Distractions these days are much more sophisticated and most of the time we won’t even realize we’re distracted. Different jobs and workspaces have different forms of distractions that might waste most of your time, the time you could actually finish some work.
We all know that maintenance work is not always just a quick fix, there is a lot going on at the same time. Maintenance staff can be seen multitasking at times for quick work or sometimes doing nothing of significance at all. To help you understand this better and make sure your maintenance staff is not spending too much time on a single task at hand or in other words wasting time, here are 5 biggest time-waster things for maintenance staff:
1. Socializing
Although it is very important for maintenance staff to socialize and represent their agencies well, there is a difference between healthy socializing and blatant distractions. This could be between co-workers or with the client as well. If you are not concentrating on the work at hand, there are many possibilities of unintended outcomes such as compromising the quality of work, messing something else around, or even making the situation worse than before.
Socializing more than required and over-friendliness to dig-out stories, and continuous interactions can be a time waster for maintenance staff as it distracts them from their work.
2. Decision fatigues
Most of the time there is more than a single approach and fixes to a problem. That makes the job hard and more difficult to make certain decisions. It’s definitely time-consuming when you try to explain each possible solution and outcome to the client. This is a time waster as it would either be you who will take much time to make a decision, and follow up decisions or the client.
The best solution is to first understand the client’s requirements before giving appointments. Or relying on your experience, rather than overthinking. Overthinking not only consumes much of your time that you could put into action, but might also lead to some wrong decisions which you would have to correct later on.
3. Multitasking
We have grown with the perspective that multitasking saves time and helps you finish work faster. Only when we have come into the real world of struggles, that we understand it’s not entirely the truth. While multitasking in some areas of our life is sensible and yes, it saves time. But not for the maintenance staff. In fact, it actually wastes their time running from one task to another.
Maintenance work requires physical work and many times, devices are more complex for a normal person to understand. Even technicians might require manuals for starting. This creates confusion if two tasks are taken at the same time, and will eventually lead to an error. The error will later require more time to fix.
4. Delaying the work
Procrastination is another time waster in this field of work, where the maintenance team delays the work at hand for later. This could either be because of a lack of motivation or because they simply don’t know how to do it right now.
According to the Fair Housing Act, it could be considered as an unlawful practice and might even have legal consequences.
5. Not properly prepared
Visiting the client’s space for maintenance without the proper preparation is another big-time waster for maintenance staff. It is common that while repairing a certain part is required or broken and needs a replacement. If the maintenance staff are not well prepared and doesn’t have the required tools, they might have to visit some other time or go back to fetch them. That wastes a lot of time.
Final Words
These time wasters mentioned above are not only impacting the workflow and schedules of the maintenance staff but also directly affecting the client’s schedules. Though it may look like a matter that could be overlooked by agencies, the clients may not want to call a maintenance team with whom they wasted so many hours without getting a good result.
