Organizational Productivity Audit: InforMed Case Study

Overview of Audit Findings

The audit examined how productivity management is handled at InforMed and evaluated the base systems that aid in making productivity improvements. On the whole, InforMed has many of the tools needed at the departmental level to manage productivity effectively. The company hires good people and, in theory, grants them the autonomy required to make improvements. However, there is no overarching corporate strategy for productivity improvement. This essentially squanders the tools already in place. Decisions are made on an ad hoc basis with no concern for the broader needs of the organization. Neither departmental managers nor front-line employees have any impetus to pursue productivity improvement.

Worse, there is no system for productivity auditing in place. Many functional departments have the capacity to gather raw data, but little analysis is conducted. This leaves managers with little idea of what initiatives are needed, where the areas of weakness lie, or how to evaluate the effectiveness of changes that have been made.

Policy and Leadership Assessment

Policy

InforMed scored moderately well on policy, meeting five of seven key components of strong productivity policy. The company does well in terms of empowering its employees to make their own decisions regarding productivity. Employees at all levels are involved in decision-making about their jobs, and each is held accountable for whatever productivity efforts are delegated to them.

The corporate power structure supports this. Productivity management has been built into the organizational structure at all levels — every key function for productivity management is present. In addition to individual employees, each department bears responsibility for its own productivity improvements.

At the overall corporate level, however, InforMed's productivity management program becomes weak. While the company does have a productivity mission statement, and it is given priority by management, the controls necessary to follow through on that mission statement are often lacking. For example, while each department is superficially responsible for its own productivity improvement, there is no oversight. Managers do not submit plans for improving productivity to senior management, nor do they report productivity results.

InforMed lacks an overall strategic plan to address productivity, and therefore has no mechanism to integrate the productivity strategies of each department into a broader company-wide plan. Not only do departments lose opportunities to learn from each other, but this also evidences a lack of concrete support from senior management. Because there is no overall plan and no reporting, there is no evaluation. The result is a system where productivity improvements are ad hoc, not shared across the organization, and not evaluated for strategic fit. This marginalizes whatever productivity gains are made.

While the tools for strong productivity management are present at the lower levels, there is no guidance or supervision at the higher levels. The program lacks cohesion and direction. Worse, it sends the wrong signals throughout the organization about the importance of productivity management. It is of little use for employees or departments to make productivity improvements if the company neither knows about them nor recognizes them, let alone integrates them into a broader, organized productivity improvement platform.

Leadership

Productivity leadership at InforMed is poor. Without the guidance that a proper productivity policy would provide, management essentially ignores productivity in day-to-day work. Most notably, management does not demand any productivity performance audit. Ideally, they would emphasize the importance of tracking productivity within the organization. However, there is no periodic productivity audit and no annual productivity report compiled and presented to measure year-over-year improvements. Not only does management not know what is happening in the company with regard to productivity — they do not appear to care.

Moreover, the systems for managing productivity are largely non-existent. Employees are neither encouraged nor challenged to improve productivity. Leadership seldom, if ever, promotes improvements among its employees. For example, InforMed operates a call center to support its products. This is one of the best environments in which to encourage productivity improvement, because the tools for measuring the effect of new ideas are readily available. Even so, management ignores the opportunity to engage employees on productivity. They prefer a focus on "service," without recognizing that service and productivity are not mutually exclusive.

Teamwork is not emphasized, which reduces opportunities to generate and implement better productivity-related ideas. There is no system to reward employees for the contributions they do make. So while employees are empowered to help shape their jobs, they are not encouraged to improve productivity; gains are not recognized when they do occur; and there is no reward system to provide incentive for addressing productivity issues. Furthermore, management appears to still place priority on personalities over ideas — favoring the views of preferred employees or those in certain positions rather than evaluating new ideas independently. This not only reduces the opportunity to tap the knowledge and experience of a broad swath of the workforce, but is incongruous with the degree of input employees are otherwise given in shaping their own roles.

That said, leadership does encourage research and development and structures workflow so that each department contributes a balanced effort. The work environment is harmonious to some extent; however, because productivity's contribution to overall strategy is not explicitly outlined in policy, it tends to be an area ignored by management.