Sometimes the most groundbreaking innovations come from the most unexpected places. When I sat down with Alex James for the latest weWFM podcast episode, I wasn't quite prepared for how a civil engineer who helped build Sydney's iconic infrastructure would completely reshape my thinking about workforce management.
Alex's journey is fascinating. Nearly three decades building some of Australia's most complex projects.. from the Sydney Harbor Tunnel in the late eighties to Sydney Airport, the Cross City Tunnel, and the entire Sydney Rail Network. But here's where it gets interesting: Alex took those complex system engineering principles and applied them to something entirely different - optimising human effort in the workplace.
The Birth of Effort Management
What struck me most was Alex's candid reflection on his transition. He'd witnessed years of "carnage" from poor resource management in construction and consulting. "For want of adding up some numbers and comparing them," he explained, "a lot of pain could have been avoided." That frustration led him to recognise patterns in resource management that would eventually become his effort management theorem.
The breakthrough came from a simple but profound realisation: there are three types of effort in any workforce system. How many people you need (demand), how many people you have (capacity), and how many people you actually use (allocation). It sounds deceptively simple, but the implications are enormous.
Beyond the Gap: A Three-Dimensional View
Traditional workforce management typically calculates gaps between one or two of these elements. Alex's approach calculates ratios between all three, creating what he calls ability (capacity divided by demand), efficiency (allocation divided by capacity), and intensity (demand divided by allocation).
Here's the mathematical elegance that caught my attention: when you multiply ability times efficiency times intensity, they always equal one. Always. This means you can describe any workforce's effectiveness as a three-dimensional position, giving managers a complete picture rather than just looking at two sides of the puzzle.
But the real power lies in understanding the scenarios that unfold when there's a workforce shortage. Alex outlined four possibilities: you under-deliver while people work at the same pace, you deliver by making people work longer, you deliver by making people work faster, or - most commonly - you compromise across all three dimensions. "You'll cut a little bit of corner on quality, you might work a little bit longer, and you might work faster," he explained.
The Aged Care Reality Check
Alex's recent work in Australia's aged care sector provided some startling validation of his theories. Working with facilities using best-practice tools, including Kronos (now UKG), his team consistently found 20% inefficiencies across multiple sites. That's not 20% room for improvement... that's 20% workforce effectiveness being lost despite having sophisticated workforce management technology.
The findings were eye-opening. More than half of the shortage could have been filled by workers who didn't get rostered and were sitting at home waiting for calls. Meanwhile, facilities were paying premium rates for expensive agency workers to fill gaps. The team also discovered over-allocation scenarios, extreme overtime situations, and concerning patterns where the same staff members were consistently double-shifting.
For one $200 million turnover business that was actually going backwards financially, the value of these inefficiencies totalled around $8 million. As Alex put it, "the inefficiencies were two or three times their target margins."
The Executive Wake-Up Call
What really resonated was Alex's description of presenting these findings. Picture three executives with their heads in their hands, followed by the inevitable blame game. But when the same patterns appeared across five different facilities with five different roster clerks, it became clear this wasn't about individual performance - it was about systemic issues.
This connects to something I've observed throughout my career: we often mistake activity for effectiveness. Having sophisticated tools and dedicated teams doesn't guarantee optimal outcomes. Sometimes the most advanced systems can mask fundamental inefficiencies.
The Bigger Picture: Universal Principles
Alex's work extends beyond aged care. He's been instrumental in developing ISO standards for workforce allocation (ISO 30434) and has applied his principles across various sectors. What's particularly compelling is his argument that these principles are universal; whether you're managing engineers on a construction project, nurses in aged care, or agents in a contact centre.
The three fundamental questions every manager grapples with daily remain constant: Are we going to be able to deliver? Are we going to be profitable? Are our people going to be okay? Traditional gap analysis can't answer these questions. Alex's effort management theorem can.
Looking Forward: The Untapped Potential
During our conversation, Alex made a prediction that stuck with me: workforce inefficiencies represent "one of the last untapped fields of productivity improvement in industry." Given what he's uncovered in supposedly mature sectors, I'm inclined to agree.
The implications extend far beyond operational efficiency. As workforce management tools become more sophisticated, the real differentiator will be how well organisations connect operational data to employee experience. Alex's framework provides a pathway to sustainable performance that considers not just cost, but wellbeing too.
The Path to Implementation
For organisations drowning in spreadsheets or struggling to see patterns in their workforce data, Alex offers a practical starting point. Focus on bringing together those three effort profiles - need, have, and use. When they're aligned, you've got an optimised workforce. When they're not, you've identified your opportunity.
The beauty of his approach lies in its simplicity. You don't need to understand all 60+ permutations of inefficiencies he's identified. You just need to recognise that when those three numbers don't match, there's room for improvement.
The Human Element
What I appreciate most about Alex's approach is that it doesn't lose sight of the human element. His framework explicitly considers employee wellbeing as an outcome, not just an input. In an era where we're increasingly focused on metrics and automation, this feels both refreshing and necessary.
As someone who's spent decades in workforce management, I've seen too many initiatives that optimise for efficiency while ignoring the human cost. Alex's theorem provides a framework that considers delivery, profitability, and people simultaneously.
Final Thoughts
The conversation with Alex reminded me why cross-industry learning is so valuable. Sometimes the fresh perspective comes from someone who's never been constrained by "how we've always done things" in our sector.
His journey from civil engineering to workforce management isn't just a career pivot - it's a masterclass in applying systematic thinking to complex human systems. The principles that govern effective infrastructure management aren't so different from those that govern effective workforce management.
If you're still measuring what's easy to count rather than what matters, maybe it's time to adopt a three-dimensional view. After all, the gap between planned and actual is where your opportunities hide.
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