eBook Launch

At less than 4.0%, the current U.S. unemployment rate is approaching historical lows. So how do companies with labor-intensive operations sustain appropriate staffing levels and productivity without raising payroll costs?

Productiv’s CFO, Paul Baker, has published an eBook with insights to address this very challenge — Man vs Machine: How to Maximize Human Productivity Before the Next Wave of Automation.

Over the last several years, Paul has studied various labor situations at dozens of companies to understand the factors that positively and negatively impact productivity and an organization’s overall performance. In this book, he shares proven principles, practical tips and tools, as well as data-based approaches put in place by Productiv for the reader to test and use in their operation.

This new eBook is divided into three parts and 13 chapters:

Part 1: We Broke the Labor Model
Chapter 1: How Did I End Up Managing a Building Full of Temps?
Chapter 2: The Huge Hidden Costs of Temp Labor
Chapter 3: Improving and Innovating on this Model

Part 2: Extraordinary Productivity through Human Performance
Chapter 4: Baselining Your Cost per Unit Metric
Chapter 5: Move from stationary / batch production to flow production
Chapter 6: Setting the Right Staffing Level
Chapter 7: Setting the Right Speed for Maximum Throughput
Chapter 8: Ergotivity
Chapter 9: Designing the Gainsharing Plan – a case study from Productiv
Chapter 10: Building a Great Culture to Juice the Results

Part 3: Capturing All of the Benefits
Chapter 11: Setting up and Maximizing the Right Metrics
Chapter 12: Communicating the Results Up the Chain
Chapter 13: Do it Yourself

To engage readers and gather feedback, Paul is releasing chapters one or a few at a time. Readers can view the Introduction and Chapter 1 here.