Do you think companies struggled with productivity in times of recession? No, at least not all of them. 

Companies have secret weapons up their sleeves when facing the fall of productivity. In 2023, tech companies such Google, Amazon, Microsoft Yahoo and Zoom announced another round of layoffs cutting down over 120,000 jobs. In that way their productivity is likely to go up again — productivity being the measure of output per unit of input. Although productivity could be weighed against all kinds of input, output per labour is one of the most common measurements. If we look back at the 2009 recession in the United States, productivity was growing while output and hours worked were both falling. 

Mass layoff, however, has profound impact on the organisation. It is crippling the company’s ability to bounce back. Remaining workers facing the sudden loss of their co-workers would carry a sense of insecurity which would inhibit their desire to grow and thrive.  Mass layoffs might be inevitable for companies that are growing too fast, but other businesses should avoid going there without exhausting other means to increase productivity. 

Here are what you can do for your business when you find productivity falling: 

Porath and Schwartz’s study of over 20,000 people across industries and organisations found that higher levels of feedbacks are associated with 89% greater thriving at work, 63% more engagement, and 79% higher job satisfaction.  However, not all feedbacks are equal. Here are the kinds of feedback that can help improve productivity: 

• Fast and frequent feedbacks can build a feedback norm which both employees and managers will find it less intimidating. Delay in feedbacks often leads to confusion, frustration and missed opportunities for growth. 
• Focused and specific feedbacks targeting individual’s contribution not only made employees feel they have your attention but are also essential in shaping concrete actions for improvement. One way to make feedbacks focused is to adopt the Situation-Behavior-Impact feedback tool to help employees aware of the consequences of certain behaviors. 
• Future oriented feedbacks look at what could be improved in the future. They steer managers away from the shame-and-blame culture. 
• Balanced feedback but no sandwiching. Employees are generally more receptive to balanced feedbacks but are weary of ‘feedback sandwiches’.  ‘Feedback sandwich’ is about putting the negative feedback in between two positive ones. Many employees are so used to that, and they would start to brace themselves when they hear compliments. In that way, none of the positive or the negative feedback got registered correctly. To deliver balanced feedback effectively is to do it with candor. 

2. Managing the size of the team

Jeff Bezos famously shared his secret for success by managing the size of the team. His ‘two-pizza- team rule’ stipulated that every team should be small enough that it can be fed with two pizzas. While it does sound like a good way to cut down catering bills, it is backed up by management research. Robert Sutton, a professor of organisational behaviour at Stanford University, said the most productive meetings contain only five to eight people. When the meeting has less than five people, groupthink kicks in and people tend to agree with each other even the decision is irrational and non-optimal.  When the meeting has more than eight people, people are more guarded, and exchanges could become shallow. 

3. Breaking down tasks

British naval historian Cyril Parkinson noticed that bureaucracy would balloon regardless of the operational needs. Curious about the situation, he looked for the causes and found that ‘work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion’. This law of expanding bureaucracy is now referred to as ‘Parkinson’s law’. An effective way to combat this law is to break down tasks with multiple deadlines. Managers could then review and adjust the schedule when needed. 

4. Prioritising tasks

Microsoft Japan carried out a four-day work week experiment in 2019. President and CEO Takuya Hirano challenged the employees to achieve the same results with 20% less working time. With a shorter work week, employees had to prioritise their tasks and streamline their workflow. It’s down to the management to set rules on how tasks should be prioritised. For example, Madoka Sawa, Former Director of Microsoft Technology Lab, Microsoft Japan said employees are asked to prioritise revenue driven meetings. 

5. Delegate the right task to the right people

While managers want to invest in their employees and nurture them to pick up new skills at the workplace, they need to have the wisdom to know when the loss has become ‘irrecoverable’. Every employee is unique and so is their competence. It is bad management to request everyone excels at everything and not making use of their forte.