Why Is Nancy So Slow?

“I knew this would happen,” Javier smiled from his chair in the conference room. “Not a big deal. Roger, when you came to me and said you needed five hours per week of accounting support, I knew you had no idea how much work it really was. You said, five hours, so I assigned Nancy, one of our staff accountants, to your project. She has a lot of other work to do in our accounting department, but I knew she would get a handle on things and report back to me on your project.”

“Yes, but, now, I need Nancy for ten hours,” Roger complained. “And, she said she couldn’t give me ten hours.”

“I know,” Javier calmly replied. “Nancy came back to me with a breakdown of the work. You need a couple of hours to code all your paperwork to the right expense accounts on your project, then some time to put that data into our computer accounting system, then about twenty minutes to proof and reconcile the output for the week. And, you are right, if Nancy was going to do all the work, it would likely take ten hours.”

“But, she said she couldn’t give me ten hours. If my project is getting a service from the accounting department, how is this going to work?”

“I talked to Nancy. She is going to do the up-front coding and she is going to proof the output, so she is only going to spend three hours on your project. And, we have a data entry clerk who can bang all those transactions into the computer system in another three hours. This data entry specialist is like lightening on a keyboard. We will still get all your work done, but it will probably only take six hours instead of ten.”

“Why is Nancy so slow on the data entry part?” Roger wanted to know.

“Nancy doesn’t practice on data entry. Her level of work requires judgment to connect the right expenses to the right account codes in our accounting system. It’s a different level of work than data entry. If your project was smaller, I would have Nancy do all the work including the data entry, but your project is bigger than you thought, so we are going to bring in a data entry clerk. That clerk just has to accurately get the data into the computer, there is very little judgment required.”

________S-II – Coding, proofing, reconciling. (Nancy)
____S-I – Data entry. (Data entry clerk)

2 thoughts on “Why Is Nancy So Slow?

  1. Larry Stamper

    Tom,
    Thanks for the reminder/lesson.
    I’m now realizing (after 6 yrs of starting up a new company) how important it is to delegate efficiently as the workload grows. Some things such as Nancy’s involvement, are critical to implement. As an owner and growth management driver, I’m also realizing when the best time is to hire or put someone in Nancy’s position. It’s knowing when you’ve reached your maximum potential with the team you have.
    With that said,, I ask you, Would it be better to add the task of data entry to an existing employees tasks (along with the proper internal adjustments) and hire a new Acctg manager to oversee the Department or…
    Promote the existing employee to Acctg mngr (provided they have the abilities) and hire someone stricty for data entry on a part time basis?
    My intuition say’s the latter but look foward to your reply…
    Thanks in advance,
    Larry

    Reply

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