When trying to improve productivity, many people start by looking at inputs - trying to reduce costs by saving materials, energy or manpower. There is nothing wrong with such an approach except that it is an incremental approach. Your are unlikely to save more than 10-15% of costs so productivity can only rise by that
If your organisation expects you to be ‘always on’, always working, always available by telephone or email, they are exhibiting signs of ‘toxic productivity’. I hate that term for all sorts of reasons but mainly because it has nothing to do with productivity. People who work 24 x 7 (or think they do) are unlikely
When the pandemic hit and the world went into ‘lockdown’, most companies moved into remote working, using technology to support employees working from home. There were all sorts of claims that productivity improved as a result. I’m afraid that I was churlish enough to cast doubt on these claims (in this blog) suggesting that the
If you start your online meetings by simply asking a question such as..”You’ve all seen the plan. Any comments?”, your team members will probably look away from their cameras down at their desks (or kitchen tables.). The energy drains from the meeting before it has really started. Team members do not know what is being asked
Measuring performance is essential for a number of reasons. Firstly, as the adage goes … if you can measure it, you can manage it.How do you predict job times if you don’t know the performance level at which your equipment and your people will work. Secondly, if you don’t know performance levels, ho do you
If you are always moaning about the number of meetings you have to attend, then almost certainly you do have too many meetings. The pandemic - and the forced switch to Zoom and Teams and the like for meetings - has opened up meetings to all. Just because all can attend, it doesn’t mean that all
The UK’s rail franchise system (where private companies bid for the right to tun rail services on the national infrastructure) was introduced to improve competition and efficiency. However, the bids - and the assessment of them - were highly over-optimistic. They looked to offer value-for-money for the government/taxpayer and a good return for the franchisee ….
Many companies are looking to improve manufacturing productivity by improving the efficiency of their various machines and other manufacturing facilities - by, in turn, improving their data driven management … monitoring the performance of those facilities in real-time. Connecting and analysing all that data is a big challenge. What we need are standards and
Agricultural productivity is one of the globe’s (and the twentieth century’s) great success stories. Over that century from 1900 to 1999 the number of people employed in agriculture dropped dramatically, yet yields rose just as dramatically. This was just as well since the global population also rose significantly and all those extra mouths to feed
There is quite a bit of debate about whether working from home is good or bad for productivity. Are working-from-home employees as efficient as those in the office? The jury is still out.... but perhaps we are asking the wrong question. We need employees to be innovative and creative as well as, or even rather