Pareto Principle for Health & Social Care

Have you heard of the basic principle in business of the 20/80 rule? This rule known as the The Pareto principle says in that 80% of what can be achieved comes from looking at 20% of issues. Focusing on the bits that are not working rather than the whole package. 

This principle was thought up by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1896. He noticed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by only 20% of the population. He also noted that this also worked in his garden, in that only 20% of his plants were available that made 80% of the fruit. 

I recently read that even Elon Musk uses this idea whilst working with his employees. He does not expect his workers to work at 100% efficiency all of the time. He is happy if they are working in the 80% rate. This is because it eases pressure on employees. 

I personally use this rule most days and set aside at least 20% of my time looking at different practises, thinking of solutions to problems, and improving myself. I enhanced this practise in a previous job role in Equalities. A senior director, knowing my capabilities, asked me to improve matters in a particular area for a local authority. I often went back to her and said I felt I was not doing enough work. She encouraged me to spend 20% of my time thinking about how I could improve things. 

A question I like to ask senior managers and directors regularly is ‘how much time do you spend on self development?’. The answer is often disappointing, usually it is down to being too busy. I believe that a lot of our issues these days is just that, we are so busy following the systems and processes that we do not take a step back and think about how to improve matters.

Obviously the reduction in classroom based training for a lot of things does not help. An online course may give you the knowledge, but is it embedded. Without the time to discuss problems and come up with ideas to bounce off one another, it seems to be a less efficient way of learning. 

The reason that we Homo Sapiens survived over the other similar species ie Neanderthals (current thinking is that there were seven or eight different but similar species in existence at the time) is due to our ability to actually think through problems and come up with unique solutions. 

So how would this work for health and social care. Firstly, it starts with identifying problem areas and attaching this principle to it. From experience the manager should know the 80% of the team that are efficient at their jobs, they should be praised and allowed to continue. Their assessments should have minimum supervision and minimum interference. The 20% that is below par due to potential poor awareness of processes and lack of training is where the managers energy should be used. Supporting and training these staff to achieve the same results as the other 80%. 

You'll find this rule also applies to yearly financial checks too. In 80% of the cases from experience there will be no issues with the way people are running their budgets. Only 20% of people need to be looked at, again that is extra time saved in supporting and encouraging these people with assistance and necessary support. 

This principle can be used in any setting. It can bring focus and attention to specific issues and works on fixing them. Looking at the bits that are not working and instead focuses resources on those.  

Give it some thought, you will realise that this works and brings focus to your work. It is at least worth a try. Instead of worrying about everything, just focus on improving 20%.