Worker Productivity - Publications - Faculty & Research

01 Feb 2023
What Do You Think?

Will Hybrid Work Strategies Pull Down Long-Term Performance?

at prescribed times or days of the week. According to Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, who has studied remote work for years, totally remote workers constituted 15 percent of the US workforce as of early 2023, with another 30 percent... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

26 May 2022
HBS Case

Apple vs. Feds: Is iPhone Privacy a Basic Human Right?

and political issues,” says Nien-hê Hsieh, the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at HBS, who coauthored the case. Staking out a clear social position can actually help a company’s bottom line, boosting employee morale, making View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

14 Oct 2021
In Practice

Reunited and It Feels (Not) So Good: Tips for Managing a Rocky Return

grants workers the flexibility to choose where to work and live, could be a win-win for companies and employees. The pre-pandemic study that we conducted at the United States Patent Office documents 4.4 percent View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

14 May 2008
Research & Ideas

Getting Down to the Business of Creativity

The diary findings also showed a positive carry-over effect in creativity and productivity, one day and even two days after a worker reported being in a good mood. So what can managers and entrepreneurs do to promote a healthy, positive... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion; Entertainment & Recreation

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

Dunlap sold off several businesses, retaining for the time being the core consumer products business. He moved the head office out of Scott's longtime corporate building and into a much smaller building near his home in Florida. The... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

advice to restaurant owners, staff, investors, and patrons that we offer below. How did it deteriorate so quickly? Restaurants are universally labor intensive—by any productivity metric they rank among the least View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

28 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

The Profit Power of Corporate Culture

much more likely to remain in an organization, leading directly to fewer hires from outside the organization," Heskett writes in the book. "This, in turn, results in lower wage costs for talent; lower recruiting, hiring, and training costs; and higher View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

16 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

The Most Successful Startups Have Hands-On Founders

Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. In studying 100 founders of Indian software companies, they found that those who exert more hands-on management—keeping close tabs on workers with regular evaluations, setting expectations, creating... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

11 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

Feeling Seen: What to Say When Your Employees Are Not OK

Behavior and Human Decision Processes. The benefits of talking it out Zlatev and colleagues conducted six studies involving a total of about 2,500 participants between 2018 and 2020. The results indicated that: Workers trust colleagues... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

21 Sep 2022
Research & Ideas

You Don’t Have to Quit Your Job to Find More Meaning in Life

many workers fleeing positions in hopes of finding something better. De Freitas partnered with Michael Prinzing, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, and Barbara Fredrickson, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel... View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta

06 Jul 2016
What Do You Think?

How Do We Pay for the Costs of Globalization?

mitigate via duties and taxes or offer short term support to displaced workers but (it is) far better to come to grips with where your country has real sustainable global advantages. Many of those America once had are gone ” Doug Kinsey... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett; Manufacturing

Web

Social Enterprise - Faculty & Research

but tempered improvement in occupational health and safety. This tradeoff is more pronounced in factories with unions and high-powered productivity incentives, suggesting internal governance structures shape how suppliers respond to... View Details

21 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

Are You Sabotaging Your Own Company?

of organizational and managerial processes from within, can be just as effective at torpedoing productivity both then and now, Thomke says. As workers toss time-consuming and frustrating curveballs in the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

25 Aug 2014
HBS Case

Starbucks Reinvented

comfort, connection, and respect for its product and the communities Starbucks serves. CEO Howard Schultz has reignited Starbucks with innovative new offerings and by refocusing workers on the company's core... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Food & Beverage

07 May 2020
Research & Ideas

The One Good Thing Caused by COVID-19: Innovation

work. Workers who prefer to work from home may find increased productivity, reduced commute time, and a lower quit rate because they are overall happier. For clients, this experience, together with investments made by the call centers... View Details

Keywords: by Hong Luo and Alberto Galasso

01 Mar 2023
What Do You Think?

How Much Does 'Deep Purpose' Matter to the Bottom Line?

comments that reflected the views of others. She said, “ being in the office can be fun, but it is like taking a day off. You have to make up for the lost productivity later.” She described “all the people with earbuds to drown out the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

31 Jul 2019
Research & Ideas

Distressed Employees? Try Resilience Training

Every year depression affects one in every five employees and costs American businesses $210 billion in medical bills and lost productivity. In fact, for every worker with a depressive disorder, a company loses an average of 32 View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health

18 Dec 2017
Op-Ed

Why Employers Must Stop Requiring College Degrees For Middle-Skill Jobs

Credit: Pixsooz American companies have a problem. Over the past decade, they have begun to demand a bachelor’s degree in hiring workers for jobs that traditionally haven’t required one. This uptick in credentialing, or “degree inflation,” rested on the belief that... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph Fuller

Web

Aldrich Hall | About

support research at the HBS “Fatigue Laboratory,” which conducted research that tested the productivity of industrial workers in locales ranging from the basement of Morgan Hall to Colorado’s Boulder Dam. In... View Details

01 Feb 1999
News

Too Much of a Good Thing?

- too much product (and too much production capability) chasing too few buyers - is hardly a new phenomenon. As a factor in market capitalism, overcapacity has been recognized and analyzed as a... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons

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