Anti-Waste Policy Example

Here's a draft sample of an anti-waste policy followed by issue logging & tracking suggestions. A comparable policy should be in every County Department's policy manual. As of writing, most Departments appear to lack one or have a weak one.

"It is against the Department Policy to unnecessarily waste resources, including but not limited to supplies and employee labor. The County has an obligation to use tax money judiciously and wisely.

Employees are required to report significant likely waste to their immediate supervisor. If the immediate supervisor cannot or does not address the issue in a reasonable timeframe, then the central Resource Efficiency Coordinator (REC) [hyperlink to person or group] shall be contacted by the employee and notified of the waste incident or practice. A status report or notice of the progress will be given to both the employee and their immediate supervisor every 6 months until the alleged inefficiency is resolved or deemed unresolvable. Cases marked as "unresolvable" shall be reviewed again every two years to see if a new approach can be used, as technology and Country structure changes over time. Both the reporting employee and supervisor(s) who have listed times are required to e-sign that they have received the report, or via paper if the e-sign system is unavailable. 

If an employee repeatedly spends notable time on tasks that are clearly below their pay-grade, or clearly outside of their hired job function, then they shall notify their immediate supervisor of this potential labor mismatch. The supervisor and employee will then follow the above procedure. 

Obviously, it's not good long-term practice to pay an employee earning $60 an hour to do work that could be done by a position that normally gets $25 an hour, for example. Note this may be acceptable for short-term situations such as covering for vacations, illnesses, etc. But if it continues for more than 2 months, or the gaps are frequent, it should be reported using the given steps.

The REC will attempt to cross-allocate resources between groups to better allocate labor and other expensive resources. If the inefficiency is deemed inherent to the situation, then a written memo stating such shall be created, and a copy given to the employee and immediate supervisor. The REC shall keep a log of all known inefficiency events, follow-up dates, and the status. A list of items the log shall track is given below. An employee can contact the REC directly if they wish to check on the status without needing permission from their manager to avoid retaliation.

Those in charge of hiring will make a reasonable effort to hire sufficient general clerical and entry-level staff before specialists and managers to avoid having high-wage employees expend labor on entry-level or routine tasks. Cost versus benefit analysis should be performed and documented as needed to ensure high-wage staff is not misapplied to routine tasks, or resulting in other skill mismatches.

An employee has a right to work on tasks they were initially hired for unless written permission is obtained by the employee to assign them tasks outside of their title. Being assigned the wrong kind of work can hurt an employee's chance of career advancement by subjecting them to experience that doesn't match their job title, in addition to possibly being a wasteful allocation of skills.

Employees shall have a way to report wasteful practices of any type, not just labor, without fear of retaliation. They will also be given a status of their notification upon completion of the analysis. Any objections to the analysis by employees shall be noted in writing, logged, and available for inspection by County auditors.

General County citizens and journalists shall be able to request copies of the log, with appropriate sensitive and personal information redacted. [Checks and balances are necessary to avoid slipping into bad bureaucratic habits.]

The REC may not be able to resolve all reported cases of potential waste, but they will make a reasonable to attempt to address them in the order of estimated monetary waste, with the highest amounts focused on first. Even inadvertently falsely identified problems provide lessons to speed up future identification and processing of incidences. 

Potential Waste Tracking Log

Tracked items (report columns):

A: Issue ID Number - A sequence number to uniquely identify and track the issue.

B: Report Date - Date issue was reported or logged

C: Notifier or Plaintiff - Employee ID and/or name of person who pointed out the potential waste

D: Does notifier wish to remain anonymous? (Yes/No)

E: Location or Organizational Group 

F: Waste Type - Examples: Labor Allocation, Equipment or Supply Usage, Alleged Un-necessary Procedures, Other

G: Estimated Waste Per Year - Dollar value of alleged waste.  A very rough figure is okay for initial entries.

H: Estimated Cost to Resolve - Some solutions require an up-front expenditure, such as reworking software to make it more efficient for its task.

I: Status. Check back at least once a year. And make sure the Notifier (C) agrees with the status. [If you ask their manager(s), they'll just say everything is fine to get you out of their hair. Many do that, trust me.]

J: Status Update Date

K: Notes