For many companies, the number of hours per day employees actually spend on core tasks is surprising.
Our client, a global insurance provider, had expectations of 7.5 productive hours per day. However, the company’s leadership team was concerned that managers were not driving consistent behaviors to meet these expectations. They turned to Sapience to gain an understanding of work patterns and improve efficiency across its workforce. What they found surprised them — and led to massive productivity improvement s .
PROFILE
- Insurance Services Industry
- Services include property and casualty insurance, workers’ compensation, general liability, business owner policies, cyber liability and more
- 5,723 employees
CHALLENGE
Implement an automatic method to understand work patterns, improve management’s decision-making, and increase efficiency across the enterprise.
RESULTS AT A GLANCE…
- 2.5-HOUR INCREASE IN PRODUCTIVITY PER PERSON, PER DAY
- 2X INCREASE IN CORE WORK TIME (FROM 2 TO 4 HOURS PER EMPLOYEE PER DAY)
- REDUCED HEADCOUNT BY INCREASING UTILIZATION RATES RATHER THAN BACKFILLING POSITIONS
SOLUTION: SAPIENCE
The enterprise deployed Sapience, an automated workforce analytics platform that enabled management to achieve true workforce visibility. Almost immediately, data obtained with Sapience highlighted an excess of underutilized work hours and excessive hours spent in meetings. Employees were only working an average of four productive hours per day, far below management’s expectations. The insights inspired company leaders to create a policy requiring front-line workers to limit meeting time to one hour or less per day and to set a company-wide goal of 6.5 to 7 hours per day of productive work. In just a few months, the company reached its goal of 6.5 hours of productive work per day and sustained the average by relying on workforce data to manage individual and team productivity. The enterprise also developed a strategy for increasing time spent on core work tasks — tasks identified as essential to the business — from two hours, to four.
IMPACT
- True Workforce Visibility Sapience provided accurate insights on the actual hours employees were working, revealing opportunities to improve productivity and performance.
- Data Transformation By deploying an easy-to-use workforce analytics platform, managers obtained the necessary data to make decisions with confidence. They worked with their teams to set and achieve realistic work time goals, using workforce data to manage progress with accuracy.
- Increased Productivity at Scale Sapience data revealed excess time in meetings, as well as too much unaccounted time. Our client used these insights to develop a strategy for optimizing daily productivity, effectively increasing work effort by 2.5 hours per day. Other teams within the organization rolled out similar strategies to increase productivity at scale.
- More Time On Core Tasks The company doubled the time spent on core work tasks from two to four hours per day using workforce data.
- Reduced Headcount The enterprise reduced headcount without backfilling positions by better utilizing resources and increasing productivity. Based on Sapience data, company leadership developed a policy requiring managers to achieve 90 percent team utilization before hiring new staff.