Question

Discuss the problems of measuring productivity in actual work situations.

How might productivity be measured for each of the following industries?

a. Education(e.g.,elementaryandsecondaryeducation,highereducation—undergraduate and graduate)

b. Government (e.g., the Social Security Office, the Internal Revenue Service)

c. Manufacturing (e.g., soap and toothpaste, computers, heavy machinery)

d. Finance and insurance (e.g., banks, insurance companies, brokerage houses)

Answer 1

At workplace, productivity has different criteria which is based on the type of workplace. There is not standardised measure, though there are some guidelines which could be followed.

Measuring productivity becomes difficult when the workforce is more. When there are more employees, it becomes difficult to assess the efficiency of each of them. This occurs when there are different levels in an office, different departments and thousands of employees. The same is for other sectors as well.

a) Education: Productivity here is usually measured by how well the students perform in the exams, their overall attitude, their etiquettes etc, It should be measured not only on basis of grades, but how well students excel in life.

b) Government: The productivity of government is measured by how well the government is accountable to the problems of people. This could be through less red tapism, less corruption. An efficient government is more productive than the one which has vices in it.

c) Manufacturing: The productivity in manufacturing is measured by the output ie how the firms use less inputs to produce same output or use same inputs to produce more output. ALso the productivity could be increased by linking wages to work done, which would motivate people to perform well.

d) Finance and insurance: The main aim of these institutions is to provide services to the people of a society. The overall productivity of banks and other financial institutions is measured by how well they work as an intermediary in saving money and providing loans. Other factors could be less non performing assets, higher profits etc.