(31 Jan 2015, 2:39 pm)citaro5284 wrote Aye....people been made redudant mainly due to new technology been brought in at back office. It is not all about service cuts.Exactly. Unfortunately, staff do go as well. Passengers and staff - all affected by streamlining or cost saving efficiencies.
An example is that the wages for every bus driver in Go Ahead is processed at Bensham. Think years gone by, how many clerks would have been needed at each Operating Company.
In terms of GNE, we have 2 full time and 1 part time clerks to check the payroll for each driver based at a couple of locations before it gets sent to Bensham, and we have around 1500 drivers.
Then you have positive examples, such as the recycling of water in the bus wash or rainwater being used in a toilet system.
How far do you prune the bush, before you are left with nowt?
Quite often automation is used as one of the key techniques to improve efficiency and can achieve significant benefits when implemented with effective business change.
There’s a whole host of things that could contribute to greater operational efficiency – so why do so many companies just purely focus on the tools or the numbers of people?
One objective must be to deliver services which meet customer requirements/needs. In the current economic climate cost is obviously a big factor; so reducing the cost of delivering service is often the main driver for improving operational efficiency. It is worth noting that you can reduce your costs necessary to deliver service or operate a process, but if your customers leave because the quality of service has dropped then you are
still in danger of going out of business.
How do you reduce cost? We’ve probably all seen the standard approach used when challenged to reduce costs by a certain percentage:
• Get rid of contractors, ban travel, reduce training, cancel bonuses, reduce permanent headcount
• Over-stretch remaining resources, lose key knowledge
• Reduce motivation and therefore productivity
• Negatively impact service quality, lose customers and revenue
At this point, usually further action will be required:
• Start the cycle again to reduce costs further
• Invest to improve service quality
Vicious circle and as I asked earlier, how far do you prune the bush?