Australian management dragging down productivity: Workplace Truths survey

A new survey shows Australian workers are dealing with high workloads, burn out and bosses with limited managerial capacity to support them to work effectively.

The nationally representative poll, undertaken for the ACTU ahead of next month’s Economic Reform Roundtable, found 39% of Australian workers – or about 5.7 million workers report feeling burnt out at work.

The survey reinforces the most recent Gallup State of the Global Workplace Report showing that 65% of Australian workers are not engaged at work, with a further 12 % actively disengaged.

The ACTU survey shows that half the workforce or around 7.3 million workers regularly work extra hours or do over time and high workloads were ‘regularly or always’ experienced by more than 28% of all workers. Only around half (54%) of workers felt they had enough staff in their workplace to get the job done.

In a report card on managerial capability, 41% of workers or around 6 million workers did not think their immediate manager created an environment in which they feel motivated to do their best work.

Only half of all managers had sought the view of their employees on how to improve their ways of working (55%) or encouraged their individual professional development and growth (55%).

These results reinforce repeated studies that show Australia’s slow productivity growth is being driven by relatively poor management capacity.

The impact of changes in technology and AI also left 51% of workers saying they need more skills and training from their employers.

Quotes attributable to ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus:

“Too often, too many employers have equated lifting productivity to doing more with less pushing people to work harder for longer. This leads to burn out which harms productivity.

“This new survey highlights the symptoms of one of the most significant causes of slow productivity growth in Australia – poor management performance. Despite this issue being uncovered in many significant international and local studies, our Productivity Commission largely ignores it.

“It reinforces Harvard Business School findings that one of the biggest drags on Australia’s productivity is the underperformance of Australian managers, with badly managed firms dragging down Australia’s overall performance, particularly compared to the United States.

“That study found that over half of Australia’s total factor productivity gap with the US is due to poor management.

“Another joint Stanford University research study with the London School of Economics found that while Australia has some world leading management practices, we also have a long tail of badly managed firms dragging down our overall productivity performance, particularly compared to the US.

“Now we are seeing large numbers of Australian workers report their immediate managers lack the capacity to build collaborative workplaces, by involving workers in decision making and creating an environment where people feel they can do their best work.

“The reality is that large numbers of Australian workers deal with high workloads, constant pressure to work extra hours to the extent where 5.7 million workers say they feel burnt out at work.

“Addressing the performance and capacity of Australian management is a practical and immediate measure that could be taken to improve productivity.”