Loans-per-Team-Member Efficiency Ratio
Tie staffing needs to output, then remove work and redeploy capacity
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 98%
Wilner measures operational efficiency by relating team size to a concrete output, using the number of team members required to close one thousand loans. Once the current ratio is known, leaders can forecast how many people a target volume would require. The ratio also exposes the effect of operating changes: adding or removing tasks changes how much each person can complete, while technology and process improvements can reduce the labor needed per loan. The objective is not simply fewer people. When automation removes tasks, capacity can be redeployed to other work. The loop is measure, forecast, remove avoidable effort, recalculate, and reassign. This makes efficiency a system-design question rather than a demand for individuals to work harder without changing the work.
Origin
Wilner describes this unit-based measure while explaining her 2024 operations goal to increase efficiency by different amounts across UWM teams.
Core principles
- 01Staffing should be connected to a defined unit of output
- 02Tasks added or removed change real capacity
- 03Technology and process should remove work before headcount grows
- 04Freed capacity can be redeployed instead of discarded
How to run it
- 1
Define the output unit
Choose a completed unit that represents meaningful customer value. Keep its definition stable enough to compare teams and periods.
Pro tip Use completed work, not activity counts.
Watch out A changing output definition makes the ratio misleading.
- 2
Measure current capacity
Count how many team members are required to produce a fixed amount of output. Record important task and process assumptions behind the baseline.
Pro tip Wilner uses team members needed per one thousand closed loans.
Watch out Do not compare ratios without checking whether teams perform the same work.
- 3
Forecast the target
Apply the baseline to the desired volume to estimate staffing needs. Use the result to reveal where current capacity or process will constrain growth.
Pro tip Calculate the staffing implication before volume arrives.
Watch out A linear forecast may need revision when scale changes the process.
- 4
Remove avoidable work
Find tasks technology can perform and process steps that can be eliminated or simplified. Improve the system rather than demanding more effort from the same design.
Pro tip Inspect every task added to the workflow since the last baseline.
Watch out Automation that adds review work may not improve the full ratio.
- 5
Recalculate and redeploy
Measure the new staffing-to-output ratio after the change. Move freed team capacity to other valuable tasks where possible.
Pro tip Track both the efficiency gain and where capacity went next.
Watch out A claimed gain is incomplete until the ratio changes in real operation.
In the wild
Wilner asks how many team members a particular team needs to close one thousand loans, then uses that relationship to consider the staffing required for four thousand. Technology and process changes can remove tasks, increase what each person can do, and free people for other work.
→ Capacity planning and improvement share one measurable operating ratio.
Common mistakes
Measuring activity instead of output
Task counts can rise while the number of completed customer outcomes remains unchanged.
Treating efficiency as layoffs
Wilner explicitly includes redeploying people to other tasks after technology removes work from their plates.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for repeatable operations where leaders can count completed units and the people required to produce them.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for highly variable creative work where output units differ too much to support a meaningful ratio.
From the transcript
“how many team members does it take on a certain team to close 1,000 loans, right? And then, hey, if you want to close 4,000,…”
“how do we get more efficiencies, whether through technology, whether through process changes, to be able to do more with less”
“I can redeploy them to do these other tasks instead”
From the episode
The Most Powerful Woman in Mortgage Melinda Wilner