Improving productivity is a key objective for most organisations. After all it is the flip side of greater efficiency. Or is it?
You don’t have to be the sharpest knife in the cutlery box to appreciate the extent to which technology has changed and is changing the way we live and do business. We are, however, paying a massive price for this. Unfortunately we are not yet fully recognising this and so are not only doing nothing to reduce this price, but actively exacerbating the problems that are building up as a result.
If you don’t believe me just look at these two tables. The first depicts the global unemployment rate while the second depicts the global youth unemployment rate. In an aging world the latter is particularly disturbing. Unfortunately it is too easy to say that any technology change is disruptive and claim this as entirely natural, inevitable disruption. That is true and history shows that people do adapt over time. Yet to pass this off as part of a cycle is simply to “adopt the ostrich position” and bury one’s head in the sand. We can no longer rely on the precedent theory simply because the inter-connected global economy and the significantly larger human population and the scale of the numbers affected. (And all exacerbated by the scale of global national debts which make it impossible for governments to spend their way out of trouble.)
Yes, there are people who are pointing to the increasing divide between the rich and the rest as a symptom of this. Unfortunately, there are very few solutions being put forward and the situation continues to deteriorate. And that is my concern.
As long as reduced headcount is used to justify the introduction and cost of technology in the name of greater productivity, the problem will persist. Paul Polman, the much-admired CEO of Unilever and winner of the 2014 CMI Gold Award “for his track record of courage and passion in advocating a long-term approach to business growth” is challenging the “obsession” with profit and calling for greater emphasis on sustainability. Yet a great deal of his success at Unilever can be attributed to the fact that over a 10 year period Unilever reduced the number of its employees by 110,000 people; thereby contributing to this unemployment phenomenon.
Recently we had the UK coalition government basking in the achievement of reducing unemployment while at the same time demanding “greater productivity” from business in order to remain globally competitive. Doesn’t anyone see that these are actually diametrically opposed objectives?
Polman is undoubtedly in a difficult position where his authority stems from his success in meeting the expectations of success decreed by convention. Yet he also says, “We want people who want to make a difference, want to be valued, want to be part of the success.” In that case he would should love the Zealise model which offers just that: a way to consistently value people whilst simultaneously giving them a non-equity ownership base which will enable them to truly share “the success.” What better way could there be of ensuring sustainability and engagement and reducing the waste of unfulfilled lives and the inherent costs to business of that waste?
Bay is the founder and director of Zealise, a company created to help larger small to large business organisations to properly value their people and thereby inspire them to optimise their self-worth and so engage them that they transform organisational performance and bottom-line results. Bay is also the author of several books, including “Lean Organisations Need FAT People” and “The 7 Deadly Toxins of Employee Engagement.”