Apartment living means doing laundry outside of the house for me; however, if I owned a home, I probably would go out and do laundry as well.
When I do my laundry at someone’s house when I am away from home, I always end up losing socks, it takes at least 2-3 hours to get all the laundry done because there’s only one washer and one dryer, and I end up having to turn the dryer back on for a few minutes with every load because it doesn’t dry perfectly.
When I do laundry at a laundromat, I am in and out in less than an hour. I also fill up my car with gas, pick up or drop off dry cleaning, run to the bank, eat breakfast and end up being able to wash and dry all the clothes in one batch. As well, I can get about two weeks worth of laundry into three washers and three dryers and spend about $10 on the whole experience.
What does doing laundry at the laundromat have to do with HR?
1. If you can do menial tasks in less time with stronger resources, why are you relying on having just one person dedicated to simple tasks in an 8 hour workday? (using higher capacity washers vs a home washer)
2. If you have to constantly check on the dryer at home, its less efficient than having the dryer get the job done and know that its going to work. Similarly, if you delegate the work out to someone while you work on other more pressing matters, you work better and more efficiently.
3. If it only costs $10 twice a month to do three loads of laundry, its less expensive than owning and operating a dryer/washer combo at home. Think outsourcing – if you can pay someone a fee to handle things so you can focus on more high return items, you are going to get more out of your time.
So next time you think about buying or replacing that washer or dryer, consider going to the laundromat instead, and think about how this change can influence you to be more efficient, delegate better, and pay people to do work that you don’t need to be doing.
