problem, and they want to help themselves. More than likely, the pressers will not come up with an alternative solution.

The next dilemma that you have is dealing with the issue of not measuring the production of each finisher. These pressers worked for the cleaner, since he bought the place, a few years ago. They have never had the pieces they produced counted. Immediate culture shock will set in.

Did you know that a counting system can and should be introduced without creating a revolt? Has your computer been giving you some problems? Do you want to verify the piece count numbers the computer is reporting?

You could say, “I want to be certain that I am getting the correct information regarding the pieces that are handled. The only way I can do this is by counting the pieces produced and the best time to do that is after they are finished.”

That is one way of handling the situation. Another way is to put in an incentive system. Again, it requires employee buy-in and a few meetings.

You might say, “Because I am putting you on hourly pay rate, instead of salary, I want you to earn as much as possible.”

You will need to establish a base line of production prior to putting in an incentive system.

Once you have the base line then you can move forward. You can think about what the performance goal is and how much over that goal will trigger an hourly bonus.

You can also consider paying by the piece. Do not think that paying by the piece is only for cut-rate cleaners. There is a very high-price cleaner on the East Coast who charges $20+ per suit, and they pay by the piece. The problem with these kinds of systems is quality control.

Your inspector, if you have one, must understand the quality standards you have established. If necessary, stand next to the inspector and review the finished work as it comes down the line. Train the inspector as to what is good and what is bad.

None of this is easy because you are changing your entire company culture. Counting the pieces produced will allow you to measure each individual’s performance.

This measurement of pressing output is one of the most important tools you can have. It will allow you to move forward to the next measuring tool — pieces per operator hour.

Pieces per operator hour (PPOH) will tell you how efficient your production department is. After you learn how many pieces are being pressed, you take that number, along with the number of person-hours being worked in the production department and then determine your company PPOH.

That number will vary depending on the quality level and price you are charging. In the drycleaning department, I have seen numbers as low as six and as high as 15. That is a huge spread and the factor that determines it is pressing efficiency.

What kind of quality do you want? The company with six PPOH wanted the best quality available. The company with 15 PPOH wanted the lowest possible payroll and felt that the lack of quality could be made up by disguising the work with good packaging. That is right, they were turning out a product I would not be proud of, and then they put that product into Cadillac wrappings. Most consumers will never know the difference.

The NCAA basketball tournament is one of my favorite times of the year. As this column is being written in February I do not know, which teams will be participating. My fearless forecast is North Carolina will repeat. Do not put your money on them. My prediction of the Steelers covering the spread did not work, but it was a great game.