A couple months back I stopped at a local fast-food place for a quick kid’s meal (not for me) after picking up one of my little ones from school. Inside, we were greeted by an employee in an otherwise empty dining area, and no line. As we approached the counter, he asked how we were and if we were ready to order; when I indicated that we were, he left the counter and walked behind me. Figuring he might have left something on the dining floor area, I continued to look at the overhead menu, waiting for him to return. After a few moments, his voice emerged, but he did not.
|
ADVERTISEMENT |
“What can I get you?”
Turning around, I was shocked to find him standing in front of a newly installed self-serve kiosk, prepared to take my order. At the time, this chain had installed these in about 10 percent of its locations, with plans to put them in half its diners by the end of 2018. This particular diner was one of four in my town for this franchise, but the only one that had these new kiosks, presumably due to its close proximity to a high school. The school leads to a lot of in-store foot-traffic during peak times instead of drive-thru traffic, but this wasn’t one of those times.
…
Comments
Quotas!
To put it succcinctly: Quotas bad, reasonable goals good, unreasonable goals might as well be quotas
Dysfunctional performance metrics
"Be careful what you wish, for you will probably get it." This is true of dysfunctional performance metrics such as the one discussed here. The purpose of the kiosk is to eliminate the duplication of effort involved in the customer stating his/her order and the employee processing it, rather than to take the employee's time to use the kiosk. If customers order directly from the kiosk, the employees can do value-adding work (for which they can be paid, as opposed to non-value-adding work) such as food preparation.
Dr. Deming is smiling in agreement
This is so spot on, and a modern manifestation of what Dr. W. Edwards Deming stated so succinctly in his famous 14 points. Point 11: "Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management." I remember attending his famous four day seminar in the late 80's, packed with hundreds of people, where he must have cumulatively spent hours on this particular point. And it was featured prominently in his classic red bead experiment, as he hilariously ridiculed a vice-president from Ford about the use of quotas--I'll never forget how the audience howled at this poor VP trying to get the workers to meet their quotas.
In your example of Costco, much of the credit must be given to 82-year-old co-founder Jim Sinegal (who stepped down from the board earlier this year) as he refused to surrender to the demands of investors to follow the Wal-mart model of employee compensation, i.e., as low as the market will tolerate. It's no mistake that the quality of the skills you see in Costco personnel is driven by a desire for superior performing staff vs. a boost in profits by keeping wages as low as possible. I've spoken with people that work at Costco, and they are accutely aware that they are being paid as much as their employer can afford, vs. as little as is needed to retain them, and their loyalty in turn is legendary, as you so clearly pointed out.
Add new comment