Benefits January 28, 2005

Employees: Poor Management #1 Productivity Inhibitor

January 28, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Poor management is the number one factor that negatively impacts productivity, according to workers.
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The 2005 Workplace Productivity Survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), shows that employees rank poor management as the top reason for low worker productivity, according to a press release from the company. When asked to check all factors that apply to negatively affecting productivity out of a list of eight, 58% of employees polled said that poor management was a factor, making it the most prominent one on the list.

Other factors include:

  • no longer being motivated by the work (38%)
  • organizational changes (26%)
  • a lack of defined goals in the job (24%)
  • readiness to leave organization (16%)
  • a lack of accountability in the job (13%)
  • pressure by management to show “face time” (12%)
  • other (16%)

“When employees tell us that managers are hampering their productivity, HR professionals need to respond by providing manager training, evaluating organizational structure, and focusing on ways to address poor management practices,” said Susan Meisinger, SPHR, president and CEO of SHRM, in the news release.

The SHRM survey also asked employees and HR professionals what impact “presenteeism,” – a term for when employees are present but not engaged in their work – has on productivity. Not surprisingly, the survey found that HR professionals believe much more strongly than employees that presenteeism has negative impacts on productivity and employee morale. While 68% of HR professionals believe that presenteeism decreases productivity, a significant 63% of employees say it has no effect.

The SHRM survey polled a sample of 478 human resource professionals and 613 employees. The Society for Human Resource Management ( www.shrm.org ) is a human resource management group with 190,000 members.

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