|
|||
|
|
|
||||||
|
Americans Lead World in Productivity
A new report finds American workers create more wealth per capita than any other nation's citizens. But are American workers paying a price for all their hard work -- in greater stress levels and less time for their personal lives?
A new report released by the United Nations' Geneva-based International Labour Organization has found that Americans continue to lead the world in productivity, and are also working more hours than employees in most other developed countries in order to do so. According to the fifth edition of Key Indicators of the Labor Market, the average American worker annually adds $63,885 of value to the U.S. economy, compared to $55,986 for Irish workers, $55,641 for workers in Luxembourg and $55,235 for Belgians. The figures, based on 2006 data, are computed by dividing the country's gross domestic product by the number of people employed. Americans also work more hours per year than workers in most other developed economies, but when measured as value added per hour, Norwegian workers come out on top with a productivity level of $37.99 per hour, followed by the U.S. at $35.63 and France at $35.08. The average American put in 1,804 hours of work in 2006, according to the report, compared to 1,564 hours for the French and 1,407 hours for the average Norwegian. "One of the main reasons for that is because Europeans take longer annual leave, at 4 to 6 weeks, than Americans do," says Lawrence Jeff Johnson, chief of the ILO's employment trends team. "And typically, new European workers get their 4 to 6 weeks [of vacation] right off the bat," unlike U.S. companies, which dole out vacation days to workers on a progressive basis. Another reason for the strong American showing is that U.S. production rates remain high, according to Johnson. "The [U.S.] growth rates have been stronger than our counterparts in Europe." He also says the American workforce is well-trained and very adaptable, which leads to higher U.S. productivity levels than that of Europe "The report is cause for celebration," says Michael Stallard >, president of E Pluribus Partners, a Greenwich, Conn.-based think tank. "It's great to see so many countries make productivity increases." Indeed, the report finds that countries in South Asia, and Central and Southeastern Europe have begun to catch up to leading countries like the United States in terms of productivity. In East Asia, workers there produce twice as much as they did 10 years ago. But Johnson says this upward trend is only the beginning of a long haul for some countries in terms of the standard of living for workers. "We know there are 1.3 billion people in the world today who are unable to earn at least $2 dollars a day for themselves and their [families]," says Johnson. While the effects of worker productivity can be seen in the hard numbers of a healthy GDP, some experts warn that American workers are suffering when it comes to the soft factors that are harder to measure. "Organizations, by and large, have achieved task excellence, where product quality is high [and] product innovation is high, but the shortfall is on the soft factors" that affect workers' morale and sense of purpose, according to < Stallard >. And such soft factors can have a hard impact on an organization's bottom line, he says. He cites a recent study that found three in four American workers don't have their hearts in their jobs. "American workers are not doing so well on that score," he says. To counter that, < Stallard > says, American organizations should create "a more emotionally friendly" culture within their organizations. "An emotional benefit is gained when we are in jobs that are well-suited and that challenge us," he says. "Then there's the advantage of being in a culture of trusted colleagues who want to help us rather than feel like we're surrounded by competitors. Do we want a 'dog-eat-dog' culture or a 'sled-dog' culture?" Another "soft factor" working against American workers is the loss of personal networks, says Jeanne Hurlbert, a professor of sociology at Louisiana State University and the head of optinetresources.com, a group that helps entrepreneurs build social networks. "High workloads and hours worked may be leaving little time for individuals to build and maintain personal networks," she says. "And the consequences can be serious. Because social support -- which combats stress -- comes from those personal networks, it may leave Americans with fewer resources with which to deal with or combat stress."
Hurlbert says HR managers can improve workers' chances of building and maintaining their personal networks by stressing the importance of such networks in their personal and work lives. "They can educate workers about the importance of balanced networks that contain both a well-developed business sector and a strong personal sector of friends and relatives," she says. "That personal sector can help them combat stress and juggle work and family." She says HR managers can also encourage employee participation in community organizations. "Such participation builds not only workers' networks but also their communities," she says. < Stallard says he believes "the next step in evolution of [American] organizations is that their cultures will become 'connection cultures' and that will boost productivity even more. Innovation drives creation of new companies, new products and new business processes," he says. "Innovation is a team sport. You don't have that unless you have a high-trust, high-cooperation environment."
September 11, 2007 Copyright 2007© LRP Publications |
||||||
Print
Email
Write to the Editor
Reprints
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
© Copyright 2010 LRP Publications. All rights reserved.
|
||||