I had a first-hand opportunity to see a critical service industry at work last week here in the middle of China and if it had been functioning in the west it would probably have left me dead.
If you are an asthmatic you always fear a severe cold and many sufferers like me will get an asthma attack just from taking ibuprofen. Unfortunately that pill mix-up is what happened by mistake last Monday and I found myself in an ambulance being taken to a public hospital in the middle of Changsha
The hospital seemed short-staffed and in chaos, but it was actually extremely well run. In Europe I would be lucky to see a doctor within an hour – but there I was with a doctor almost immediately. Yes, they were trying to deal with several cases at the same time – but they were up to the task and got to the root of the problem. I doubt in the west if I would have had a precautionary ECG or blood test – but within minutes they had been completed and I was in a ward being treated with highly efficacious Chinese medicine.
What I witnessed all around me was distressing, but admirable in its bravery and practicality. I saw how an institution with limited funds can make up for short-staffing by wise uses of technology and allowing families to step in and provide nursing support. These medical staff were probably earning less than $700 a month and subject to long working hours. But you they did not seem phased by their jobs and were constantly on the move.
It reminded me too of work gangs I had witnessed throughout China – mending roads, planting flowers down a dual carriageway or laying turf in a park. Everything was organized and well coordinated and closely supervised by foremen who worked physically as hard as those in their team.
Are we missing a trick in the west? Do we really measure staffing requirements that accurately in the service sector? Does hard work necessarily result in service failure? I suspect that most businesses could work with less than half the staff they currently employ and be more effective as a consequence – or they could have larger work teams, finish jobs much more quickly and move on rapidly to the next task. In a hospital the outcome could be the difference between life and death, in the wider world of business the difference is between rapid economic growth and a slow paralysis which we will all regret when it is too late.