While improvement projects can have significant financial savings, there’s a tendency in service organizations to concentrate on projects that save time. Time savings are then converted to soft or “light green” dollars.
For example, improving a process saves x hours, multiplied by an hourly wage, equals x financial savings. In reality, labor expense has not decreased. If there is a finite amount of work to be done, revenue has not increased. And executive leadership may be dissatisfied. What’s missing?
The answer is Labor Optimization, and it does not entail reductions in force (RIF)! Labor Optimization is a long-term initiative to right-size your labor pool to support the business. As your organization pursues continuous improvement, successful projects reduce workload. Labor pool can then shrink over time while maintaining or increasing quality and service standards.
If the organization sees an increase in business, right-sizing might look like maintaining the current labor pool while growing the business. If business is stagnant, then right-sizing is achieved through attrition. This session will cover what Labor Optimization is, what it is NOT, why it is important to capitalize on the time/labor savings of a process improvement, and the four key components to successful Labor Optimization.
Presenter: Katie Castree Benyo
Katie Castree Benyo is a Client Account Lead at
Accumen. Her team of tenured lab experts assess the performance of hospital laboratories relative to their peers, recommend and implement operational efficiencies, improve quality and service results, and drive bottom line margin improvement. Using Accumen’s lab performance analytics technology, they utilize benchmarks and actionable insights to provide guidance that drives lab efficiencies and monitors outcomes of process improvement.
Katie holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Community Health from the University of Illinois, and a Master’s Degree in Health Administration from Saint Louis University. She is an ASQ-Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, a TeamSTEPPS Master Trainer through AHRQ, and holds a Certificate in Laboratory Quality Management Systems from CLSI. Her work and thought leadership have been published in “Value in Health: The Journal of the International Society of Pharmaco-economics and Outcomes Research” as well as ASQ’s “Lean & Six Sigma Review.” She is a frequent presenter locally and at national conferences. She resides in Saint Louis, MO, and is a member and former leader of the Section.