Sit, Smoke and Talk: A look at produce labor planning

I was putting the final touches on some upcoming travel plans when I saw Russ T. Blade push his way out from behind my desk calculator. “Rusty,” as regular readers know, is the miniature, imaginary produce manager who occasionally appears to talk shop.

Rusty: United Airlines, huh? I thought you were the Southwest, discount-type of traveler.

Me: Normally yes. I had to use the Friendly Skies sky-bus this go-round. That reminds me of my college statistics professor. He used United as an example to drive home a point.

Rusty: What, the ongoing statistic of how air travel is so much safer? Even in the wake of the few planes lately in the news, which descended to near-disastrous low altitudes?

Me: No, but thanks for bringing that up — very reassuring. No, the teacher recalled how United hired the company he worked for to determine statistically how best to board an airplane. After performing time-study experiments, his company determined that United should board from the back to the front of the plane in steps — window passengers first, followed by middle seat occupants, then aisle-seated folks — instead of going through the usual order of travel classes.

Rusty: And first-class passengers boarding last? Bet that went over like a lead balloon.

Me: Pretty much. United scrapped those recommendations and kept boarding how they always do. However, United still had to pay the statistics organization a lump of money. Even though the back-to-front method was deemed the most efficient method.

Rusty: That reminds me of the old SST program we tried in our grocery chain decades ago.

Me: SST? I’ll bite, what was that?

Rusty: It stood for Service Standards Training. It was about reevaluating how we based our usual weekly labor scheduling process and considering adopting the SST model instead. We had to attend so many in-store meetings over the course of six months that we referred to SST as the, Sit, Smoke and Talk meetings. Ha!

Me: Good one. And I’m sure that was just the G-rated reference, right? Not to mention, that was long enough ago, when companies allowed smoking inside the stores. Gag. I remember that all right. So, what was the SST program all about anyway?

Rusty: SST was very thorough. It was about scheduling labor to be more efficient. However, deep down we suspected it was just a big conspiracy — an upper management plot to reduce labor hours.

Me: It wasn’t?

Rusty: Not in the end. Just like your statistics guy — I’ll get to that in a sec — no, SST scrutinized every task we did, up close. Even engaged all the store and assistant store managers to help perform the study. They observed and timed how long it took to unload a produce truck, how long to properly put it away, how many minutes it took to crisp a batch of leafy greens and how long to trim a case of celery, to rotate and stock various items. We learned exactly how long it took to do everything from setting up the rack in the morning to closing up shop at the end of the day. Every produce task was averaged out to the quarter-minute.

Me: Fast-forward to the results. How much damage did the SST program do the produce operation?

Rusty: That’s the kicker — and we were all shocked. The program recommended that the average produce department needed at least 25% additional hours over our usual, somewhat ambiguous formula to operate at top efficiency. We were overjoyed at the prospect. It was like, “Heck yeah. We told you all these years we were understaffed!”

Me: And, let me guess …

Rusty: You got it. Just like your United Airlines story, the company thanked the statistic organization (which is still around, by the way) for their work and recommendations, and everything that had to do with SST was quietly shelved. We quickly returned to scheduling like before. Lean and mean.

Me: You weren’t disappointed?

Rusty: Sure, somewhat. But at least we got our digs in after that, you know? We figured that if an outside independent performance organization, armed with a keen focus of our chain, could conclude that we needed more hours — for training, stocking, displays, conditioning, prep and everything — well then, why couldn’t our own company embrace it and give it a try? I bet by doing so our sales and gross profit would go up to justify the bump in labor hours.

Me: All those time studies, all the sit-smoke-and-talk jam sessions, wasted.

Rusty: (Sighs, while peeking up at my computer screen.) Yeah, well at least you scored a window seat on your flight, bub.
Armand Lobato works for the Idaho Potato Commission. His 40 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions.

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