Manufacturing productivity feels like it should be rising. More sites run enterprise software than a decade ago. Tablets have replaced clipboards on many lines. Yet more than half the people working in Australian food and beverage manufacturing say they believe their organisations are becoming less productive, even as investment in workplace technology continues. That gap between spend and result is worth understanding before you approve another purchase order.
Research commissioned by Argon & Co, surveying 500 people working across Australia's food and beverage manufacturing sector, puts a number to the frustration. In that survey, 58.4% believed their organisation was becoming less productive despite continued investment in workplace technology. The findings raise a question for site managers: is workforce administration adding avoidable work here? Answering it needs evidence from the site, not another software demo.
What the food and beverage survey actually measured
The Argon & Co research asked workers and managers about their day-to-day experience, not about output per hour or units per shift. The headline figure of 58.4% measures perception, not a measured fall in output. The distinction matters because a feeling of inefficiency can come from many places: a badly timed system upgrade, a new compliance requirement, a messy handover between shifts, or simply having more admin tasks landing on the same people who run the line.
Two other findings from the survey point toward where the friction might sit. In the same survey, 95.8% said work was being duplicated across systems, teams or processes. That duplication could mean entering the same data into a roster and a payroll and a production report, or reconciling numbers that should match but do not. Additionally, 76.4% said new technology was typically introduced without changing the corresponding processes, responsibilities or ways of working. A new system layered on an old process does not remove the old process; it adds to it.
Importantly, the research says nothing about labour hire, rostering software vendors, or specific workforce management platforms. Any connection between these findings and staffing practice is an editorial hypothesis, not a survey conclusion. That hypothesis deserves testing locally, not blanket adoption.
Where workforce admin may interrupt production
Workforce administration covers every task between deciding who works and getting that person productive on the floor. It includes ordering or booking labour from an agency, checking work rights, running inductions, building rosters, approving timesheets, reconciling invoices, and chasing missing paperwork. On a small site these tasks may take an hour a day. On a multi-shift operation with casual and agency workers rotating through, they can consume a significant share of a supervisor's week.
The problem is not that these tasks exist. Payroll must be accurate. Inductions must happen. Records must be kept. The problem arises when the same information moves through too many hands, when a coordinator waits for someone else's spreadsheet before filling a gap, or when a supervisor leaves the floor to fix a roster error that cascades into overtime.
Consider a shift fill as an example. A supervisor notices a gap and calls the labour hire provider, prompting a second entry in the agency's system. When the worker arrives, someone checks their induction record in a third place. Hours are recorded in a fourth. Payroll queries the invoice, triggering a fifth reconciliation. Each step may be necessary, but if they are not joined up, a single fill generates a chain of admin touches that pulls attention from production.
How to distinguish admin delay from a capacity shortage
Not every productivity complaint is an admin problem. Sometimes the issue is raw headcount, equipment that cycles slowly, or materials that arrived late. A site manager who assumes admin is the bottleneck, without checking, risks spending on the wrong solution.
A practical first step is to shadow one coordinator or supervisor for a week and log where their time goes. Break the log into broad categories: floor supervision, troubleshooting equipment, handling staff queries, entering data, chasing approvals, waiting for information. If data entry, approvals and waiting account for more than a third of the week, administration is a credible hypothesis. If the supervisor spends most of their time on equipment or materials, the answer lies elsewhere.
The log must capture waiting time separately from hands-on effort. A supervisor may spend five minutes entering data and then wait forty minutes for a response. The hands-on work looks small; the elapsed interruption is larger. Counting both tells you whether a faster system would help or whether the delay sits between systems.
What evidence would disprove the admin explanation
A good diagnostic test allows a negative result. If you decide in advance that admin is the problem, you will find confirmation everywhere. Instead, define what would tell you admin is not the bottleneck:
- Supervisors spend less than a quarter of their time on admin tasks. If the log shows most time goes to floor work, equipment or training, then admin is not the drag.
- Duplication exists but takes minutes, not hours. Entering the same name into two systems is annoying. If it costs ten minutes a week, it is not the barrier to productivity.
- Wait times sit inside one system, not between systems. If approvals are slow because a manager is away, that is a staffing or delegation issue, not a process design issue.
- Equipment and materials dominate downtime logs. Production records often show reasons for stoppages. If the main reasons are mechanical breakdowns or late deliveries, labour admin is downstream of the real constraint.
Running these checks honestly may reveal that your site needs a maintenance plan more than a workflow change. That is a useful answer. The goal is not to prove admin is the problem; it is to find the actual one.
Choose one process to investigate before spending
If the evidence points to administration, narrow the scope before proposing a fix. Trying to overhaul rostering, timesheets, onboarding and invoicing at once creates a project that stalls. Pick one process that appears in the duplication chain and count its touches.
A useful candidate is the booking-to-invoice loop for agency labour. Map the steps from the moment a supervisor requests a fill to the moment the invoice is approved. Count how many people touch the data, how many systems it moves through, and how long each handoff takes. If the same details are re-entered three or four times, or if reconciliation happens only when finance queries a number, you have a concrete target.
This article covers the reasoning behind that test. Separate pieces in this batch cover how to trace a data field through your workforce systems and how to count the cost of rostering in spreadsheets.
Before spending on new software or headcount, present the evidence to whoever holds the budget. If the data supports a change, the conversation shifts from opinion to diagnosis. If it does not, you have avoided a purchase that would have added another layer.
Chandler Personnel works with manufacturing labour hire across Victoria and beyond, running site inductions on behalf of clients and available around the clock. If you want to discuss your staffing needs, the conversation starts with the demand you actually have.
Related Resources
- food manufacturing survey findings
- measures for site managers
- warehouse technology choices
- manufacturing labour hire
- discuss your staffing needs
Common Questions About Manufacturing Productivity and Workforce Admin
1. Do you need a labour hire portal, or a reliable ordering process?
A portal may help, but only if your ordering process is already clear. If supervisors disagree about who can request a fill, or if requests arrive by text, email and phone call on the same day, a portal adds a fourth channel rather than fixing the root issue. Start by agreeing on a single request path, then consider whether a portal supports it. For more on what a booking portal should do, see the existing guide on labour hire portal features.
2. What KPIs should a manufacturing site manager track for the workforce?
Capacity measures like hours worked against hours available, reliability measures like absence rate and late starts, and stability measures like turnover rate are a practical starting set. The point is to pull numbers from your existing roster and payroll rather than adding new reporting burdens. A separate guide covers the formulas and definitions: workforce KPIs for manufacturing.
3. What is the difference between workforce planning and recruitment planning?
Workforce planning asks how many people you need, in which roles, over the next period. Recruitment planning asks how you will fill the gaps once you know them. The first is about demand; the second is about sourcing. If you start recruiting before you have mapped demand, you risk hiring the wrong mix or missing the lead time you need.
4. How often should workforce KPIs be reviewed?
Weekly review of operational numbers (hours, absence, overtime share) keeps problems visible before they compound. Monthly review of stability numbers (turnover, vacancy days) catches trends early. Quarterly review of strategic alignment (headcount versus forecast) connects workforce data to business planning. The rhythm matters more than the exact frequency; pick one you will actually keep.
Test the Cause Before Spending
The perception that manufacturing productivity is slipping deserves investigation, not just another tool. Whether workforce administration is the drag at your site is a question only local evidence can answer. Log where time goes, count the touches, and test whether removing admin friction would release capacity before you spend.
