Mr Sharma came to office today morning at his regular time, he doesn’t like to be late. There was a heavy traffic on the way. Driving in Delhi traffic is really a tiresome job. After reaching office, he went to wash room, sprinkled water in face, made his hair, set right tie knot and started his job. There was one file on his desk that he has to work on.
‘TO DO’ sticker showed that he has to call three clients today without fail. One client has inquired about quotation break up, which he had to explain from accounting point of view. His boss trusted him for important work. Second job was clearing cheque for hotel bills of the delegation company had sent for visiting site of probable new project. Hotel has not sent bills for individuals, but only one common bill was sent. To request bills for individuals he needed to call the manager. Third call was to be made to bank. One transaction was debited wrongly from the company’s account. Manager has assured to rectify it today but Mr Sharma will call and make it sure that it happens without fail. He can’t leave it on the manager.
Before lunch, the export manager sent a message that a meeting will be held at 1530 hours in the conference room and Mr Sharma will have to be present. Clock showed 1140. Mr Sharma reminded him to finish the pending work before meeting because it was habit of Export Manager to call everyone but come late, sometimes one hour late. Can’t he go late? No, the manager would expect everyone to be on time and in case of failure would lose his temper. Mr Sharma has to go on time.
Mr Sharma, while working, thought, “We waste a lot of man hours by waiting on conference room or by attending non important meetings. It creates delay in work and loss of revenue to the organization. Sometime we need to work till late hours because of such delay. It creates inefficiency. Can’t it be managed well?” He asked to himself. “I am an accountant, not HR Manager.” He reminded himself and again involved himself in the job.
It happened again. The export manager started the meeting 40 minutes late. 6 officers from different departments were waiting there. Mr Sharma thought, “I am an accountant. I don’t have anyone to work under me. But these managers of different departments are handling staff in their departments. Waste of their time means waste of time of their staff also. Effectively it is loss of many man hours, which we can’t calculate exactly.”
The meeting was finished by 1720. All left to their offices. Mr Sharma thought that I must NOTE these types of aberration in organization and suggest to the higher authorities for improvement. “I am sure it can improve the efficiency of organization,” he promised to himself.
Rohit Vadhwana 