So “Mr. Efficiency” here again! (True confession time? I’m “efficient” only in my online persona- not at home!) Last week we worked on making fewer trips back and forth to the truck.
HINT: Great employees will LOVE these efficiency tips! This is why you need our 3-hour, online SFS: Hiring the Very Best! LIVE seminar. Click HERE for the class curriculum, to see upcoming dates or to easily register online…
Knock off five to ten minutes per job over the year and… well, you do the math! So here is your Residential Set-up List and here is a Commercial Set-up List.
Now let’s focus on your “prime work space”- your trucks! And yep- I’m gonna hit ya with an old cliche: “A place for everything and everything in its place.” But where should this “place” be for each item on your truck? A long departed psychologist offers us some guidance…
Abraham Maslow’s (1908-1970)“Hierarchy of Needs” is a pyramid with our most basic needs at the bottom and less common needs at the peak. So now lets apply this “Hierarchy of Needs” to your service vehicles.
Place your basic items you need often in the most easily accessible locations.
Make sure each tool/chemical ‘s “place” is defined with a color coded label. (Colors are a great way to separate and define your inventory.) By scanning your ORGANIZED truck before leaving each job a lost item will stick out like a missing tooth. (You don’t get more “inefficient” than driving back to get something you left behind!) So get rid of the visual CLUTTER!
NOTE: Recognize just how precious your floor space is in a van. So use professional wall racks and store your carpet groomers on the ceiling.
Spend some time meditating on your “Space Hierarchy”. Test different configurations and then keep tweaking it. Get OCD on space, storage and efficiency!
Employee HINT: If your system isn’t logical and easy to use (“ergonomically correct”) your employees won’t follow it. So make your truck storage storage system “easier to do it right than to do it wrong”. Invite employee suggestions. Then make your system non-negotiable by adding Employee Accountability. (“Motivate” your staff with an Employee Efficiency Bonus.) And strictly enforce a NO CLUTTER policy in your vehicles! (More on this next week!)
Drive safe! (And work organized!)
Steve
NOTE: Last week I promised our restoration contractors a suggested Water Damage Set-up List. Please email me your observations.
