About 15 minutes into a recent chemical manufacturing plant tour, I started making a bucket list. Understand though, this was not a list of the things I need to do before I leave this life. No. It was literally a list of actual buckets in the workplace with about 30 employees. There were buckets everywhere! I counted over a hundred!

Maintenance men used buckets to catch drips from disconnected pipes, and operators used buckets to catch drips from sample ports. Small additives were measured into buckets before being added to reactors. Sure enough, when I looked at the accounts – the company was spending $600 a month on plastic buckets.

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When out on assignment to assess another company, a trip to the bathroom can be the perfect place to start.

The walls will often tell you (sometimes in graphic detail!) what the workforce thinks of management. Graffiti can sometimes be more illuminating than the employee attitude survey the HR manager provided. So the workforce may not be happy. Why?

Is the restroom well supplied with paper products, soap etc.? It’s a good indication of the company’s attitudes towards health and safety.

Are the bathroom fixtures and fittings in good repair? A bathroom in need of repair may indicate that other repairs are being delayed or ignored. It doesn’t cost much to maintain a bathroom.

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