What is productivity? And, why does it matter?Learn Management Articles on management-info.biz. What is productivity? And, why does it matter? article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
By: Robert F. Abbott When Phil hires a new helper for one of his construction projects, he first watches to see whether or not the newcomer has the right attitudes and habits to keep him as an employee. And, if the newcomer meets expectations,' Phil introduces him to his philosophy about work by telling him the woodcutters story. Two woodcutters who are working together for the first time, set off in the morning to cut down trees. One woodcutter works very hard, and aside from a couple of breaks, works steadily all day. The other woodcutter, though, seems to take many more breaks, at least one every hour. So the first woodcutter expects he'll have cut down many more trees by the end of the day. But, when they quit for the day, the first woodcutter finds, to his surprise, that the second woodcutter has done more, despite taking all those breaks. And, in his frustration, the first woodcutter wonders out loud how the second woodcutter did it. The second woodcutter couldn't help but hear the first woodcutter's question, and replies, 'Yes, I take many more breaks, but every time I take one, I sharpen my axe.' Phil uses this story of the woodcutters to explain his ideas about productivity, and he doesn't relate it to the productivity which economists refer to in their statistics. Phil thinks of productivity in a very immediate way: how many nails you can drive in one hour, for example. The economists are talking about the same thing, only they're talking about it as the sum of many millions of businesses and organizations, so they're talking about productivity in an abstract way. Whatever the case, productivity simply refers to the amount of value you can get from labor, land, or capital (invested money). As we'll see in the next section, Phil's income goes up when he (and his helper’s) productivity goes up. Increasing productivity across a whole nation is also good news. It means everyone in society becomes more prosperous, that everyone (or almost everyone) will have more money to spend or save. Increased productivity can also mean lower prices. For example, if carpenters and home building companies increase their productivity, then house prices will go down. Generally speaking, though, consumers, owners of businesses, and workers in those businesses all share productivity gains. And what about people without job? Well they often gain, too, because when businesses owners and workers make more, they pay more in taxes. In turn, that makes more money available to governments for social programs. Having heard all that, you may be skeptical, thinking your prosperity hasn't gone up much, if at all. But you'd be wrong. Productivity has gone up, and gone up a lot over the past two hundred years, and especially over the past 50 years. It may be invisible to most of us, but productivity is one of the silver bullets that have given us our prosperity and so many of our choices.
|
More Articles:1. Improvements In A Large Public Electric Utility In South America By Jose Sanchez The company decided to develop and implement an improvement program. The main thrust was to propose strategies and alternatives for the implementation of a quality program.Later on, the company declared the "Year of Quality", which kicked off the beginning of an improvement program focusing on providing better service and paying more attention to the customers. That same year, after several internal attempts on the part of the company to carry out such a program, executive management requested… 2. Event Registration - The 6 Biggest Problems Event Planners Have and How to Overcome Them All By Bill Flagg Let's face it, setting up and operating the registration process for events and conferences is one of the least favorite things on most event planner's list of things to do. There is a lot of repetitive and mechanical stuff to do to make sure that everyone gets notified and signed up on time. The Biggest Problems with Manual Systems: Mail, Fax, Phone, Email1. Illegible handwriting on registration forms2. Mistakes in transferring information from registration forms to your database.3. … 3. 3 Tests To Hire The Best By Michael Mercer Question: What’s the easiest, cheapest and quickest way to have profitable, productive, and honest employees?Answer: Hire profitable, productive, honest people! Unfortunately, managers often hire underachievers or losers. Fortunately, pre-employment tests give managers a simple-to-use, quick, customizable way to hire the best.Only 1 Reason to Screen ApplicantsThe sole reason to assess applicants is to predict – or forecast – how an applicant will behave on-the-job BEFORE you hire the person… 4. Knowledge Management - Lessons Learned and How To Identify Them By Chris Collison Many organisations use the term "lessons learned" to describe the way in which they avoid repeating mistakes, or ensure that they build on past successes, yet a lesson can only be applied if it has been successfully identified, and captured first. Even in "learning organisations" who profess to be good at knowledge management and knowledge sharing, the process for identifying lessons learned can lacks rigour or depth. All too often, lessons end up as "motherhood and apple pie" statements, an… |
||||
