Synopsis: Communication For Productivity
Letters written to some 7500 Workers / Managers / Union Leaders, following a period of strike / Go slow / Murders (1979 - 1987), at Mumbai factory of Larsen & Toubro Ltd. This direct / open / honest communication led to a remarkable atmosphere of trust between Workers and Management, which, in turn, increased productivity at 3% per year (ave). |
7 Jun 1985
To:
Dear
Friends
ABSENTEEISM
Whenever we
talk of improving our productivity, we are also forced to talk about absenteeism.
First thing we
have. to do
to improve productivity is to remain present at work. All of you know by now that
Output
Productivity
= Effort
But if
we are absent from
our work-place, how
can we possibly make any effort ?
It is only
when we are physically present at our work-place that we can think of
Working
harder (as an individual)
Working
smarter (efficiently)
Working as a
team (effectively)
After
subtracting
52 Weekly offs
and
8 Paid
holidays
"60"
from 365
days of the year, we can maximum work for 305 days in a year.
But, once-in-a-while, we,
get sick
have guests
at home
wish to
relax with our family on a vacation
for which we
take,
Sick Leave (sl)
Casual Leave
(CL)
Privilege
Leave (PL) resp.
And since
some of these things are likely to
happen sometime or other, to all of us, the Union
and the Management have disucssed and
fixed certain "Maximum
Limits" for different types of
leave that an employee may legitimately
take during the course of a calendar year.
As long as
actual leave taken
by an employee is within these maximum limits, he (or she) does not lose wages.
These limits
are shown below:
1.
|
SL *
|
DR/15
|
Mr/15
|
CL
|
8
|
10
|
|
PL
|
27
|
30
|
|
Max. Total
|
50
|
55
|
|
2. Now if an
employee were to remain absent
from work, to the full extent of these
permissible limits, he would be left in a year with
Working days
(for DR)
250 Working days (for MR)
3. During 1984, the average employee strength at
Powai was
DR Employees
3713
MR
Employees 1120
Total 4833
4. So
multiplying, .we had
the possibility of available
man-days as follows:
1120 x 250 = 2,80,000 Man
days (MR)
Total = 12,26,815 Man days
Thus the company
stands to loose 2,47,250 mandays if everybody took every kind of leave to the
full extent.
However, not
all of us:
fall sick
for 15 days in a year
have guests
for 8/10 days in a year
go out on
vacation 27/30 days in a year.
But just as
many. employees do NOT use up their full quota of various kinds of leave, there are
a few others who even exceed their quota.
Of course, they
do not get wages for
this "extra/excess" days
of leave. In some cases, the
Foreman/Supervisor may have
authorised this extra/excess leave,
if it was applied for in advance
and if he was satisfied that it was
genuinely needed. But there are
many cases where such absence
is "unauthorised loss of pay (ULOP)".
The table below
indicates the colossal
number of mandays lost due to
authorised and unauthorised loss of pay
leave in the financial years 1982-83 and 1983-84.
For the
company, it is a small consolation that it did not have to pay wages for such authorised/unauthorised "loss of pay leave/absence". Compare
the figures of wages lost by workmen (due
to loss of
pay leave/absence) with
the production loss due to
this kind of leave/absence, for the last two years.
Year
|
Mandays
lost due to unauthorised absence & authorised loss of pay leave
|
Loss of
Production (Rs.in Crores )
|
|
82-83
|
46994
|
0.27
|
4.9
|
83-84
|
44950
|
0.33
|
4.7
|
You
will also notice from the above table that in 1982-83, loss of 46,994 mandays due to
loss of pay leave/absence resulted in wage loss of
Rs.27 lacs, whereas a lesser number of
mandays due to loss of pay
leave/absence (i.e. 44,950) resulted in much higher wage loss (Rs.33 lacs) in
1983-84.
This reflects the increasing cost per employee per day.
But then
that is another major subject which I have already been writing about and more on this may be saved for future bulletins.
