Productivity Breakthrough

I’ve been having a few exciting weeks at the workshop lately, and I’m thrilled about the new breakthrough we’ve made with productivity. And to think that up until a couple of months ago I thought the only solution was to just hire more tailors...

It started with a conversation I had with my dad, who felt there must be some other way to increase productivity at my workshop, without having to buy a new machine and hire another tailor everytime I need to produce more garments. Certainly, every hardworking tailor has his/her limit, but how does a workshop like mine motivate staff to increase productivity? I couldn’t afford to switch to a piece-rate payment method (where each tailor is paid according to the number of pieces stitched, so a higher daily wage is their incentive to produce more) because some of the garments I design take a few hours to make, depending on the level of detail in that particular style. I also didn’t want quality to take a hit. But most importantly, people are resistant to change, and having had a fixed salary for my staff all these years, switching to a piece-rate system might have resulted in tailors quitting or feeling really disgruntled.

So we had a staff meeting, and some interesting things came out of it. Some of my tailors felt they are already working so hard and how could I expect them to make more garments in day. Some of them got quite emotional and said they love working at Brass Tacks and that they would never slack off. I asked them what would happen in a situation where I was standing by their side saying, “hurry please hurry, I need this real soon”, while they were tailoring a garment- would that make a difference in the number if hours it takes to tailor a garment? They admitted that pressure would make a difference, and one of the sample tailors said having a large digital clock and a “friendly competition” among themselves would definitely help.

I went with that suggestion, and made a chart that would encourage friendly competition. I just listed everyone’s name in one column, with 31 columns for every day of the month next to that. At the end of every day when the tailoring team reports to my manager to give a list of what they made that day, my manager allots points to each garment based on the level of difficulty. Customer alterations also get points – because it takes time away from production- but alterations done by tailors to correct their own mistakes are done on their own time.

I think having the chart up there on the bulletin board for everyone to see makes a huge difference. Everyone can see how many points each tailor earns every day and the points get updated every day. At first I wanted to have a special cash prize for the tailor with the highest points, and then smaller cash prizes for 2nd and 3rd place. But a couple of weeks ago the tailors spoke to my manager and said they didn’t want the money. Apparently they didn’t want me to think they were working hard just for the money because it was a sincere effort they were putting in to help the company. They also didn’t want a friendly competition to turn unfriendly or create jealousy amongst the tailors – something that might happen the minute cash is introduced into the competition.

How cool is that? It was one of those “best day of my life” moments!

The cash I had initially set aside for prize money will now get distributed to everyone – even the production staff who aren’t tailors- when we reach our target number of points every month. It’s a much smaller amount when it gets divided by the full production staff, but it’s not about the money – just a token “thank you for your hard work” pocket money.