The Productivity Guru

In a recent Huffington Post Business posting, Jodie Levin-Epstein could not have said it better in her piece, "Don't Cut Off Your Knows."  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jodie-levinepstein/dont-cut-off-your-knows_b_832286.html Congress is killing our future and any potential increases in productivity by their drastic cuts in education and particularly in worker training.  Their drastic cuts to such programs as the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and other programs are illogical and so poorly thought out that they are killing our future.  Yes, we may need to cut some of the fat out of our budget, but this is not the place to do it. She says and I quote, "Even though unemployment has declined in recent months, it's still significantly higher than it was before the start of the recession.  Further, given the skills/jobs mismatch that many economists have noted, now is the worst possible time to cut investment in workforce devdelopment programs." Sheer lo

I just read an interesting piece in the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald by James Adonis, entitled "Worked Up About Work."  The actual article can be found at the following link: http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/blogs/work-in-progress/worked-up-about-work/20110318-1bz8x.html Adonis cites a Gallup poll of 47,000 people from more than 100 countries, 2,000 of whom were from Australia.  "They discovered that 31% of Costa Ricans, 30% of Guatemalans, and more than 29% of Brazilians are in the highest category of job satisfaction.  By comparison, only a dismal 18% of Australians can say they love their work."  I can only imagine what that number would be in Western Europe and in America. The fact of the matter is that Employee Engagement is becoming unquestionably one of those tools that has proven itself to be a significant enhancer of productivity and profitability.  Companies who do not engage their employees, Adonis indicates, as one example, through his us