Productivity

WHAT: During the Industrial Revolution, when the new textile industry was in its infancy and production skyrocketed in a way that had hitherto been impossible, working time legislation began to take shape. However, it would take a century before the international labor movement set the working day at 8 hours and the working week at 48. After World War II, the working week was changed to 40 hours. Since then, time has been used as a measure of productivity and resource allocation. But after the oil price peaked in July 2008, the productivity of organizations began to decline (Rifkin, The third industrial revolution) and, like previous economic paradigm shifts, three major changes – new communication technology, new energy sources and new movement patterns – have driven and converged it. economic activity and the value chain, which changes the basic business models in business dramatically.

SO WHAT: When the shift from the production line to a more knowledge-based work takes shape, the time we spend on our work also becomes an irrelevant measure of productivity. Today, productivity is usually not in man-hours, but in achieving set goals through the use of technology, and can be explained in the simplest possible way with production divided by effort. Research shows that people with good physical and mental health tend to be more focused, more efficient and better at making decisions. In a post-pandemic era, we have also become aware of the value of social capital and our social relations. Measured values ​​linked to employee satisfaction, physical and mental health and level of motivation should therefore be included in production measures that include workers.

https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/5086400/mod_label/intro/epdf.pub_the-third-industrial-revolution.pdf
https://hbr.org/1988/01/no-nonsense-guide-to-measuring-productivity