NEARLY 29% OF EMPLOYEES UNPRODUCTIVE

Nearly 29 percent of company time in America is unproductive, according to the results of a new study by management consulting firm, Proudfoot Consulting. The estimated cost of poor productivity in the U.S. is $598 billion and U.S. companies “lose” the equivalent of 33.5 days per worker, per year, the productivity study found.

Barriers to productivity identified by U.S. executives point to management issues, said Luiz Carvalho, CEO of Proudfoot Consulting.

“There appears to be a lack of alignment within executive and managerial ranks, where strategy is not rolled down into actionable steps,” Carvalho said. “Because of this disconnect, more than a quarter of the workforce’s time in America is still unproductive, costing the U.S. economy billions of dollars.”

An overwhelming 50 percent of U.S. executives, significantly more than the global average of executives surveyed, said the number one barrier to productivity was inefficient management planning of work and organization structure. Forty-three percent surveyed also ranked poor leadership in terms of management demonstrating and leading change as the second greatest barrier to productivity. Yet, more than one quarter of executives surveyed have no targets established for improving productivity in 2006.

Proudfoot Consulting’s 2006 Productivity Report surveyed top U.S. executives asking them to rank issues related to management as key barriers to productivity in their organizations. More than 800 executives in 19 countries responded. A copy of the report is available at: www. productivitystudy.com

Topics USA