Understanding the 3/2 Rule of Employee Productivity.

When you triple the number of employees, you halve their productivity, or adding 10% employees the productivity of each drops by 6.3%.

What causes the productivity decrease? Companies sometimes rationally choose to be in high-volume, low-margin markets. But a more possibility is expensive relationship friction, increased internal communications, and labyrinth bureaucracy.

I think it is largely down to communications: the degree to which a vision is shared and the effective dissemination of new ideas ideas and working practices. Innovation velocity is dependent on collaboration; and collaboration among larger groups and creation networks require different skills and tools than what most executives are used to from smaller situations and is therefore often underestimated.

Productivity in large enterprise is clearly a subject that deserves attention, as it is something you can measure before hiring someone. If the S&P companies all achieved their average productivity, then they would between them generate an additional $2.9 trillion profit between them.

Research Your New Hires!

Facts

Workplace Violence
One out of every six crimes occurs in the workplace and homicide is the second leading cause of workplace death in the U.S.

Education Falsification
National Credit Verification Service reports that 25% of the MBA degrees it verifies on resumes are false.

Statistics
72% of shrinkage is due to employee theft.
34% of all job applications contain lies.
30% of small business failure is caused by employee theft.