A major challenge for business leaders is to maintain organisational productivity. (Formally defined as the ratio of an organisation’s total output to total input, adjusted for inflation, for a specific period of time).

Yet is this challenge made more difficult during a downturn?

One of the inputs in the formula is the workforce but at this time when many companies are laying off their people talent. The question that should be asked is how this affects the productivity of those that remain and can improvements in productivity be sustained under such circumstances?

During the previous downturn I was involved with a company that made a series of redundancies and each time a new redundancy was announced productivity collapsed in other parts of the organisation. This wasn’t to say that people seemed to stop working, on the contrary everyone seemed very busy.

However, productivity continues to fall as people discussed the worsening situation and the company’s Directors buried themselves in their offices stating that they were busy “saving the company”.

Too often business leaders might assume that they are unable to positively affect the situation and that under the circumstances a drop in morale is inevitable. I disagree with this assumption and advise far greater “management visibility” at such times.