Waukesha County Technical College

Center For Business Performance Solutions: Helping Business move from Cliché to Vitality
Increasing demands for existing re-sources, losses in workforce due to promotions, transfers, and retirements, and unplanned growth have lead to a pervasive business mantra: “Doing more with less.”

Eventually, all will come to realize that doing more with less is not a sustainable business strategy. While most would agree that the intention of the approach was to inspire leadership to identify efficiencies and innovations that would lead to organizational viability, few will actually experience long-term, predictable success as a result of embracing this mantra. In fact, history has demonstrated that organizations which promote a doing-more-with-less culture, realize short term affects followed by increased challenges due to employee burnout and turnover, increased waste, challenges in quality, and increasingly dissatisfied customers.

Understanding deployment irony
Most leaders pride themselves on the ability to effectively recognize shifts in business performance and respond effectively to changing needs. When  faced with bottom line shortfalls, they often seek to minimize losses while enhancing productivity measures. 

While these are common efficiency goals of any organization, implement-ed specifically in response to disruption can have negative long-term effect on the organizational system. 

As mid-level managers are asked to deploy responsive efficiency strategies, focus generally shifts to methods that will increase productivity by engaging people within the organization to work harder. Implementing these tactics requires creating a sense of urgency among employees and increased awareness of the opportunities to increase productivity (e.g., working harder, working longer, staying on task).

Frontline challenges
Creating and maintaining an expectation that employees can improve productivity without additional resources will eventually erode a culture of continuous improvement. While most employees can respond to increased demand for a defined period, there are limitations in our ability to sustain attention to the task over time.

The opportunity for improved efficiency comes as a result of a more knowledgeable and capable workforce. Doing  more with less requires the engagement of employees at the point of process in conversation around improving efficiency and decreasing waste. These conversations will be met with limit-ed success if there is not appropriate investment in the development and empowerment of employees toward achieving clearly defined expectations.

A vital resource for businesses
The Center for Business Performance Solutions (CBPS) has supported busi-ness growth in southeastern Wisconsin for more than 30 years. As the training arm of Waukesha County Technical College, CBPS engages in the strategic conversations focusing on solutions to business challenges ex-tending well beyond the technical lev-el. Its approach provides for in-depth discovery of root cause challenges, leading to a shared understanding of not only “why” it is worth solving, but the “how” to resolve and control for future disruption. It utilizes its ex-tensive resources and capabilities to provide customized solutions unique to the business at hand.