{"id":426,"date":"2022-09-02T10:24:52","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T10:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/?p=426"},"modified":"2022-09-02T10:24:52","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T10:24:52","slug":"boosting-productivity-with-the-looming-threat-of-recession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/2022\/09\/02\/boosting-productivity-with-the-looming-threat-of-recession\/","title":{"rendered":"Boosting productivity with the looming threat of recession"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At the start of August, the Bank of England stated that the UK would fall into a recession<\/a> in the final quarter of 2022, and that its economy would continue to shrink until the end of 2023. Meanwhile, almost three quarters of US economists<\/a> expect a US recession by the middle of next year, and US Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren<\/a> believes that the US Federal reserve could \u201ctip this economy into recession\u201d with its interest rate hikes.
 
With this backdrop, businesses are preparing themselves to face more difficult operating conditions. US retail giant Walmart<\/a> began laying off corporate staff in order to \u201cbetter position the company for a strong future.\u201d Elsewhere, Google is among those looking to its employees to help navigate economic uncertainty. CEO Sundar Pichai<\/a> told staff that with toughening economic conditions, productivity in the company was \u201cnot where it needs to be for the head count we have.\u201d He went on further to say that staff need to \u201craise the bar on both product excellence and productivity\u201d and \u201cbe more entrepreneurial.\u201d
 
How can productivity be raised?<\/strong>
 
Following Pichai\u2019s call to action for his staff to be more entrepreneurial, Kelly Main<\/a> believes that there are three key ways for workers generally to boost their productivity this way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. They need to leave their comfort zone, in order to feel the uncertainty that drives entrepreneurial innovation <\/li>
  2. They need to be resourceful, maximising their resources to drive efficiency<\/li>
  3. They need to get motivated by challenges, rather than seeing them as burdens<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Ben Kiziltug<\/a> believes that employers are key, especially in the current climate. They must continue to invest in their people strategy, and that doing so is what will keep employees motivated and engaged in their work.
     
    Joshua Zerkel of Asana<\/a> also feels that maintaining and improving productivity falls on the shoulders of employers, rather than solely on employees. Speaking with Raconteur, he argues that COOs in particular need to encourage managers to regularly examine their workloads<\/strong>, stating, \u201cThis is the time to focus solely on things that actually matter.\u201d He also argues that clear communication<\/strong> to employees is key, in order to alleviate anxiety around job security. If communication isn\u2019t clear, employees may focus on mundane tasks of little value to the business to try and show that they are busy.
     
    Increased automation and digital adoption is one way that overall productivity can look to be raised for now and the long term.     Jonathan Evans<\/a> feels argues that as well as cutting costs, this will increase the amount of data and insights companies have, helping them to understand how the recession is impacting business and where to change operational performance.

    Writing for Forbes,     Chris Heard<\/a> uses the example of restaurants in the pandemic. The adoption of QR codes for ordering, greater online provision, and contactless payment were all introduced to maximise employee and wider business productivity. Mid-pandemic, that was done to help businesses pivot to survive. Now, as those innovations have boosted efficiency, they are here to stay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    With worries in both the UK and US regarding impending recession, businesses are having to think about how they can drive productivity and output with the same number of, or potentially fewer, workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[19,146,79],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}