Labor is one of the highest controllable costs in many organizations; there are often opportunities for low-cost improvements that drastically reduce the labor required to complete a given task. Implementing projects to reduce labor cost can be a core function of a CI engineer. Labor reductions can be a very touchy subject with the workforce because they can be worried that team members will lose their jobs or that the reduction in positions will mean everyone else has to work harder. If the project is implemented correctly, there should be a reduction in overall work content, which means that the remaining workforce should not have to work any harder after the reduction than they were before.
Hopefully, the employer will handle reduced positions through attrition rather than layoffs or terminations, but this may not always be the case. For a labor reduction to work, the remaining workforce (and management) must buy-in to the change. When reducing positions, how the activity is communicated to the workforce can dictate the activity's success or failure.
This question aims to understand the candidate's ability to engage the workforce and create buy-in for a labor reduction project. When creating buy-in on these types of projects, it is important that there is clear communication and that the workforce senses transparency from the company. When explaining the answer, the candidate should focus on selling a project and addressing concerns from the workforce.