Without further delay, let's study humans!

How do you know if people are happy in their jobs? Well, traditionally, people vote with their feet! A good company aims to keep its employees happy because happy people are more productive people.

A recent data analysis inside a company indicated that the employees in a certain job category were leaving the company at twice the rate as the company average. Oh oh! Is it their boss? Is it their pay? How do we find out what is really happening? Now is a good time for a survey!

A survey was developed to request the opinions of nearly 2,000 employees that hold this job title. On that survey was a long list of the tasks that were involved in performing the job, a data field to enter the number of hours spent on each activity per week and a field from 1 to 5 ranking the importance of each the activities for the business.

After the survey data came in, a great deal of number crunching obviously took place. The end result? A matrix like the one shown below, which gives a great view into what these people do all day.



So what do we do with this information? Well, look in the upper left corner of the matrix. These are activities that the employees are spending a great deal of time on but are of little value to the company. These activities should be put on a list for possible elimination, automation or process improvement to reduce the time spent on them. A prioritized list can now be provided to a team of improvement experts... and what better experts than the employees themselves? Teamed up with process experts, these employees have the greatest motivation to participate since the end result is a better work environment for them. So, what are you waiting for? Have unhappy employees? Find out why!

I hope this edition of the Numerical Insights newsletter has provided a bit more information to assist you in your quest for data-driven decisions. As always, I welcome input from my readers and requests for information.