Oz productivity gains to be “left on the table”

Australia's workforce had the lowest level of unproductive time, yet the country was expected to leave the greatest share of its potential productivity gains “on the table”, according to the 2008 Global Productivity Report released by Proudfoot Consulting in October.

Based on surveys of 1,276 managers across 12 countries, the report found global unproductive workforce time rose 2.2 points in 2007, to 34.3% of all time, meaning workers are spending 1.7 days of every workweek on unproductive activities. Only Australia and the UK showed reductions in unproductive workforce time.

Australian workers had the lowest level of unproductive time (22.9%) compared with South African workers, topping the survey at (41.8%). Unproductive supervisor time rose 1.4 points in 2007 (18.5% of all time)-just under one day per work week.

The report found that globally, managers saw their companies had the potential to increase productivity by 13.8% over the next 2 years, but would only achieve 9.7% gains. Companies were leaving 29.7% of all potential productivity gains “on the table”. The top losers of potential productivity gains were Australia, with 45.8% of potential gains untapped, the US (45.3%) and Germany (43.0%). Expected to capture the greatest share of their potential productivity gains were China (88.2% of potential gains), Russia (87.8%) and India (85.9%).

Managers identified the best strategies to achieve productivity gains over the next 12 months were:

• investment in both workforce and management skills, development and training;
• increased capital expenditure on IT and communications technologies; and
• improved employee benefits to improve staff moral.

Free full report available at Proudfoot Consulting