How To Get 10% More Work Out Of Your Employees

It is getting harder to run a business for a profit. We are faced with rising costs, lowered demand etc. Our businesses have to be super effective just to keep up.

But:

* How many more benefits are possible?

* Will pay increases increase effectiveness?

* Do more benefits really cause workers to produce more?

Well there is a way to increase productivity without increasing your Overhead.

We deal with doctors every day. And the number one complaint the doctors get from their patients is that their job is making them sick. And they aren't far from the truth.

No I'm not saying YOU are making them sick. Their work environment is making them sick.

Examples:

1. We had one office where the bosses turned off the air conditioner at 5PM on Friday. They turned it on Monday at 8AM. All the workers were sick until noon on Monday.

That's 10% of the work week was spent doing nothing but sitting around complaining.

We asked the bosses to leave the air handler on over the weekend. NOT the air conditioning, just the fan. This was to keep the air moving through the HVAC filter. The stuff the filter kept out of the air was causing workers sinuses to hurt. It was giving everyone a headache.

Under the old cost cutting procedure ( turning off the HVAC), it was taking till noon for the filters to catch up to the air quality level it was on Friday at 5PM. When the levels did reach that point everyone felt better and work continued.

But now the problem was eliminated! The bosses got an immediate 10% increase in work without paying a penny for it. Sure they used 50 cents more electricity. And some bosses will gladly lose $1,000's of dollars in work to save 50 cents in electricity. But some people don't care if the business makes a profit as long as they LOOK like they are cutting costs.

This isn't the only example of how the health of a building cuts worker efficiency/effectiveness.

2. We had one business where the walls were covered with mold, especially behind the pictures and calenders.

Everyone bickered and complained about headaches etc ALL week long. Management was constantly talking to someone from the Union about some complaint or another. Workers were constantly taking sick leave. Employee clumsiness was costing a fortune in copying machine and other mechanical repairs.

After cleaning up the mold, the workplace turned into heaven.

The point of this article is that the work environment has a direct effect on worker productivity. Don't hire more workers, take care of the workers you already have. Give them a clean healthy place to work. And just changing janitors won't help.

For 30 years, Dr Graham has been helping people treat and prevent disease by showing them how to live in a clean environment. http://www.tennesseemold.com DrGraham@themoldlab.com

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In this Monday, Dec. 29, 2008 file image provided by Greenpeace, coal ash slurry left behind in a containment pond near the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant is shown  in Harriman, Tenn., after the dyke at left broke Dec. 22, 2008. Millions of tons of toxic coal ash is piling up in power plant ponds in 32 states, a practice the federal government has long recognized as a risk to human health and the environment but has left unregulated. (AP Photo/Greeenpeace, Wade Payne)AP - Millions of tons of toxic coal ash is piling up in power plant ponds in 32 states, a practice the federal government has long recognized as a risk to human health and the environment but has left unregulated.



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President-elect Barack Obama speaks about the economy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.,  Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)AP - President-elect Barack Obama implored Congress on Thursday to "act boldly and act now" to fix an economy growing perilously weaker. Democratic and Republican lawmakers complained about his tax policies, letting Obama know they intend to place their own stamp on the economic recovery effort.



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A sign instructs job seekers at the California Employment Development Department in Sunnyvale, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. The country lost nearly 2 million jobs through November and more bad news is expected this week when the government releases data on weekly jobless claims and December unemployment. No matter how bad those numbers are, and economists expect at least another 500,000 jobs were lost last month, the pain is stretching into 2009.  (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)AP - Trying to survive a deepening recession, employers are cutting their work forces to the bone, leaving more Americans unemployed and with dim prospects of finding a new job any time soon.



Vice President Dick Cheney pauses during an interview with the Associated Press at the White House in Washington Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)AP - Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday that he sees no reason for President George W. Bush to pre-emptively pardon anyone at the CIA involved in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists. "I don't have any reason to believe that anybody in the agency did anything illegal," he said.



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President-elect Barack Obama makes remarks on the nations economy, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009, at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)AP - President-elect Barack Obama's proposed tax cuts ran into opposition Thursday from senators in his own party who said they wouldn't do much to stimulate the economy or create jobs. Senators from both parties agreed that Congress should do something to stimulate the economy. But Democratic senators emerging from a private meeting of the Senate Finance Committee criticized business and individual tax cuts in Obama's stimulus plan.



Israelis take cover before a rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza lands in Beersheba, after they attended the funeral of Israeli soldier Alex Mashavisky, January 7, 2009. (Eric Gaillard/Reuters)Reuters - Israel pushed ahead with its offensive in the Gaza Strip on Friday, ignoring a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the 14-day-old conflict.



Jaclyn Holt (R) fills out an application form at a job fair organized by the New Hampshire Employment Security agency in Salem, New Hampshire December 17, 2008. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)Reuters - U.S. employers probably cut the most jobs in at least 34 years last month as the global economic crisis gathered pace and moves by policy makers took time to filter through to struggling companies.



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People taking the Long Island Foreclosure Tour arrive at a foreclosed home for sale in New Hyde Park, New York in this May 17, 2008 file photo. Citigroup could soon agree to principles that would let troubled borrowers save their homes through bankruptcy, sources familiar with the talks said on Thursday, while industry groups are easing their opposition to the plan. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)Reuters - Financial giant Citigroup Inc will support a proposal in Congress to rewrite U.S. bankruptcy law to help troubled mortgage borrowers avoid foreclosure, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said on Thursday.



Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich gestures as he announces former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris as his choice to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama during a news conference in Chicago, Illinois December 30, 2008. (Frank Polich/Reuters)Reuters - A legislative committee on Thursday recommended the impeachment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, citing widespread abuse of power including allegations he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.



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Usama al-Kini, Al Qaeda's operations chief in Pakistan, is pictured in this undated FBI Most Wanted photograph. Al-Kini, also known as Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam, and a top aide are believed to be dead, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on January 8, 2009, in what appeared to be the latest results of a campaign targeting the militant group's leadership. Operations chief al-Kini was thought responsible for attacks, including the bombing of a Marriott hotel in Islamabad that killed 55 people in September, and an unsuccessful attempt to kill former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was later assassinated in a separate attack, the official said. (FBI/Handout/Reuters)Reuters - Al Qaeda's operations chief in Pakistan and a top aide are believed to be dead, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Thursday, in what appeared to be the latest results of a campaign targeting the militant group's leadership.



An Israeli army tank takes position on a hill at the border between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip on January 8, 2009. Israel was under intense pressure Friday to end its two-week-old offensive in the Gaza Strip after the UN Security Council called for an immediate ceasefire as the death toll from the war rose past 760.(AFP/David Buimovitch)AFP - Israel carried out new deadly air raids on the Gaza Strip on Friday as the UN Security Council called for an immediate ceasefire to end the two-week-old conflict in the Palestinian enclave.



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