Ford to begin monitoring potty breaks at Wayne Plant
According to the Detroit News, a memo was issued Tuesday at Ford's Michigan truck plant in Wayne that stated too many of the plant's 3,500 workers were spending more than their allotted 48 minutes per shift in the bathroom. Supervisors will begin monitoring the amount of time workers spend in the john and "respond appropriately". Obviously the local union considers this a petty move by the automaker that doesn't address real issues needing attention at the plant. The article quotes an industry consultant who nicely sums up the ingenious move by upper management: "Only someone from Harvard could think of something as stupid as monitoring bathroom time."
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Tom W 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
I'm curious.
How many minutes per shift are Executives and Managers allowed for bathroom breaks? Lunch breaks? How much non-work related conversation is tolerated in the office? What about personal phone calls?
In the competitive world of automobile manufacturing it would seem that office productivity would be equally important.
And remember, employees that feel like team members often do more than their job description requires. Employees that feel like slaves will never do more than they have to.
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Ray 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
This totally sounds like a middle-management "stupid". I doubt that the memo reflects the upper-level management, because that would be just too ignorant of a decision for any corporate leader to be making.
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Shifty 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
i dont know how they knew this without monitoring it before, but i dont blame them, i know people that work at local stores that say they spend over and hour just sitting on the toilet and reading magazenes to avoid work. im sure people at the plants do it too.
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Hank 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
Ok, I'm not going to comment on Ford's move...but SERIOUSLY...48 MINUTES A SHIFT ON THE TOILET? No wonder they're putting out so much...um...
many people don't even get that much of a lunch break, much less poddy breaks. Get off you duffs (and that goes for management, too).
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Buthidae 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
"more than their alloted 48 minutes per shift..."
MORE than 48! If any of my employees came even close to that I'd have their arse on the line.
Of course, I take that back if those guys don't get at least 30-40 mins break per 6 hours...
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Nathan Jones 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
Wow...thats almost an hour of their "day" in the toilet....thats alot when you think about it....so lets say 100 workers....thats almost 100 hours per day of lost productivity....I see their point.
NJ
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Tom W 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
Shifty,
White collar employees do the same thing. They take advantage of the fact that their productivity is not as easy to measure. If a bathroom policy is in place it should apply to everyone in the company.
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Pinkerton 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
Well, this plant has problems with brazen employees, substance abuse, and an unhealthy management culture. (Is it worse than any other plant? I dunno) I do know that I have met assembly workers from other Ford plants who will not buy product from the Michigan Truck Plant. They want their trucks to come from the Ontario plant.
~A former "Waynite"
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gnome 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
Honestly, 48 minutes out of an 8-hour shift? That's a full 10% of your work day. I can't believe they even allow that much. I would have set the number closer to 20 minutes, and anyone who spends more than 20 minutes on the can every day gets a visit from the HMO.
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Bob 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
I wonder how much time they get for "smoking breaks"? It amazes me how much time white-collar workers spend on those where I work.
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G. Snyder 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
Most of you are overlooking the difference between an exempt and non-exempt employee (ie. hourly vs. slaraly). Salaried employees such as management are being paid to get the ob done and meet deadlines - they do not get paid any different if they dork around in the john and have to work late. An hourly employee - now get this - gets paid by the hour. So if they spend 48+ minutes of their day in the bathroom, it impacts ouptut for the shift. "Productivity" can almost always be measured for hourly employees. This is the same reason that lunch breaks are measured for hourly employees. You don't need an MBA from Harvard to figure this out. C'mon everyone.
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Corey W. 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
Ok, maybe it's just me but I don't know ANYBODY that works a full 8 hour shift. Water cooler, smoking breaks, chats about last nights game or previous episode of Desperate Housewives.... etc.
And what is respond appropriately?? Yelling, hey you get the h*ll out of the stall, and what happen to the curteous flush!! Hey, don't forget about fines for not washing your hands.
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Tankstelle 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
Stupid Policy. Reminds me of an old employer that used to deduct vacation time if we were late to work. It didn't matter that I was salary, highly qualified, and worked significantly more hours than the 37.5 hours required.
I forecast a lot of half ass work coming out of that plant. Abusers of the policy should be dealt with individually. To send a memo like this succeeds in ticking off everyone.
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Tom W 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
G. Snyder,
A company that allows salaried employees to "dork" around in the bathroom or take 2 hour lunches is being equally cheated out of productivity. That time wasted could have been spent dealing with a customer service issue, or comparing health insurance plans, or negotiating prices for supplies, etc....
If the salaried employee beats their project deadline does that mean they are able to fool around until the due date? I don't think so. If a employee is at work they should be expected to work during scheduled working hours. If they have to work late to make a deadline, then that's the price they pay for accepting the salary payment model.
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Steve 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
48 minutes in an 8-hour shift for pee breaks?
Forgetting about the fact that anyone who actually spends 48 minutes a day in the bathroom is either sleeping or has a serious prostate problem, if the contract allows for it then management has every right to hold each worker to that standard.
However, the workers who take a couple of breaks here and there might start taking their fully-entitled 48 minutes if management starts putting a time clock at the door to the bathroom.
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Nathan Jones 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
Despite the lame argument of "if I have to do it, then management should too", do any of you really think its acceptable for an employee to spend 48 minutes of each shift in the toilet?
If you owned your own company, would you allow this to become a pattern?
Ah, the American worker!
NJ
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Tankstelle 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
You guys are missing the point. It doesn't matter if it is acceptable to be spending 48 hours in the bathroom. This has to do with treating grown men like children. If an individual isn't getting the job done then talk to that individual, but don't send this crap out to every single worker. Some of you would make horrible bosses.
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kit 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
wow -- 48 minutes a day allowed for trips to the can.
yes, managment looks silly (to a certain extent) monitoring this.
but the union doesn't come away covered in glory for having won workers that much time to visit the shitter. which is probably in addition to lunch breaks and other shorter breaks.
to me, it proves what the right-wing has long been arguing, that unions coddle workers at the expense of lean-and-mean, more efficient foreign competitors.
and when detroit needs to defend sourcing in china, they'll point to the UAW requiring paid 48-minute long toilet breaks.
not to mention the extra manpower needed to fill in on the line while someone is away on the toilet.
that this story is just now making news suggests that the auto companies are laying the groundwork to demand further givebacks from the UAW.
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Tom W 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
Nathan Jones,
Obviously, an owner can do anything he wants. But creating different privlege levels for different groups in the company will cause a loss of team spirit and morale. Team spirit and morale will do more for productivity than anything else. It will also reduce employee turnover, thereby reducing the time spent training new employees.
I don't see this as an issue about the 48 minutes. I see it as managment treating labor as if they were all lazy, even though I'm sure most of them enjoy their job and work hard all day. Nobody likes to be assumed guilty until proven innocent. Life is too short to spend 1/3 of your day in that kind of environment.
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Richard Warren 11:06PM (12/18/2005)
Well, it's a lot, but, I'll say this I once worked in a place where in all honesty it was 5 minutes to and 5 minutes from the rest room, that's 30 minutes, just to get there and back with 3 breaks a day.
So what sounds like a long time, depending on layout of the plant might not be that far away from that 48 minutes.
Ever go to a game, theatre, etc: and figure how long it takes?
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