A lawyer at the New York office of an international firm wanted to give the impression he was working late at night — but he was stymied by office lighting that would dim when he left the room. So he brought in an oscillating fan, which tricked the motion detectors into keeping the lights on long after he’d departed.Productivity is a strange thing; less people theoretically doing more in less time. Productivity in hotels was (at best) a rough science calculated on the amount of guests actually in house, but failing to account for the increased work demands associated with more guests checking in and out. Productivity in creative fields? Forget about it, right. Who knows? Midweek internet surfing could produce the next great ad campaign (Might not be suitable for work):
Productivity is so often reported as a flat number, but it is so obviously not a flat idea. Does merely being "present" for 18 hour days constitute productive? The Japanese may think so (just don't ask for overtime worked vs overtime paid statistics). In retail or service industries where customers might come in waves, how to do businesses staff and stay lean without sacrificing customer experience when people do arrive in mass? It begs the contradictory question: Should customers expect to spend their increasingly scarce dollars on goods that are provided through poorer service?
It seems, though, that often we are all engaged in a happy farce. From the NY Piece:
“You don’t want anyone from corporate to walk in and see you doing nothing,” Ms. Bailey said. “You’ve got to keep busy for them and the clients. You have to be proactive —” she broke off to reposition a handsome pair of boots, “so we’ll do a lot of refolding and dusting. Hey, I might just mop!”Wonder if they'll get rid of the janitor next? Like everything thing in business it is a balancing act, but it leaves one to wonder if, eventually, there will be anyone left at all?
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