APS Productivity Blog

More Powerful Than You Know

2009-07-17T15:18:00.004-04:00

THE UN-COMFORT ZONE with Robert Wilson

“Writing is not a job; it’s a hobby!” thundered my father when I told him my plans for college. “You need to get a profession: medicine, law, engineering or accounting.”

I cheerlessly acquiesced and enrolled in a Pre-Med program, but at the end of my first year, after struggling through Chemistry, I changed my major to Philosophy. When I told Dad, he grunted, “That and a dime will get you a cup of coffee.” He passed away shortly after that but his words echoed in the back of my mind for years.

After graduation I searched for a job in writing. At the same time, I wrote short stories like crazy, and sent them off to dozens of magazines. Years passed and I failed to find a job in writing, so I supported myself by waiting tables and bartending. Meanwhile, rejection letters from the magazines began piling up, and I was beginning to get discouraged.

Then one day, I met a friend for a beer in a bar near the campus of my alma mater. When I visited the restroom, some graffiti written on the wall with an arrow pointing to the toilet paper dispenser caught my eye. It read: “Bachelor of Arts Degrees – take only one, please!” Rather than laugh, I grimaced and thought, “Boy, does that sound like my Dad.”

Five years had gone by, and other than a few freelance jobs writing advertising copy, I had not made a penny from writing. I was beginning to re-think my life, when I recalled the encouraging words from my ninth grade English teacher.

Complete Article

Robert Evans Wilson, Jr. is a motivational speaker and humorist. He works with companies that want to be more competitive and with people who want to think like innovators. For more information on Robert's programs please visit www.jumpstartyourmeeting.com

To Sleep, Perchance to Analyze

2009-07-16T09:27:00.001-04:00

Via The New York Times

By DAVID POGUE

In the last nine years, I’ve reviewed nearly 1,000 products for The New York Times. Can you guess what every single one of them has had in common?

All of them were intended for use while you’re awake.

Today, the exception.

Studies show that about half of all Americans don’t get the recommended amount of sleep. ( For adults it’s seven to nine hours.) And as we stumble our way through each day, groggy and cranky, we pay a terrible price in our relationships, productivity and health.

Science has learned all kinds of things about sleep. We now know, for example, that during the night, we experience several cycles of different kinds of sleep. There’s REM (rapid eye-movement) sleep, which restores and refreshes our brains. There’s deep sleep, which restores and refreshes our muscles. There’s light sleep, which is better than nothing. And there are all those times we wake up but don’t even remember we slept.

Now, to find out why you feel so wretched in the morning, you could go to a sleep lab, pay thousands of dollars, and spend the night hooked up to wires and sensors. Or you could pay $400 and get yourself a Zeo alarm clock.

That’s expensive, sure, but this one does a few things your basic Wal-Mart special doesn’t do.

Complete Article

Shock! Offices Lose Productivity to Facebook - study

2009-07-15T14:47:00.005-04:00

Via Reuters Blogs - USA

Posted by: Yinka Adegoke

We think you saw this one coming: Employers are losing a whopping 1.5 workers per 100 in employee productivity to the social networking phenomenon that is Facebook.

This number was uncovered by the clever folk at Nucleus Research, who surveyed 237 randomly selected office workers. They discovered that some of you spend more time than you probably should poking, adding and making inane comments on friends’ pages.

In fact some of you may be horrified to learn that Nucleus is advising corporations to consider restricting Facebook access at work to reclaim that productivity — all the more important in a global recession and rising unemployment they say.

Among the findings from Nucleus’ interviews with said randomly selected workers:

•Nearly two-thirds of those who have Facebook access visit the site during working hours.
•Those who visit Facebook at work do so for an average of 15 minutes each day.
•87 percent of those who use Facebook at work couldn’t define a clear business reason for using it.
•Of those who do visit Facebook at work, 6 percent never use it anywhere else, meaning one in every 33 workers built their entire Facebook profile during work hours.
•There are also serious security concerns as IT departments can’t monitor Facebook messages.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Nucleus’s survey took lunch-break time into account (some people might only visit Facebook during break-time). Either way, one imagines if a survey of 237 workers can ever be used as an adequate sample, then there will be a lot of unhappy workers out there in the office world, should all those IT departments take Nucleus’ advice. As Nucleus concludes in its press release:

Companies should evaluate their Facebook policy and the cost to the organization in allowing access to Facebook, as today blocking Facebook may actually result in a 1.5 percent gain in productivity.

In other words blocking Facebook will give you 1.5 more workers for every 100 workers. Nice.

The Hawthorne Effect

2009-07-08T09:57:00.001-04:00

Via Poker News

By Dr. Tim Lavalli

The Hawthorne Effect describes an actual mistake discovered by some researchers. The original study was attempting to discover the relationship between worker productivity and working environment. The first variable introduced was lighting. The question was: would better lighting mean higher worker output, and then would poorer levels of lighting reduce worker output?

At first the data was all over the board, there was higher productivity with less light and then more with more light and then even more with normal lighting. It began to seem like lighting made no difference, yet the worker productivity was up and then down based on something else, or was it nothing at all? This sort of information is not uncommon in research settings because researchers have not controlled for all of the elements in the environment.

At some point one of the junior assistant researchers noticed that the productivity levels of the workers went up when the researchers were observing them. It didn’t matter what the level of lighting was, it was the attention of the researcher — even the mere presence of the researcher — that was affecting the productivity of the workers. Hence, we have the Hawthorne Effect, which is defined as changes in behavior3 by test participants related to the attention they are receiving from the researchers.

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What's in Pogue's Travel Bag? Literally.

2009-06-26T10:22:00.002-04:00

Since Efficient Traveling is Productivity and vice versa, I thought this article was great for our APS Blog. Happy Traveling!! Bob

Via New York Times

By David Pogue

I'm always surprised at how many people seem to like reading about what hardware and software I use. Last week's "Pogue's Productivity Secrets" e-column, for example, got blogged and passed around far more than I would have expected.

On a plane yesterday, I was flipping through an in-flight magazine and saw one of those "What's in your bag?" photo features, where they have some celebrity dump out her purse and provide little descriptions (no doubt after careful pruning and arranging by a PR person).

Want me to dump out MY bag?

I travel a ridiculous amount, so I've thought a lot about, and spent a lot of time refining, what I carry and how I carry it.

It starts with a Timbuk2 bike-messenger bag, which I sling over my shoulder whenever I have to dash out. The inner wall is padded on both sides for a laptop; since the bag's flap flips right open, it's extremely easy for me to get to the laptop when, for example, I need to look up my frequent flyer number.

I keep this bag preloaded and ready to go. In the main compartment, I carry:

Complete Article

US Manufacturing Must Drive Recovery, Summit told AFP

2009-06-17T11:39:00.001-04:00

via AFP

DETROIT, Michigan (AFP) — A revived manufacturing sector is critical to leading a recovery of the slumping US economy, underscoring the need for new policies, business leaders told a national economic summit.

The second day Tuesday of the Detroit, Michigan summit seeking an economic strategy offered more comments on the critical importance of the industrial sector in view of the global crisis.

"One of the lessons we have learned from the crisis is that you cannot create create wealth in an economy simply by spinning things around and around," said Jayson Myers, president of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

"You create wealth by building things people want to buy."

Those comments were echoed by others.

"Prosperity comes from building, creating and producing," said Chip McClure, CEO of auto parts maker ArvinMeritor.

"Can we sustain commerce based on financial engineering over real engineering? Simple answer, no way."

Complete Article

U.S. productivity Growth Points to Higher Profits

2009-06-15T12:12:00.002-04:00

via National Post

By Jacqueline Thorpe

We have commented that the one thing the U.S. economy has going for it that many others don't is its ability to churn out strong productivity growth — even in the face of a brutal recession. In the first quarter, the United States achieved productivity growth, or output per hour per worker, of an annualized 1.6%, as companies slashed costs and jobs in reaction to the downturn. Painful for sure, but essential to lay the groundwork for recovery.

In report on Thursday, Barclays Capital says that productivity growth is the silver lining of this recession that will lead to wider profit margins and help sustain the recovery in equities.
Tim Bond, head of global asset allocation at Barclays Capital, says the 4.8 million Americans that have lost their jobs in this recession are unlikely to be hired back in one fell swoop. As is usually the case, employment will lag output, resulting in the typical early-cycle phenomena of rising productivity growth and falling unit labour costs.

While many analysts say the U.S. recovery will be weak, Mr. Bond argues that given the epic scale of inventory liquidation, the rise in output could be quite smart. Productivity will increase even more and labour costs will fall. He forecasts annualized productivity could rise as much as 2% in the first few quarters of recovery.

"Since unit labour costs are the main component of business profit margins, the outlook is strongly biased towards an unusually extensive widening of profit margins," Mr. Bond said in a note. "The early cycle revival in profits should therefore be stronger than is typically the case."

On the basis of consensus earnings forecasts, the S&P 500 currently trades at a 14.5 12-month forward PE ratio (using a four-quarter moving sum of earnings).

However if he revises earnings forecasts to take into account stronger productivity growth and wider profit margins, the forward PE ratio falls to 12.5, from which he infers "the market may have further immediate upside of 15-20%, as the more benign outlook for profits begins to be discounted."

U.S. Economy: Jobless Claims Fall, Productivity Rises

2009-06-05T11:26:00.002-04:00

Via Bloomberg

By Shobhana Chandra & Bob Willis

Fewer American workers filed claims for jobless benefits last week, signaling that the worst phase of the employment slump has passed.

Initial applications for unemployment insurance fell by 4,000 to 621,000 in the week ended May 30, in line with forecasts, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. Another Labor report showed worker productivity rose more in the first quarter than previously estimated.

Greater efficiency is contributing to an improvement in profits that will likely lead to fewer job cuts in coming months, analysts said. Companies such as United Technologies Corp. are among those that have slashed payrolls to control labor costs and boost earnings, a step that may help get the economy out of the worst recession in half a century.

“Employers are far advanced in the pace of job cuts,” said John Herrmann, president of Herrmann Forecasting in Summit, New Jersey. Firings “should slow materially” in coming months, he said.

The claims report also showed the number of people collecting unemployment insurance fell to 6.74 million in the week ended May 23 from 6.75 million the prior week. It was the first decrease in almost five months, breaking a string of 17 consecutive records.

Complete Article

Engaging Gay Workers Increased Productivity, study suggests

2009-06-04T11:09:00.002-04:00

Via CANADA.COM

by Amy Husser, Canwest News Service

Corporate Canada can improve productivity and decrease turnover if more active steps are taken to engage gay workers, results of a study suggest.

According to research released Wednesday by Catalyst — a non-profit organization that promotes diversity in the workplace — "invisible" lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) workers are likely to be less engaged than their openly gay counterparts because of the time spent "self-editing" and an associated general lack of authenticity.

"When employees are working in an environment where it doesn't feel inclusive . . . that creates a situation where there is invisible diversity within an organization that an employer may not even be aware of," said Deborah Gillis, vice-president, North America of Catalyst. "(The employer) then doesn't have the opportunity to tap into that diversity and support those employees so they can contribute fully to the success of the business and advance in their own careers."

The study found that LGBT employees working in organizations with effective and inclusive diversity practices reported better workplace relationships, greater organization commitment and greater career satisfaction.

Complete Article

Ahead of the Bell: Productivity and Labor Costs

2009-06-04T11:04:00.002-04:00

Via FORBES

WASHINGTON -- Worker productivity, the key ingredient to rising living standards, likely grew at a faster pace in the first quarter than the government previously estimated, while labor costs increased less.

Productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, is expected to increase at an annual rate of 1.2 percent in the January-March period, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters. That's up from the government's estimate of 0.8 percent last month and much better than the 0.6 percent drop in last year's fourth quarter. The Labor Dept. is scheduled to release the report at 8:30 a.m. EDT.

Higher productivity is crucial for rising living standards because workers that produce more can earn higher wages without forcing companies to raise prices.

Productivity grew in the first quarter even as economic output plummeted, because the number of hours worked fell even faster. The government estimated in May that nonfarm business output fell by 8.2 percent in the first quarter, while hours worked fell by 9 percent.

Complete Article

Does It Pay to Reduce Pay?

2009-06-01T15:04:00.001-04:00

Via Business Week

By Jena McGregor

Once considered off limits for salaried managers and professionals, base pay reductions are becoming increasingly common in today's brutal recession. Many human resources experts believe the recent moves by major companies—household names such as FedEx (FDX), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Saks Fifth Avenue are all trimming salaries—could present perils when the economy turns back up again. They argue that star performers could bolt to other companies and that morale and productivity could suffer.

But others see an upside to reducing pay rather than making more layoffs. One of them is Dan Ariely, the author of the popular behavioral economics book Predictably Irrational, and a professor at Duke University. He believes that in the right environment, pay cuts can even boost morale and loyalty. He spoke recently with Management Editor Jena McGregor. Below is an edited excerpt of their conversation:

You're a behavioral economist. How do you think people will respond to pay cuts when the economy turns back around?

People hate pay reductions as a procedure. We don't want to think that as we get older, we get paid less and less and less. Then our productivity will go down and down and down. But [the current salary cuts] are supposed to be a one-time thing, and that's more acceptable.

It also helps that salary is very much what we call a positional good. At some level you care more about how much money you make compared with other people than the absolute level. For people who struggle, of course, the absolute level of how much they make is important. But for people at high positions, it's basically a chase to the top. We see other people making more, we feel bad—not so much because we need the money, but just because it tells us something about who we are. So if you reduce pay at the whole company, you in a sense keep the relative position the same.

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Impact of Overactive Bladder on Work Productivity in the United States

2009-06-01T14:45:00.002-04:00

Via Uro Today

By Chris Sexton, Center for Health Outcomes Research
United BioSource Corporation

Little research has focused on the impact of overactive bladder (OAB) on work productivity. Consequently, the impact of OAB and other lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) on work productivity was evaluated in employed men and women aged 40 to 65 in the United States.

Data from a population-based, cross-sectional Internet survey were used to examine the impact of OAB symptoms on work productivity. US participants aged 40 to 65 working full- or part-time were included in the analysis. Participants were asked about the incidence of OAB and other LUTS and a series of questions about work productivity.

Descriptive statistics and linear and logistic regressions were used to evaluate outcome differences for men and women by the OAB groups of no/minimal symptoms, continent OAB, and incontinent OAB.

The response rate was 60%, and a total of 2876 men and 2820 women were analyzed. Men and women with incontinent OAB reported the lowest levels of work productivity and highest rates of daily work interference. Storage symptoms associated with OAB were most consistently associated with work productivity outcomes; however, significant associations were also found for other storage, voiding, and postmicturition LUTS.

In this large US population-based study, OAB was highly prevalent and was associated with lower levels of work productivity. These findings add to the literature documenting the burden of OAB and other LUTS, underscoring the need for increased screening and treatment.

Need Urgently: More Creativeity from the Business Class

2009-05-29T14:05:00.002-04:00

Via The Globe and Mail

by Jeffrey Simpson

Canada has a serious productivity problem. The statistical evidence is unambiguous and of long standing.”

Heard that before, or versions thereof? Probably not, unless you're a policy wonk. Productivity is a word editors dislike, television disdains, politicians fear, and from which the general public recoils.

It's the great Canadian bore, right up there with Senate reform, equalization and the latest iteration of Quebec secession, tedious for readers, too complicated for television, abstract as a concept, and scary for citizens who think productivity improvements will mean working more for less, or working not at all.

But there it is, again: another learned group telling us that we've got a productivity problem. This time, it's the Council of Canadian Academies (from which the opening quote is taken), warning and cajoling the country, or trying to, about this Achilles heel of our future.

Without productivity improvements, future economic prospects will be, well, middling, especially not exclusively because as the population ages a smaller share of the population will be working to support the larger share in retirement.

Then there's the competition with China, India and Brazil, and the uncomfortable fact that we have hitched our star to the United States, whose own productivity is slumping. That our productivity consistently lags that of the U.S. is now especially ominous, given that country's massive economic problems.

In Ottawa today, a clutch of university presidents, corporate types and civil servants will put their heads together to ponder the role of research and innovation in Canada's economy. The presidents will want more money for their institutions - they are paid to make this pitch, and it is a good one - but the Council of Canadian Academies report points the finger of blame squarely at Canadian business.

Complete Article

Getting Healthy, With a Little Help From the Boss

2009-05-26T09:59:00.002-04:00

Via The New York Times

by Lesley Alderman

Once upon a time, corporations offered generous health benefits as a way to woo employees into their ranks. Now, most companies have turned from amorous suitors into stern parents — shifting more costs, and more responsibilities, to their employees.

According to a January survey by the benefits consulting firm Hewitt Associates, nearly two-thirds of large employers planned to transfer more costs to employees. At the same time, one-third planned to put greater emphasis on wellness plans — programs that encourage employees to adopt healthier lifestyles. (So long, Big Macs).

Congress is climbing onto the wellness bandwagon, too. Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who is a leader of the Congressional health reform movement, recently proposed giving tax incentives to companies that offer comprehensive wellness programs to their employees.

The focus on healthier lifestyles makes sense. Unhealthy employees use significantly more medical services than healthy ones and cost employers more money.

Complete Article

Decline in American Mining Productivity

2009-05-22T09:57:00.005-04:00

Via Reliable Plant

Labor productivity, defined as output per hour, fell 6.4 percent in the overall United States mining sector between 2006 and 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

This drop was led by a large productivity decline of 15.4 percent in metal ore mining (NAICS 2122), where hours rose rapidly.

Unit labor costs rose in all of the mining industries in 2007. Unit labor costs represent the cost of labor required to produce one unit of output.

Can we end the recession simply by trying harder?

2009-05-21T15:13:00.003-04:00

Via Newsweek

The Avis Economy - Can we end the recession simply by trying harder?

by Daniel Gross

What's it going to take to get the economy out of its rut? Tax cuts, says the right. Public investments, says the left. Some of both, says the center. But after listening to a recent discussion about the recent and distant history of innovation and growth between White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers, former Fed chief Alan Greenspan, and Harold Evans, author of They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine, I began to think that tax cuts and stimulus spending may be secondary. If history is any guide, in order to get the economy back to the level of growth that we'd all like to see, we're going to need a substantial boost in productivity. And prolonged periods of high growth have always been spurred by a game-changing megatrend that ultimately touched every segment of the economy: the steam engine, electricity, railroads, the availability of credit, the microchip, and most recently, the Internet, globalization, and cheap money. Finally, when you're dealing with an economy the size of the United States, you need a pretty powerful lever to create meaningful growth. Having a boom in a few sectors likely won't be enough.

So it looks like we're in trouble. Right now, it's difficult to sense the Next Big Thing. (Of course, that's usually how it goes. Back in 1992, when the economy seemed mired in the mud, President-elect Clinton summoned the nation's best economic minds to a summit in Little Rock, Ark. In the voluminous briefing papers prepared for the event, the words the Internet likely appeared rarely, if at all.)

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Labor Productivity Rose in two-thirds of Industries

2009-05-21T15:07:00.001-04:00

Via Reliable Plant

Labor productivity, defined as output per hour, rose in 66 percent of the detailed service-providing and mining industries in 2007, about the same as in 2006, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on May 20. Unit labor costs, which reflect hourly compensation and productivity, rose in 70 percent of the industries, compared to 76 percent in 2006.

Over the longer period, 1987 to 2007, labor productivity increased in 86 percent of the industries studied. Unit labor costs rose in 78 percent of the industries.

Productivity and cost measures for three industries are presented for the first time: support activities for mining (NAICS 213), accommodation (NAICS 721), and reupholstery and furniture repair (NAICS 81142). The addition of labor productivity measures for accommodation (NAICS 721), along with the previously published BLS measures for food services and drinking places (NAICS 722), completes coverage of the accommodation and food services sector (NAICS 72). Measures for NAICS 72 are also published here for the first time.

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Information Source: The World Economic Forum

2009-05-19T12:29:00.006-04:00

by Robert A. Jacobson, Chairman, Board of Directors
Association of Productivity Specialists

The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization, the source for competition and economic information on countries around the world, committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

Incorporated as a foundation in 1971, and based in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum is impartial and not-for-profit; it is tied to no political, partisan or national interests.

The World Economic Forum

Be A Copy Cat from The Un-Comfort Zone

2009-05-18T11:53:00.002-04:00

THE UN-COMFORT ZONE with Robert Wilson

Last month I wrote about Self-Efficacy which is our belief in our ability to achieve what we set out to accomplish. I wrote about how it is the biggest part of achievement, and that we acquire a sense of self-efficacy in four ways: personal experience, observation of others, a positive mental attitude, and from the encouragement of others. This month I'd like to expand on how observing other people achieve motivates us to accomplish more.

Some of our goals require us to reach a mental threshold; some are more physical; while others are a combination of the two. One of my favorite forms of exercise and recreation is mountain biking. I get out once a week and hit the trails. Some of the trails have obstacle course-like obstructions called technical features; they are basically log and rock piles you ride over for an additional skill challenge. One trail has several advanced features including a seesaw.
I rode past this particular challenge for weeks; wanting to do it, but frankly too scared to try.

Complete Article

"Tell me and I forget; Show me and I remember; Involve me and I understand."

Robert Evans Wilson, Jr. is a motivational speaker and humorist. He works with companies that want to be more competitive and with people who want to think like innovators. For more information on Robert's programs please call 404-255-4924 or visit www.jumpstartyourmeeting.com

Competiveness: The Common Language

2009-05-18T11:48:00.002-04:00

Via Times of Malta

from Vince Farrugia's blog

“ Today it’s essential we manage our economy in a measured way. This is my gospel ”
Measuring the Maltese economy's performance against our competitors is very important. The world Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index provides the instrument to enable us to make this comparison. Unfortunately, in Malta we tend to compare with our own performance in a previous period. This is not enough as we might, in practice, be moving at a slower pace when compared with our competitors.

Competitiveness is something we have to work on all the time. Government must have this as its basic philosophy. It is not acceptable that the World Economic Forum places Malta at 52nd from 131 economies, and within the list of the most problematic factors for doing business in Malta we continue to find areas that are within the capabilities of the public service to resolve. Topping the list of issues that are hampering Malta's global competitiveness is the inefficient Government bureaucracy. Access to finance is a high second. Tax rates, restrictive labour regulations, inadequate educated workforce, tax regulations and inflation are also prime issues. These are issues that we must resolve. It's time someone starts using the hard stick. Small steps forward are not enough.

Complete Article

Labour Productivity Slides as Economy Turns Down

2009-05-15T08:44:00.003-04:00

Via Canada.com

By John Morrissy, Canwest News Service

OTTAWA- Canadians were spending more time at work, yet the country's productivity fell in 2008, Statistics Canada said in a report Wednesday.

Nationally, productivity fell 0.5 per cent over the course of the year despite the volume of hours of work rising in every province.

``What you're seeing over the course of 2008 is some slacking off in capacity utilization,'' said Finn Poschmann, vice-president of research at the C.D. Howe Institute, referring to the effect of plants reducing shifts to meet lower demand.

``Productivity is closely tied to where you are in the business cycle, so as the cycle turns down, your productivity turns down.''

If, for instance, worked rises five per cent and output rises four per cent, the country would still log a one per cent decline in productivity.

Declining commodity prices weighed in, as a reduction in the value of goods produced also lowers productivity levels, Poschmann said.

As well, as prices declined, so did the volume of commodities produced, particularly in Alberta, where natural gas prices plummeted, he said.

Complete Article

Germany Fears Competitiveness Gap Within Euro Area

2009-05-01T10:22:00.004-04:00

Via Guardian News and Media Limited

Reporting by Paul Taylor; editing by Stephen Nisbet

BERLIN, April 29 (Reuters) - Germany is worried at a growing gap in economic competitiveness among member states of the euro single currency area, Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said on Wednesday.

"The good news is that we are not losing competitiveness in Europe but we fear that other countries are losing competitiveness in Europe. We fear this because it could lead to economic divergence in Europe and within the euro zone," he told visiting European journalists. Steinbrueck was speaking on the day Berlin officially forecast that the German economy would contract by a record 6 percent this year and grow by a mere 0.5 percent in 2010.

The huge slump, by far the deepest recession in Germany's post-war history, was not surprising since the country was so dependent on exports, which accounted for more than 40 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), he said.

The minister did not name countries that were becoming less competitive but European Commission studies have highlighted how countries such as Italy and Greece have lost competitiveness in the decade since the euro was launched while German unit labour costs have remained stable due to wage restraint and welfare reforms. Steinbrueck said Berlin was making progress towards setting up a system of bad banks to remove toxic assets from banks' balance sheets and allow for losses to be covered over time by a mixture of provisions by the banks and taxpayer guarantees.

Complete Article

China Edges Up On UNIDO's Rankings Of Industrial Competitiveness

2009-04-29T11:56:00.004-04:00

Via China View

BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Singapore led the world in industrial competitiveness while China rose five places up from the 31st in 2000 to the 26th in 2005 in the rankings of the competitiveness industrial performance (CIP) index, according to the Industrial Development Report 2009 released here on Monday by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO.

The Industrial Development Report 2009 said China's CIP has overtaken the Philippines and is approaching Thailand. In 2000, China ranked the 31st place by scoring 0.387 points in CIP index value. The value rose to 0.418 points in 2005, when data collection ended.

The UNIDO said the CIP index, which measures the ability of countries to produce and export competitively, was used to help assess national industrial performance in the global economy.

Complete Article

Staffing Up, Productivity Down

2009-04-20T14:04:00.003-04:00

Via Inside Higher Ed

by Doug Lederman

Colleges' enrollments have risen dramatically in the past 20 years, so it's not surprising -- and arguably is even appropriate -- that the size of their staffs has grown, too. But the rate of growth has come among support staff employees rather than instructors and has outstripped the enrollment growth, resulting in a decline in productivity over that time, a new report asserts.

The report by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, "Trends in the Higher Education Labor Force: Identifying Changes in Worker Composition and Productivity," analyzes federal employment data from postsecondary institutions showing that that higher education workforce grew by about half from 1987 to 2007, or a little over a million jobs. More than 60 percent of those jobs were in instructional staff, but the vast majority of those jobs were part time.

So in the center's analysis, the number of full-time equivalent instructional positions grew by about 53 percent, while the number of support staff jobs grew by 100 percent, fully doubling, over that time. The number of full-time equivalent management jobs grew by about half, while the number of clerical and maintenance positions actually shrunk over 20 years.

The number of full-time employees relative to the number of students increased slightly in all sectors except for four-year nonprofit colleges, but when the center looks specifically at "back office" (management and support) as opposed to "front line" (instructional) employees, the growth is much sharper -- increasing by at least 30 percent in every sector.

Complete Article

Productivity: Yes, we can (go paperless)!

2009-04-16T09:07:00.005-04:00

Via Canadian Business Online

From PROFIT magazine, May 2009

Achieving the paperless office is no longer just a dream — it's a real competitive advantage.

By Laura Pratt

It would have been a ridiculous job posting: “Security firm seeks person to keep track of paper.” But three years ago, such a hiring seemed inevitable for Michael Jagger, CEO of Vancouver-based Provident Security. That’s because in the 10 years since starting his one-man security guard operation in 1996, the firm had exploded into a full-service security provider with more than 200 employees and 4,500 customers. In the blink of an eye, it seemed, Jagger was drowning in paper and administrivia when he should have been focusing on business strategies.

“If you don’t have control over every aspect of your business when you have a few thousand clients, what will happen when you are 10—or a hundred—times bigger?” asks Jagger. “To replicate the client experience we offered when we started out, we knew we’d need to spend our time and money on customer service, not administration.” So, in 2006, he began pulling the plug on his photocopiers, fax machines and printers.

When the “paperless office” buzz first sounded in the mid-1970s, office computers were clunky and the law didn’t recognize digitally signed documents. But today, it is possible to run a business sans paper: most offices thrum with network-linked computers loaded with software that lets users create, read, duplicate and distribute digital documents, the latest scanners are modern miracles and the digital signature is ratified. Yet, more than ever, we live in a world that encourages hard-copy proof, proliferated by the rock-bottom prices of printers. In the eyes of most businesses, operating without paper is impossible; but a handful of entrepreneurs are discovering that such a corporate change in today’s economic climate is not only possible, it’s preferable.

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