What is the 80/20 rule?

The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto law, suggests that 80% of consequences or results are caused by 20% of actions. Although there are variations to this ratio, the estimation is remarkably accurate for most cause-and-effect scenarios. For example, if you assume that 20% of your employees are responsible for 80% of sick leave, you’ll likely find the hard numbers aren’t far off the mark.

If the goal is to boost productivity or improve time management, 80/20 rule application ensures you focus on the areas that have the largest impact on your bottom line. Addressing these issues first gives you the greatest return on your efforts.

1. 20% of tasks take up 80% of time

Time is one of the most valuable resources for any business, so making the most of available labor hours should always be a priority. For the typical employee, a workday usually includes specialized tasks unique to that person’s skill set along with a variety of less critical functions that are still necessary to perform effectively.

If you assume that 80% of an employee’s time will be consumed with 20% of their tasks, the best way to maximize productivity is to ensure the most critical jobs are part of that 20%. Any effort you make to reduce time spent on less specialized activities provides more time for your employees to focus on what you hired them to do. You can best do this by identifying time-consuming tasks that can be automated or streamlined, such as:

• Non-critical emails: Set up filters to eliminate the need to read or respond to those that can be disregarded.
• Repetitive forms: Use a program that auto-populates unchanging form areas.
• Schedule coordination: Take advantage of shareable calendars so teams can see when coworkers are available, reducing scheduling conflicts and unnecessary coordination time.
• Document management: Use cloud-based or shared hard drives to store documents instead of relying on sending them between relevant parties. You can also implement a team-focused program that allows instant sharing within a group.

This is also a good opportunity to make note of the tasks that contribute to the greatest production. For optimized results, these are the functions you want your employees focused on for longer periods of time.

2. 20% of employees handle 80% of the workload

Your business may have a mix of top-performing employees and those who could improve their performance. Many businesses use reward systems to incentivize better performance to fairly encourage better production across the whole team.

Unfortunately, these programs can sometimes prioritize lower-performing workers over your top earners, especially when they focus on improvement measurements. This can leave your all-stars feeling unappreciated and wondering if their efforts might be better rewarded by another company. Applying the Pareto law to performance can help you identify your most motivated employees so you can create a system that recognizes their efforts and boosts overall production.

Your 20% will be the employees who are carrying the bulk of the workload. These are often people you have placed in leadership roles but can also be someone you might not expect. It isn’t uncommon to find out the manager who is always raising the bar with team output is actually leaning heavily on an assistant who handles most of the tasks. Once you know your 20% team, reward them for the extra effort they already put in, including:

• Cash bonuses
• Extra vacation time
• Office perks
• Schedule flexibility

Highlight the work they put into the rest of the team and use their production levels to set goals for less enthusiastic employees. You may lose some of your less effective staff, but this gives you the opportunity to replace them with new hires who will start with higher expectations to bring up the average. Overall, these steps can help your top employees feel more appreciated and allow the entire team to more evenly distribute the workload.

3. 20% of available tools are used for 80% of production

You likely have a variety of productivity tools available to your employees to help simplify their activities. Over time, these tools can begin to overlap each other, or functions may become outdated. Employees will naturally start to gravitate toward the programs that are easy to use and offer the greatest return on efficiency. The 80/20 rule can help you identify these programs so you can stop wasting money and training hours on inefficient technology.

Take a survey of the tools your employees use to perform their job functions and keep a running list of those that are used the most. Consider removing any tool that isn’t being used. If you have three different programs that can help with operations but most employees use just one, eliminate the other two and provide additional training to those who struggle to make the transition.

Find out why employees prefer certain tools over others. Do they like a more user-friendly interface? Are there certain functions that streamline their workload that aren’t available in similar programs? Learning the details of what programs and tools your employees feel most comfortable with can help you make better purchasing decisions in the future.

4. 20% of employees cause 80% of mistakes

Mistakes can have serious repercussions that lead to loss of clients, expensive repairs and wasted hours solving the problem. It’s important to find out where any mistakes are coming from so you can focus on prevention. This is where the 80/20 rule comes in to help you zero in on effective solutions.

Identifying the 20% of your employees who create 80% of the issues gives you the opportunity to put a little extra time into their development. These are the workers you want to watch a little closer to determine why they are making mistakes. Some may have issues that can be addressed, making them more present in their position and less likely to miss something.

For example, you could identify an employee who makes regular mistakes because they don’t ask for help when something is confusing. In this scenario, you would need to determine if there’s a breakdown in support or if the employee is simply unwilling to admit a gap in knowledge. Depending on the worker’s level of accountability, this could be solved by opening communication with the appropriate team members or offering additional training.