HIgh Performing Workplaces

The High Performing Workplace Index has significant power in predicting financial performance. 

High Performing Workplaces:

  • are up to 12%  more productive profitable than their peers. 

  • earn up to $40,000 more in earnings before interest and tax per full time employee per annum (industry adjusted).

  • are up to 25% more innovative at creating and producing new products and services

  • are up to 23% better at retaining employees than their low-performing peers. 

But improvements in performance don’t just happen.

Measurement and benchmarking are the first steps in improving your workplace performance – and in accessing the development and skills that will lead to higher performance

well-being in the workplace

The High Performing Workplace Indexmeasures employee well-being in the workplace using the PERMA Well-being Framework developed by Professor Seligman from the University of Pennsylvania and the 2013 OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being.  

This approach is unique and was used for the first time even in Australia in 2015 to measure well-being in the workplace.

PERMA measures employee well-being in areas such as: emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, achievement, loneliness and physical health. 

A 2015 High Performing Workplace project found that 37% of employees were "struggling" on their well-being and 5% were "suffering". Well-being fell to a minimum for employees in the 35-44 age bracket before increasing significantly to retirement.

The study found a very strong relationship between employee well-being and turnover intention and commitment to the organisation.

1.    A 1 unit reduction in well-being increases staff turnover intention by 0.96.

2.    A 1 unit reduction in well-being reduces staff commitment by 0.62.

The study found a 60% correlation between well-being and employee productivity.

leadership

An endemic problem in low performing workplaces is poor quality leadership. 

When leaders perform poorly, there is no shared vision or shared goal, staff are granted limited or no autonomy, and conflict and tension between leaders and followers is high. Performance rapidly declines. 

Leaders in High Performing Workplaces:

1.   Spend more time and effort managing their staff.

2.   Encourage employee development and learning.  

3.   Welcome criticism and feedback as learning opportunities.

4.   Foster involvement and cooperation amongst employees.

5.   Encourage employees to think about problems in new ways.

6.   Give increased recognition and acknowledgement to employees.

7.   Have a clear vision and goals for the future.

8.   Give employees opportunities to lead work assignments and activities.

9.   Have clear values and ‘practice what they preach.

Emotional Capital

Does your firm's emotional assets exceed your emotional liabilities?

Is your firm a toxic place to work?

Is depression an issue in the workforce?

In Low Performing Workplaces, negative emotions of anxiety and worry overshadow positive feelings of optimism and joy, feeding a culture of skepticism and disillusionment. Staff burnout and stress are widespread epidemics that negatively impact overall firm performance. 

The High Performing Workplaces methodology measures your workplace's emotional assets and liabilities. Previous studies have found that:
  • One in every four employee (25%) in Low Performing Workplaces reports feeling ‘depressed’ compared to one in every seven employee (15%) in High Performing Workplaces.

  • Feeling ‘anxious’ is the most common emotion in Low Performing Workplaces with 56% of employees experiencing this emotion. Feeling ‘worried’ ranks second highest at 41%. 

  • 68% of employees in High Performing Workplaces feel ‘proud’ about their workplace and 64% feel ‘valued’ compared to 43% and 47% in Low Performing Workplaces. 

Innovation & Creativity


In High Performing Workplaces innovation is taken seriously and organised all the way from idea generation through to prototyping and trialing new products and taking these to the public.

The High Performing Workplace Index measures the innovation process in three stages.

  • Creativity: High Performing Workplaces are more creative and produce more new ideas. Creativity is up to 28.1% higher in High Performing Workplaces than in Low Performing Workplaces.

  • Innovation Support: High Performing Workplaces implement formal systems and processes to systematically capture, assess and respond to ideas from employees and fund innovation projects. High Performing Workplaces score up to 46.9% higher on innovation support than Low Performing Workplaces.

  • Innovation Outcomes: High Performing Workplaces produce up to 25.3% more new services and products when compared to Low Performing Workplaces.


 

Workplace Productivity

Productivity measures the efficiency with which inputs are converted into outputs. 

The High Performing Workplace methodology uses Total Factor Productivity as a measure of workplace productivity.  

Total Factor Productivity is calculated for each participating firm using a Cobb-Douglas approximation based on cost shares in an way equivalent to the Australian Productivity Commission’s official calculations of national industry level productivity. 

This work is pioneering and not many methodologies measure Total Factor Productivity at the firm level.

Past projects show that High Performing Workplaces are up to 12% more productive than Low Performing Workplaces. 

This means that High Performing Workplaces are more efficient at converting resource input (e.g. the cost of assets, such as human capital) into outputs (such as revenue earned for services provided). For every $1 dollar of input, High Performing Workplaces generate up to 12 cents more in revenue than Low Performing Workplaces.