While a relaxed atmosphere is nicer to work in this is not always a reality.
Many employees will take advantage of the situation.  Having worked in
management I can tell you that there are employees that need guidelines for
productivity.  CAP has requirements for turn-around-time and patients have
expectations of prompt results.  In a clinical setting without productivity
guidelines this is difficult to manage.  Guidelines are not quotas but
expections of what should be accomplished.  Will everybody meet these
everyday, probably not.  There are always things that can go wrong, but can
it be accomplished most days? I had an employee who saw nothing wrong with
taking 6 hours to embed 100 blocks.  Guidelines were necessary.

Jennifer MacDonald



> I think somebody needs to be clued in that the most productive work
> environment is the relaxed and happy environment.  Stressed out workers,
> regardless of the type of work they're doing, are not as productive as
> happy, stress-free workers.  So, if people are being timed to see how much
> they can produce in a given period of time,  that is putting stress on the
> worker.  If the worker feels they must produce x amount in y time period,
> that is even more stressful.  Worse, it's demeaning.  It's putting human
> beings on par with machinery.  Machines can be made to perform like this,
> but people just DON'T.
>
> This really has to be the child of the bean counter from Hell.
>
> just yakkin
> Connie McManus
>
> At 03:46 PM 11/15/01 -0500, Amos Brooks wrote:
> >Hi,
> >    I really don't like putting time expectations on things like this
with
> >out foreknowledge of specifics. 100 OB/GYN blocks would take a hell of a
lot
> >longer than 100 prostate biopsies. Embedding 100 "prostate chips" blocks
> >would take a lot longer than 100 breasts. If all the blocks were EXACTLY
the
> >same size and EXACTLY the same type of tissue, with EXACTLY the same
amount
> >of fatty tissue, perhaps you could justify a quota.
> >    Then there is the whole quality of work factor. We used to race to
see
> >who could coverslip the most slides per minute. It was interesting to
note
> >that usually the fastest worker often had the most bubbles after a half
> >hour. The same could be said of wrinkles in sections. The slowest was,
> >admittedly, not the best, but the ideal was obviously not time dependent.
> >    Putting expectations on the time it takes to complete these tasks is
is
> >really subjective and inherently flawed. The only way to ensure that
people
> >are really working to their potential is to sit and work next to them and
> >keep chattering and goofing off to a minimum. Rather than saying "You're
the
> >slowest tech here" one should look at the worker and try to teach some
time
> >saving methods.
> >Put the stopwatch down and step away from the whipped tech.
> >Amos Brooks
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Clarke Ian" 
> >To: "histonet" 
> >Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2001 12:54 PM
> >Subject: Performance indicators.
> >
> >
> >> I am interested in trying to assess a performance level for some of the
> >> standard procedures in a Histology and Cytology laboratory.These
include ,
> >> embedding,trimming,cutting and mounting of slides.I thus would like to
> >> survey what other people think is realistic and doing in practise.
> >
> >
> >
>
> Veterinary Diagnostics Lab
> Utah State University
> Logan, UT
> USA
> (435) 797-1891
> fax (435) 797-2805
>