What to do when there are no people to work.
The numbers just came out in Australia for our unemployment rate, and it came in at a 41-year low of 3.5% and 3.5%.
Now, this was a bit shocking to me because it seemed unusual because the news has been filled with businesses folding falling over collapsing, just particularly building firms.
A lot of the builders here are just like, hey, too expensive, too little, too little materials too hard.
We're going under.
And so my thoughts were, Hey, we should have been heading up for unemployment, but no, lowest in 41 years.
And I was talking to a friend.
I'm like, Hey, what's going on, man? He's like, haven't you heard the baby boomers retiring? And like, what? Oh, hang on.
Yeah, I knew the baby boomers retiring.
I thought that was due in like 235 10 years' time.
And he's like, Nah, COVID brought them all four.
And they're all quitting.
They're like, Hey, I've had enough I'm out.
And they are a massive chunk of the population.
So what we're seeing is a lot of people retiring.
And a lot of people are just not available to work.
We do not have immigration much at the moment, doors being closed for two years.
And also, you know, there's still a bunch of funny diseases going on this the monkeypox this foot and mouth that could affect Australian cattle.
Generally, opening the doors to immigration might take a little bit longer.
And even like travel is becoming more difficult.
Australia's always been a hard place to immigrate to anyway.
But right now, it's not like we have the 200,000 people that come pre-COVID that will come in pre-COVID.
And this has led to a significant problem.
And that is, hey, there's not enough people to do the work.
signs up everywhere.
Hey, we need workers, we need workers, we need workers.
So between those two factors, one baby boomer retiring.
And number two, immigration and possibly even number three, there's like this general sense of like, Hey, I'm not going to sign up for a nine to five grind that I hate amongst those that can work.
Those that are perfectly capable of working, then I don't know what to do the grind, not signing up for what my parents signed up for or my grandparents signed up for? If it's not in my soul's purpose, then I'm going to say no; I'm going to keep seeking that sole purpose.
But that doesn't really help when there's work to be done.
So what are you going to do? This is a difficult problem.
The assumption that you are dealing with is that people are working somewhere close to their capacity.
And I would argue that people are operating nowhere near their capacity, nowhere near their capacity.
There are so many errors, so much stuff up, so many.
You see this thing showing up late seeing things showing up misplace a building a shed at the moment, they reckon they said, half the shit half the sheds missing and I'm like what's going on, they said, Well, they're so far behind that they're sending shipments in multiple shipments, and then someone on the receiving end then has to try and piece it together.
And so all of these pieces for different sheds get mixed up together.
So you got like half of your shed, and then three, lots of other people's sheds.
So we have to send it back and then.
And this isn't just happening in the shed building; this is across the building.
So that assumption that your people are working close, that my people are working close to capacity, well, I do have a little advantage.
And that is I understand systems processes, which means that I can do a whole lot more my team could do a whole lot more with small numbers of people and get a whole lot more done.
Why because we don't have to make mistakes, do things over and over, restart and go where was I up to? I got clear optics on what's going on.
And this all comes from systems and processes must come before adding more people you will not be able to outgrow a systems and processes problem with people it will exacerbate and what works with a small team, you know, 235 people as you start to grow when you hit 12 and certainly up to 25 and beyond you are running into major logistics problems.
People just can't see what P other people are doing.
They can't see what's due.
They've got no ability to go. Hey, this is what I was working on.
And they end up working probably for two and a half hours out of that eight-hour day.
So right there.
If, let's say, for ease and convenience, they actually do two hours of work a day, you could ramp that up and get them working six hours a day.
And now you do not need to hire two more people; you just got your one person to work three times better to actually achieve six hours of work in that eight-hour workday.
And now you can actually probably remove half your workforce.
This may sound terrifying, but know that there is an urgent desire for more work.
For more work, it's there's so much work.
So when you release off your workforce, particularly if those other businesses start to work out how systems and processes can significantly increase productivity, then we might just get out of here with some hope.
If not, that looks so good.
It doesn't look so good.
Perhaps you're sensing this? I've certainly said I've had these weird dreams where this giant tidal wave comes and just ah, they printed $150 trillion or something. Some ridiculous amount of money has been printed.
All while supply has contracted, and logistics problems have dominated reality.
This means inflation is going through the roof.
Unless we can find the way out.
It's not coming from doing what we've always done.
We have to somehow dramatically skip the productivity curve.
I know where I'm putting my money.
Where are you putting yours we want some help. Go to systemio.dev.
We can help with systems and processes to get your team working three times harder, three times better, three times more productively, and start putting profits back into your pocket despite whatever's going on in the economy.
Thanks for tuning in today.
Before seeing you on the next episode in this journey into the power of systems to create results.
See you then.
