I have a humble suggestion to all businesses out there:

Treat everyone who works for you as a consultant.

What do I mean? I mean treat everyone as a dollar amount per hour.

Why? Because it will attach a real, in your face, dollar amount to every business decision you make. Want to constantly have your staff attend meetings? Well, those meetings are costing you hundreds of dollars an hour. Seeing people not doing their job? That’s money out of your pocket.

Think about it: The total cost for an employee is generally two times their salary. So if someone is making $40K a year, it’s costing the company at least $80K a year. This extra money is in equipment, benefits, workmans comp, sick time, social security, and so on. So, a full-time $40K a year worker is costing you, roughly, $38 an hour. If you have a more skilled, IT-like worker, that’s costing you $70K a year x 2 =$140K a year, or $67 an hour.

I really do believe that a majority of large organizations need to start thinking like this. I’ve seen huge amounts of time wasted in meetings, only to have additional meetings. And meetings not with 2 or 3 people, but with everyone who might possibly be involved. An example, a certain company has a status meeting with everyone involved in the project. Total number of people attending, on average, is 10. Total number really needing to be on the call? About 3. So you have 10 x $50/hr  (average)  = $500 a week thrown out the window. And that’s one one hour meeting a week. Some of these companies have their people in 20 hours of meetings a week! That’s $1000 lost (on average) every week–per employee!

And I do mean lost. I am a firm believer that a majority of meetings are complete wastes of time. More often than not they:

1. Have no agenda.
2. Have no structure.
3. Have too many people.
4. Are inappropriate for problem solving.

So, start adding up the real costs of these time wasting events. I think you’ll quickly realize that focused, limited, conversations will save a boatload of time and money.