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Governments don’t determine most of national productivity levels – business managers do
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However, governments can do many things to help those managers, as follows:
Return to National productivity plans
Action ongoing
In this section
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Books published
‘Productivity Knowhow Revisited’ – the basic knowhow all managers need to make big productivity improvements
‘Adventuring out to Sea’ – an aide-memoire for managers needing to recharge their batteries
‘Productivity Quotes’ – over 1,000 business quotes from the ‘great and good’
‘Productivity Postbag’ – a selection from the 100’s of posts made on this website
– see above heading ‘Books’ for details
Past Posts – 1. Productivity overall
- State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Gallup Report
- £300 bn annual UK saving ignored!
- Billionaire investor warns inflation to curtail gains
- The coming productivity boom
- Pandemic provides unexpected boost to UK’s productivity prospects
- How to solve the puzzle of missing productivity growth
- How We Work Has Changed Forever
- The Silver Lining of 2020*
- Something more to look forward to in 2021
- Debt may be cheap, but the UK’s poor productivity will cost us dear
- Why Software Won’t Eat The World
- CV-19 provides a giant leap for creative destruction
- Ridding ourselves of the productivity fetish will help us combat climate change
- Covid-19 kickstarts gigification of knowledge work
- Rebuilding the Economy Around Good Jobs
- Piketty tackles inequality
- Three Factors Of Successful Companies
- Mentalism overtaking Materialism
- Economists’ information gap
- The evolution and future of productivity
- Deaf ears encore une fois
- The future is mental
- Buffett bullish on the future
- Future wealth will be different
- Why chase productivity improvement?
- Productivity sure aint ‘dull’
Past Posts – 2. Scope to improve
- The universal ‘S curve’
- Forget productivity growth in future?
- NHS wastes £40 billion every year!
- The coming productivity boom
- Pareto at large
- Baumol’s disease
- It’s the rest, not the best, that’s the problem
- UK public sector wastes £120bn – every year!
Past Posts – 3. The Productivity revolution
- Inherited inequality
- 21C to be greatest century in history
- A short history of productivity improvement
- International trends in main sectors
- Immortality and galactic living beckon?
- Future lives of leisure, not work?
- Inequality is on the move
- The Fourth Industrial Revolution
- Five forces to reshape civilisation by 2030
Past Posts – 4. Productivity drivers
- AI will supercharge productivity – but will workers benefit?
- How To Win? – Manage well
- “AI will double productivity in next decade”
- AI offers a massive uptick in productivity growth
- Will AI be good for workers?
- Altman updates ‘Moores Law’
- AI – Generative AI
- The price of poor managers
- The metaverse is next
- AI – Seven AI apps beyond ChatGPT
- AI – Ways to use ChatGPT
- AI – ChatGPT – The next big thing?
- AI – ChatGPT – The next General Purpose Technology?
- An AI productivity boom is coming
- A short history of jobs and automation
- Many ways to stuff up productivity
- Entrepreneurs – Naturally More Productive
- AI and productivity
- The Pandemic Is Widening a Corporate Productivity Gap
- The future of work?
- WFH results = Productivity Up, Innovation Down
- AI will unlock USD 15.7 trillion in global productivity by 2030
- How much does bad management really cost the UK?
- Are You Leading Through the Crisis … or Managing the Response?
- Can COVID-19 solve the UK productivity puzzle?
- AI promises huge productivity gains for financial services
- AI, the future of work and inequality
- AI increases productivity
- New technology needs new models
- Gallup’s ‘most profound’ finding
- Catching the right fish
- Invest more to raise productivity
- The skills delusion
- AI will automate tasks, not skills
- Hire better managers
- Competition drives innovation
- New technology for improved productivity
- Absentee leaders are worst of all
- Winners and losers with AI and robotics
- AI pluses versus minuses
- Has innovation really peaked?
- AI to spark a new productivity boom?
- Business schools are failing the nation
- UK management skills lacking
- AI will transform the future
- Mongrel, not pedigree, leaders needed now
- Digital investment benefits need time
- Greatest AI value needs new business models
- CEOs rate potential of new technology ‘very low’!
- The capitalist’s dilemma
Past Posts – 5. Productivity improvement process
- Wokism against climate change
- How to Answer America’s Productivity Slump
- The Occam’s Razor Of Productivity
- Billionaires reveal their secrets
- Effective change management
- Help for SMEs to get practical
- Be single-minded
- The ‘Unipart Way’
- Vanguard lead way for big improvements
- Basic steps to big improvements
Past Posts – 6. Corporate plans
- A clear vision for the post-crisis future?
- UK industrial strategy
- Most plans go unseen or unused
- Free markets need reins
- Business lives getting shorter
- Implementing plans requires stamina
- By George, ‘every company is dying’
Past Posts – 7. Cardinal measures
- Why do we still measure things in horsepower?
- It’s time to redefine workplace productivity
- Microsoft software criticised as workplace surveillance
- Small Businesses measure up differently
- US views on employee performance measures
- Current measures have huge gaps
- Measure what you need, not what you can
- Tesco’s ‘Steering Wheel’
Past Posts – 8. Financial cardinals
- Absolute returns
- Financial cardinals needed
- Financial metrics are not enough
- Value overtakes price
- Bank Loans need Trust, Growth needs Credit
- The need for money
- Financial data can be ‘dangerously misleading’
- UK economy depends on private debt!
Past Posts – 9. Customer cardinals
- Boeing’s MAX 737 disaster
- Customer measures needed
- Customers don’t measure up
- The mighty CSR hits the buffers
- BA put customers last
Past Posts – 10. Productivity & Waste cardinals
- Counting hours worked isn’t cutting it anymore
- Knowledge workers are more productive from home
- Potential £145bn productivity boost for UK economy
- The ‘Circular Economy’ to boost national productivity
- It’s output results, not input hours, that matter
- Organisation productivity measurement
- Current NHS productivity measurement
- Waste murders productivity
- Current productivity fog
- Aggregation hides info needed
- Work hard or work well?
- Waste leaves productivity dead in the water
- Misleading research metrics
- More demand, more productivity
- Steel industry productivity
- Micro and Macro productivity
- SoL and QoL outcomes sought from productivity
- Scanning the productivity horizon
- Why only labour productivity?
- If productivity so vital, why not measured?
- Myths about productivity?
Past Posts – 11. Employee Motivation cardinal
- How to run a business – Lord Wolfson
- Well-being matters – a lot
- Wellbeing – Why Does It Matter?
- How becoming a kinder version of yourself boosts productivity
- How to boost productivity with ‘Autonomous Motivation’
- Collaboration Overload Is Sinking Productivity
- Prioritise employee wellbeing
- A 5-hour workday is most productive?
- Don’t Underestimate the Power of Kindness at Work
- Flexible work schedules are attractive to many remote employees.
- Now is the time to embrace a four-day workweek
- Tolerance is good for all
- The post-pandemic world?
- Covid -19 should make ‘working from home’ the norm
- Mavericks don’t fit straitjackets
- Wasting time is not wasted time
- At work but not working
- The Secret Sauce for productivity?
- Ethical capitalism
- Where measuring engagement goes wrong
- Productive recidivists
- 4 day weeks to boost productivity
- A famous fire that changed workers’ rights
- Unmotivated workforces cost $7 trillion, annually!
- The bullsh**t job phenomenon
- Time to change time at work
- Low productivity for low wages – and vice versa
- Flexi-time and flexi-places of work
- Work hard, then play hard, for best results
- Employee engagement drives productivity?
- Lifestyle changes are on the move
- More job satisfaction, more pay!
- Depression costs billions
- Core human needs at work
- Remote working
- Wages up, demand up, productivity up
- Happiness at work
Past Posts – 12. Corporate Knowledge cardinal
- Boost your productivity … do absolutely nothing
- Why are some countries rich and some poor?
- Is everything preordained?
- Leonardo paints knowledge path
- Current knowledge levels
- Knowledge measures needed
- National knowledge Indices
- UK skills shortages
- Are we equipped for the digital revolution?
- Train in what employers need, not what employees like
- Knowledge ladders
- Skills mismatches, training failures
Past Posts – 13. Targets
- NHS targets have had their day
- Target setting
- Run hospitals like Tesco stores
- FDI boosts productivity of UK firms
- Human targets are best
Past Posts – 14. Productivity Analyses
- Steve Jobs’ advice on becoming more productive Is quite brilliant
- Zipf’s Law
- Blinkered analyses
- Pareto analyses
- Pin factory productivity
Past Posts – 15. Special improvement projects
- Management consultancy – ‘The Big Con’?
- Winners need stamina
- What kills change?
- Wisdom of Groups
- Unconventional meetings
Past Posts – 16. Organisation level improvement
- UK Civil Service expansion ended yet quality of services to rise!
- German army efficiency grid
- WFH – A clash of productivity and morality?
- The problem is the rest, not the best
- Big Bad Data Is Sapping Your Team’s Productivity
- Elon Musk’s rules of ‘insane productivity’
- Stretching police productivity
- Increasing productivity won’t lead to higher wages, it’ll just increase corporate profits
- Why Isn’t New Technology Making Us More Productive?
- The ticking time bomb at work
- Unions can be good for labor and business
- Five Days a Week in the Office? It’s Better for Everyone.
- Your boss wants to boil you slowly like a frog
- The COVID ‘productivity boom’ is a myth
- Employers want workers in the office for the company culture, not productivity
- The rise of intangible capitalism
- Having the power to put a spanner in the works pays very well
- Digital Solutions empower the employee experience
- 4 reasons hybrid offices won’t work
- History tells us what will decide whether we work from home in the future
- World’s largest trial of a shorter work week
- A government review of social care
- Long-term planning for remote work
- COVID brings productivity into sharp focus
- Are office clusters as crucial to productivity as they once were?
- How a Fully Distributed Company Keeps Its Team Engaged
- Chinese Companies’ Response to Covid-19
- How to make ‘remote work’ more productive
- Office productivity
- A shorter work week?
- M/S says “Remote working is here for good”
- Will the Pandemic make us more productive?
- A pandemic positive!
- Important trends for SME productivity
- Beware ‘snooptech’
- Wealth gains and distribution
- The perfect working environment?
- UK manufacturing to become ‘smarter’
- NHS must suppress demand and cut waste
- Freelancing is good for many
- The birth of life insurance
- Clusters of SMEs are a priority
- Scrap traditional organisation structures
- Passports to productivity Improvement?
- Diageo appoints a CPO
Past Posts – 17. Process level improvement
- The key to solving the NHS productivity puzzle
- Workers become happier, more productive with AI assistance
- It’s not process that matters, it’s content
- Don’t fear robots
- Could AI solve the UK’s productivity problem?
- Capital Spending Boom Helps Raise Productivity
- Automation – friend or foe?
- Busy but not productive?
- Why Computers Didn’t Improve Productivity
- How Artificial Intelligence Will Shape Our Future
- Looking To The Future: Redefining Work
- Improve Productivity By Getting Better At Being Better
- Dramatically improve customer service so as to cut costs
- Why working from home is bad for productivity
- Coaching Your Team Through Uncertain Times
- How to boost office productivity
- Process productivity decided by humans
- Boeing seek at least 20% improvements, not 1-4%
- ICT for processes – Pearls from Gates
- Sheffield’s answer to the puzzle
- Beware taking the IT plunge
- Outsourcing and immigration have downsides
- AI will create millions of jobs
- Economic impacts of automation
- IoT to transform many processes
Past Posts – 18. Task level improvement
- Extra task performance measures
- Robots at Work
- Failure demand
- Groupthink waffle or results needed
- CBI calls for more companies to use digital technology
- Robots to transform Education
- AI becoming mainstream in Retail
Past Posts – 19. Continuous improvement – CI
- Productivity improvement must involve all employees
- Nigeria seeks CI benefits – the West ignores them!
- Japan pushes CI into Africa
- Great performers employ CI
- Continuous Improvement is a must for all
Past Posts – 20. National productivity
- UK Civil Service expansion ended yet quality of services to rise!
- Productivity relatively ignored!
- Brexit, strikes and labour shortages
- Our productivity problem may not be as bad as it looks
- Stalling UK wage growth costs £11,000 a year
- How to narrow the UK’s productivity gap
- Government waste!
- Are French People Just Lazy?
- Public sector productivity – TPI reports
- Train in Vain?
- Ditch ‘costly, restrictive’ skills list for migrants to help speed up economy
- Computer Saturation and the Productivity Slowdown
- Turning Around The Productivity Slowdown
- Britain faces crises in energy and productivity
- Wealth of nations via TFP?
- Inflation: there’s a vital way to reduce it that everyone overlooks – raise productivity
- Productivity is key to “levelling up”
- Sunak’s economic growth philosophy
- Britain’s productivity has been battered by the scarcity of affordable homes in cities
- A brief history of GDP
- Productivity down under
- Clusters to level up UK
- Weak investment, innovation and management hamper UK productivity
- The British Government’s approach to the economy’s productivity problem needs a rethink
- Low-paid migrants are no answer to labor shortages
- Who Will Win and Lose in the Post-Covid Economy?
- Britain is running out of new ideas and it’s killing productivity
- High productivity figures pre-Covid masked some underperformance
- Back to dreary normal?
- £300 million to boost UK manufacturing productivity by 30%
- Academics to boost productivity growth and level-up living standards
- Next CBI boss finds ray of hope in coronavirus crisis
- CBI a closed-shop for McKinsey alumni?
- Pandemic offers a productivity boost?
- Financial data can be ‘dangerously misleading’
- Universal Credit conflicts
- Following the wrong stars?
- The puzzle to persist?
- Wasted time at school
- Productivity crisis fixed?
- More recognition of ‘consumer surpli’
- National inputs also ‘seriously flawed’
- At last, official recognition of the ‘GDP gap’
- New UK ‘Productivity Institute’
- A National ‘Balanced Scorecard’
- BoE powerless in UK productivity crisis
- A new ISC rides to the rescue
- Further UK education needs
- Turbocharging Australian productivity
- GDP – Consumer Surpli
Past Posts – 21. Global productivity
- Productivity leads to prosperity
- World Bank says ‘global economic growth is nearing a speed limit’
- TFP = ‘Mix & Methods’, not ‘Magic Fairy Dust’
- Australia’s Productivity Commission has a 5 year productivity plan
- ‘Ocean forests’ counter global warming
- It’s time for business to end its Faustian pact with autocrats
- Faster productivity growth would solve many problems
- How does South Korea surpass Japan in real GDP per capita?
- How can technological innovation mitigate climate change?
- Productivity After The Pandemic
- U.S. May See Post-Pandemic Productivity Surge
- Productivity is almost magical, but don’t forget the side effects
- Four-day week could boost jobs in Spain
- France planned to reverse globalisation but is still bleeding jobs
- The post-pandemic brave new world
- Is the pandemic making us more productive?
- How Fed Policy Is Wrecking the Economy
- How to reverse the productivity slowdown
- 5 Questions About China That Boards Should Be Asking Right Now
- Will companies shift from China to India?
- Coronavirus statistics: what can we trust?
- The economic impact of CV-19?
- CV-19 kick starts new mentalist era
- Capitalism or Communism?
- BIF drains, not lines, national coffers
- 2020 foresight for fossil-free energy
- Productivity stagnant despite global stimulus
- All nations need a National Productivity Centre
- Protectionism ensures slower growth
- NZ shows way for public sector productivity
- Communism versus Capitalism
- UK works longer hours than EU
- Energy is unlimited
- Free trade is good for all nations
- Global recovery good for others too
- NZ Productivity Commission slams their public sector
- What do the East want from the West?
- Japan falls down productivity ladder
- How does Germany beat UK at productivity?
- Productivity Commission (Aus) shows the way
- Dismal productivity trends need not continue
- Cheap labour slows productivity growth
- National productivity positions built on sand
- Low Australia productivity affects all, not just a few
- Wage levels versus Productivity