Bosses seeing red! Long wait in lines keeping their workers off the job

 Jodi-Ann Gilpin, Gleaner Writer

Local business operators are seeing red as they tire of coping with the loss of large chunks of productive time when their employees break from work, sometimes for hours, to stand in long lines for services.

As a result, some employers have admitted to taking disciplinary action against workers who could not complete their contracted hours because they were held up at the bank, government agencies, or other institutions where they had to do business.

"We have not had persons losing their jobs as a result of that, but it has caused other disciplinary actions to be taken," Ernest Grant, general manager of Rainforest Seafoods in Jamaica, told The Gleaner.

Andrew Jackson, manager of Jetcon Cars in St Andrew, said even when his company employed bearers to do the errands, the bearers themselves got "stuck in the lines".

Recently, The Gleaner spent time at local banks and other institutions and watched as a number of frustrated customers were forced to stand in line for more than an hour. Some eventually left to return another day, noting that they had already been away from their jobs for too long.

But Joseph Matalon, head of the Jamaica Productivity Centre, has a solution. He is calling for agencies to capitalise on technological advances in order to cut back on the amount of time customers have to wait in lines.

Hampered productivity

According to Matalon, the issue has hampered productivity and has been of great concern over the years.

"I think we have to make the technology work for us. So if it means encouraging more customers to use online banking so as to avoid the crowd when standing in lines, then we have to do that. It does sap productivity, and companies do suffer," he said.

"When you examine the 'Doing Business' survey that is put out by the World Bank every year - there's a section which speaks to paying taxes, the number of separate filings and payments that need to be made in the course of a year - we are very low on the ranking," he noted.

Jamaica is ranked at 163 out of 185 in the paying taxes index of the 2012 World Bank's Doing Business report, which ranks economies on their ease of doing business.

Lines equal loss

Francis Wade, president of Framework Consulting and author of Bills Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure, cautioned companies to be mindful that long lines at their establishments can result in their own losses.

"What these companies don't realise is that the length of their lines drives away customers. When people balk (leave), a sale is lost, and so serious measures have to be put in place to address this," he said.

Scotiabank, one of the institutions visited by The Gleaner, responded to our queries about the long lines. "Our customers are our first priority," said Rosemarie Voordouw, director, customer experience, "so we monitor carefully all aspects of the customer experience in-branch and via our other channels. We continue to work to improve our services and to bring down further the waiting time for the 12 per cent of our customers who wait more than 30 minutes to be served. The majority of our customers are served under 20 minutes."

Francis WADE: What these companies don't realise is that the length of their lines drives away customers …

Long wait in lines keeping their workers off the job

Jamaica's ranking on the World Bank's Doing Business 2012 scale:

Ease of doing business - 90

Registering property - 105

Paying taxes - 163

- The World Bank's Doing Business ranks the economies from 1 to 185 on their ease of doing business.