Druscilla Penny

How do you describe worker productivity? Do you look at earnings? Profits? Tasks? Projects?

Do you say, "Well, I know my employees have spare time that they use for social networking, either intraoffice (gatherings at the water cooler, hallway, bathroom, carpark, etc.) or via electronic devices. Since I pay for that time, I'm going to reduce my technology repair/update overhead and get my employees to become part-time technology experts."

Do you prevent or minimize the number of meetings that take place in which only one or two employees actively participate and make decisions while the other 90% could be effective somewhere else?

Do you increase the so-called multitasking that employees perform, knowing that some types of multitasking are actually counterproductive?

Do you require employees to take training classes during offhours, such as before/after work hours, or during work breaks such as lunch?

Do you push decisionmaking down the hierarchical chart, empowering employees to be more effective?

Do you cross-train employees so they can learn to do 1.25 and then 1.5 jobs at once, increasing productivity while monitoring their health, making sure you have exercise and counseling available to maximize employee use, without detrimentally affecting their usefulness or decreasing your profitability with too many health monitoring services?

Do you see yourself as having the privilege of your employees working for you, or do you think your employees see their jobs as their right to be employed and you're the lucky dog who gets to deal with them?

Knowing you take attrition into account as part of the cost of retraining, and ultimately a drag on worker productivity, how do you measure worker satisfaction? Do you take preventative measures or do you react to worker negativity? Do you encourage creativity or do you beat your employees until morale improves?

Do you own your own company or does your company own you? Do you think you are your own company, standing on your two feet, or do you think you carry a bunch of people on your shoulders?

Do you look at a statistic like worker productivity and automatically think of a spreadsheet containing numbers and formulas you can manipulate with time? Or do you see individual faces and capabilities which indicate limits you can stretch with training or have to work around?

Do you think in macroeconomic terms or do you worry about the next sale or project deadline?

Are you a puppet master pulling the strings or a ventriloquist with your hand inside a dummy's head?

Is ignorance bliss or dread to you? Or a challenge for your next round of personal continuous education/training?

If you knew the truth behind worker productivity, would you believe it, or do you see worker productivity as a completely imaginary number with no meaning whatsoever?

Our social structures blanket us with terms and definitions. Which ones do you ignore? Which ones can you not ignore? Do you seek out more peaks and valleys of the unknown terrain of new social structures, or are you so overwhelmed with what you've got to take care of that you're trying to filter out and reduce the amount of information you're already receiving? Does the phrase "worker productivity" cover either one of those situations for you? Should it? What about a tribe deep in the Amazon rainforest or a self-sufficient family hidden in the Appalachian mountains?

May we define "person productivity" to account for all conditions of our species' members? If so, then employment is not a defining factor for our usefulness as persons. Think about it...