by Jose Astorga

Created on: September 27, 2009

It's time the thirty minute lunch for production workers is changed or extended. How about 45 minutes or one hour? Why not? The production worker, unlike the office employee, is the easiest of all employee classifications to establish performance measures for. But in the race to tightly manage people, time and budgets business has lost sight of the importance of personal time and its tremendous value to individuals.

Over a thirty year period I have watched administrative or office personnel reap the benefits of working in a relatively relaxed atmosphere. In business offices everywhere, lots of time is wasted on smoke breaks, coffee breaks, bathroom breaks, and water cooler sporting events. Most humans intuitively understand that the eight hour work day is not really eight hours, and there is lots of time, on an average day, to get things done. Don't get me wrong, there are times when hours are a premium because of deadlines or special projects, but for the most part management and employees have hypnotized themselves into blindly embracing an eight hour ride on the hamster's treadmill of daily deja vus.

Not so for the production worker. As soon as he arrives to work he must begin producing in order to meet his daily per hour quota of widgets and gadgets. This is the price one must pay for either being a non-English speaking transplant or not pursuing some form of higher education.

The production worker is, for the most part, treated with little respect and little consideration. Typically, the production worker must meet his numbers or face extermination. Typically, the production worker is the lowest paid employee on the organizational chart; yet, without production nothing can be made, sold or moved; there would be no commerce. It's ironic.

The production worker is usually among the least educated employee and has a very limited spectrum of wage earning possibilities. I posit that because of this and other variable and environmental issues the production worker must be managed with a closer footprint than other types of employees. But that makes the production worker no less valuable or no less loyal when properly cared for.

Everything we do in business is grounded in some unquestioned historical precedent that is taught over and over again at the finest institutions. But what if there are other ways to accomplish business objectives in an environment that is more employee time friendly. Anything is possible if you have a strong and productive team

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