The Productivity Drain

Wednesday, 08. 26. 2009  –  Category: All Blog Posts, Labor Cost Management, Labor Productivity

In our most recent survey conducted in conjunction with Harris Interactive, we asked over 1000 US workers how they are faring as the recession reaches the one year mark.  Although there are some glimmers of hope being expressed that we’ve seen the worst of the recession, many of our respondents have already felt the impact in the form of layoffs, increased workloads and lower workplace morale.

Thirty-eight percent of our respondents said that there had been layoffs in the past year at their primary place of employment.  Forty percent of them further indicated that productivity had been negatively impacted by layoffs:

o 66 percent said that morale has suffered and people are less motivated;

o 64 percent said that there is too much work and not enough people to do it;

o 37 percent said the wrong people or departments were laid off, leaving inefficient systems and workflows; and

o 36 percent said they are concerned that as the economy picks up, they won’t have the right resources to meet demand.

Employees also have some advice for employers on how to improve the work environment:

o 50 percent said employers should look for ways to improve morale.  The most frequently cited mechanism to do so is increasing hours or salary;

o 46 percent said their employers have processes that should be automated to be more efficient;

o 36 percent said their organizations should invest in new technology to help manage productivity – interestingly enough, more men (42 percent) than women (30 percent) believe this would help; and

o 36 percent of employees believe that organizations need to take a fresh look at how to redistribute the workload among those employees who are left.

In an upcoming CFO.com webinar with Jim Holincheck of Gartner, he’ll be offering insights into what organizations are doing to balance recession economics and productivity.  If you’d like to learn more, you can register here.

If you’ve felt the sting of cutbacks in your workplace, what’s your employer doing to help you work smarter, not just harder?  If you’re one of the optimists who believes the economy is starting to recover, how prepared is your organization to sprint out of the recession?

Tags: joyce maroney, Kronos workforce institute, Labor Productivity, productivity drain