Poor Productivity? Blame it on Management!

According to the 2005 Workplace Productivity Survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM.) Workers believe the number one factor that negatively impacts employee productivity is poor management. The SHRM (www.shrm.org) survey polled a sample of 478 human resource professionals and 613 employees to collect information about workplace productivity and asked employees, “Which of the following factors negatively impact your productivity at work? (Check all that apply.)”

Responses were as follows:

• Poor management. (58 percent)
• No longer being motivated by the work. (38 percent)
• Organizational changes. (26 percent)
• A lack of defined goals in the job. (24 percent)
• Readiness to leave organization. (16 percent)
• A lack of accountability in the job. (13 percent)
• Pressure by management to show face time. (12 percent)
• Other (16 percent)

Is this management bashing? Not really? After the decimation of management ranks in the last ten to fifteen years it's hard to find skilled managers...and skilled mentors. Without positive role models it's difficult to grow and learn. A focus on raising management skills will highlight where emloyees have found a great excuse, or more likely been conditioned to, blame everything on the managers. "Not my job, man" is often the result of a blame based workplace where failure is punished and taking personal responsibility is risky.

Organizations need to examine the culture that they have created and change the norms and rewards to those that value and demand high performance. Skilling and supporting the managers is a good place to start.