This paper presents a comprehensive organizational productivity audit of InforMed, a Florida-based producer and marketer of educational materials for the medical industry. The audit evaluates productivity management across seven key dimensions: policy, leadership, objectives, inputs, technology, work procedures, and staff. While InforMed demonstrates meaningful strengths at the departmental level — including well-defined employee roles, adequate training, and performance measurement — the audit reveals a critical absence of corporate-wide productivity strategy, oversight, and reward systems. The paper concludes with three primary recommendations: developing a corporate-wide productivity improvement plan, increasing technology investment through centralized funding, and enhancing employee reward systems to better engage front-line workers in the productivity improvement process.
The audit examined how productivity management is handled at InforMed and evaluated the base systems that aid in making productivity improvements. On the whole, InforMed has many of the tools needed at the departmental level to manage productivity effectively. The company hires good people and, in theory, grants them the autonomy required to make improvements. However, there is no overarching corporate strategy for productivity improvement. This essentially squanders the tools already in place. Decisions are made on an ad hoc basis with no concern for the broader needs of the organization. Neither departmental managers nor front-line employees have any impetus to pursue productivity improvement.
Worse, there is no system for productivity auditing in place. Many functional departments have the capacity to gather raw data, but little analysis is conducted. This leaves managers with little idea of what initiatives are needed, where the areas of weakness lie, or how to evaluate the effectiveness of changes that have been made.
InforMed scored moderately well on policy, meeting five of seven key components of strong productivity policy. The company does well in terms of empowering its employees to make their own decisions regarding productivity. Employees at all levels are involved in decision-making about their jobs, and each is held accountable for whatever productivity efforts are delegated to them.
The corporate power structure supports this. Productivity management has been built into the organizational structure at all levels — every key function for productivity management is present. In addition to individual employees, each department bears responsibility for its own productivity improvements.
At the overall corporate level, however, InforMed's productivity management program becomes weak. While the company does have a productivity mission statement, and it is given priority by management, the controls necessary to follow through on that mission statement are often lacking. For example, while each department is superficially responsible for its own productivity improvement, there is no oversight. Managers do not submit plans for improving productivity to senior management, nor do they report productivity results.
InforMed lacks an overall strategic plan to address productivity, and therefore has no mechanism to integrate the productivity strategies of each department into a broader company-wide plan. Not only do departments lose opportunities to learn from each other, but this also evidences a lack of concrete support from senior management. Because there is no overall plan and no reporting, there is no evaluation. The result is a system where productivity improvements are ad hoc, not shared across the organization, and not evaluated for strategic fit. This marginalizes whatever productivity gains are made.
While the tools for strong productivity management are present at the lower levels, there is no guidance or supervision at the higher levels. The program lacks cohesion and direction. Worse, it sends the wrong signals throughout the organization about the importance of productivity management. It is of little use for employees or departments to make productivity improvements if the company neither knows about them nor recognizes them, let alone integrates them into a broader, organized productivity improvement platform.
Productivity leadership at InforMed is poor. Without the guidance that a proper productivity policy would provide, management essentially ignores productivity in day-to-day work. Most notably, management does not demand any productivity performance audit. Ideally, they would emphasize the importance of tracking productivity within the organization. However, there is no periodic productivity audit and no annual productivity report compiled and presented to measure year-over-year improvements. Not only does management not know what is happening in the company with regard to productivity — they do not appear to care.
Moreover, the systems for managing productivity are largely non-existent. Employees are neither encouraged nor challenged to improve productivity. Leadership seldom, if ever, promotes improvements among its employees. For example, InforMed operates a call center to support its products. This is one of the best environments in which to encourage productivity improvement, because the tools for measuring the effect of new ideas are readily available. Even so, management ignores the opportunity to engage employees on productivity. They prefer a focus on "service," without recognizing that service and productivity are not mutually exclusive.
Teamwork is not emphasized, which reduces opportunities to generate and implement better productivity-related ideas. There is no system to reward employees for the contributions they do make. So while employees are empowered to help shape their jobs, they are not encouraged to improve productivity; gains are not recognized when they do occur; and there is no reward system to provide incentive for addressing productivity issues. Furthermore, management appears to still place priority on personalities over ideas — favoring the views of preferred employees or those in certain positions rather than evaluating new ideas independently. This not only reduces the opportunity to tap the knowledge and experience of a broad swath of the workforce, but is incongruous with the degree of input employees are otherwise given in shaping their own roles.
That said, leadership does encourage research and development and structures workflow so that each department contributes a balanced effort. The work environment is harmonious to some extent; however, because productivity's contribution to overall strategy is not explicitly outlined in policy, it tends to be an area ignored by management.
Productivity objectives are fairly clearly defined at the department level of InforMed. Employees generally understand what is expected of them in terms of output and the goals set for each period. These expectations are attainable and provide some degree of challenge. Employee performance in most departments is measured, sometimes to a fine level of detail.
Normally, this would form the groundwork for a strong productivity management program. However, beyond the department level there is little support for productivity initiatives. While most employees are aware of the objectives set for themselves and their department, senior management appears unaware of how to integrate these into a broader productivity program. Measurements are made, but this is where productivity management stops at InforMed. Department managers, for example, do not receive specific productivity objectives passed down from above.
Worse, the company as a whole has no system to measure the effectiveness of whatever productivity measures it implements. There is nothing in place to measure variances from objectives. They have the capacity to achieve such measurements in many areas, but they lack the focus to actually do it. They have little sense of when one of their productivity plans goes wrong, and when it does, they appear to have no particular process for identifying the problem and rectifying it. This leaves InforMed in a position where any changes are ad hoc and confined to the department level. When something goes wrong, they are fortunate if they are even aware of it — and even then have trouble identifying the source of the problem.
In terms of inputs, InforMed scores in the middle range. Some of the base structures needed to manage productivity are present, but the company struggles with the finer details. At the base level, each department has control over its own budget, which allows the autonomy to manage its own productivity. Job specifications are clearly defined, providing a basis for productivity measurement. Resources are made available to each department on a timely basis, giving each department ample opportunity to manage productivity without delays caused by inadequate purchasing.
However, despite having control over their own budgets, departments typically do not break those budgets down to individual inputs. Senior management knows that money is being spent but does not necessarily have a clear picture of what it is being spent on. InforMed does not have a sufficiently robust information system to monitor resource utilization. This leaves much of the power for productivity management in the hands of department managers who, as established, bear no responsibility to senior management on productivity issues.
Additionally, the quality of inputs is not measured against the quality of outputs. One key dimension of productivity is that good value for dollar must be achieved. There is no consideration of the value of inputs versus the value of outputs. If there were, the company could benchmark relative improvement in outputs even as inputs vary.
InforMed scores well on its ability to establish and measure performance at the department level. Employees receive sufficient training to perform the tasks expected of them. Within each department, goals for employees are set in line with department goals, and those goals are designed to be realistic and achievable while requiring a high level of performance. Each employee is given the resources needed to achieve their goals.
Within each unit, performance expectations are identified and measured, and productivity goals are laid out and evaluated. These results are considered by department managers as a key measure of productivity. Within the marketing department, for example, sales figures are the key measure and are weighed against the time and money spent to acquire them — an approach found to be typical across departments. In sum, InforMed does this well at the department level.
"Technology underinvestment and ad hoc procedures reduce productivity"
"Strong hiring offset by apathy and lack of supplemental training"
"Three strategic recommendations to overhaul productivity management"
"Recommendations evaluated against stakeholder and cultural values"
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