The Effects of Poor Management on Productivity

Poor management skills' impact on productivity

Is there pressure in your organisation to do more with less?

Is increasing productivity a driver or becoming an issue for your organisation?

What about profits? Is there an increased focus on the bottom line?

If you’ve answered yes to any of these key indicators the good news is that CAL can help you increase your people productivity and improve performance so that you can grow your profit margin.

How?

Well, according to research conducted earlier this year by the Australian Institute of Management with Monash University, it would seem that efforts to improve the productivity and performance of Australian Organisations are being stymied by inefficient and under skilled middle managers.

In fact, 83% of the almost 2000 employees surveyed (from CEO’s to shop floor staff) rated their manager’s leadership skills as average or below average and they also ranked poorly in terms of communication skills, strategic influence and their ability to oversee staff performance.

If Managers are underperforming and/or they lack management skills well they simply won’t have the ability to increase their employee’s productivity.

Manager not doing very well

Now, as if that’s not enough, recent international studies have shown that, in many workplaces, the quality of leadership and management skills can have significant direct effects on productivity, as well as a broad range of indirect effects through their consequences for how workplaces adapt and to changing business conditions and innovate.

And, we also know through the statistics gathered by the ABS that many managers are just not qualified to do the job. In fact, fewer managers have post-school qualifications than do the unskilled and semi-skilled workers they manage!

They are seriously underqualified for the job they do.

The Centre for Workplace Leadership at the University of Melbourne survey also presents a sobering picture with a staggering 75% of all employees reporting that Australian workplaces need better managers. These managers lack basic interaction skills and can singlehandedly stymie productivity.

If three quarters of Australian workers have identified issues with poor management skills then, unless you’ve recently and pro-actively addressed it, well, it’s probably a fair bet that your org/company/business may well have a significant and worrying percentage of managers who are letting the side down and who are just not equipped to manage employee performance, let alone improve people productivity.

Gallup has found that companies world-wide fail to choose the candidate with the right talent for a management role a whopping 82% of the time and, as a recent Harvard report reminds us, bad managers cost businesses billions of dollars each year and having too many of them can bring down a company.

Trained manager

This report goes on to note that, where businesses do get it right and choose the right candidate for the management role – that is they hire managers based on talent – well, these companies will thrive and gain a significant competitive advantage.

Gallup finds that great managers have the following talents:

  • They motivate every single employee to take action and engage them with a compelling mission and vision.
  • They have the assertiveness to drive outcomes and the ability to overcome adversity and resistance.
  • They create a culture of clear accountability.
  • They build relationships that create trust, open dialogue, and full transparency.
  • They make decisions that are based on productivity, not politics.

CAL has put together a very simple Productivity calculator tool that you can use to gauge the level of productivity and/or just what the lack of productivity is costing your business and we’d like to share it with you.

CAL also has a range of purpose designed People & Productivity video tutorials that will help your managers improve their skills and knowledge in the key areas of people management that are guaranteed to re-engage your managers and provide them with the skills they need to improve employee productivity and, in turn, your organisation’s overall productivity.

So contact CAL now for access to our FREE Productivity Calculator and/or to learn more about the People/Productivity Video Tutorials and how they can help you address your productivity issues!

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