Productivity of U.S. Firms in 2007 Paper Example

Explain what happened to the productivity of U.S. firms in 2007.

In 2007, the productivity of U.S firms experienced steady growth or at least kept its previous pace (Gros & Alcidi, 2010). The increase in productivity can be attributed to the Edward Deming's Statistical Quality Control concepts. His concepts worked well in Japan after the world war two which saw Japan experience a decline in its productivity. Products from Japan were considered inferior and of low quality. Deming was invited to the country and taught leaders of organizations concerning his concepts. In the end, Japan's productivity rose again, and it could penetrate international markets including the US.

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This situation saw US firms' productivity decline, and they had to look for solutions. According to Gros & Alcidi (2010), the Americans came up with a principle which stated, "if Japan can... why can't we?" They decided to employ Deming's concepts as well. His ideas were that the performance of a company is attributed to the management team and not the employees. Poor leadership causes a decline in production in an organization hence his concepts were to hold the manager or supervisor accountable. After employing Edward Deming's style or view, the country's firm productivity experienced growth from the year 2007 to 2009 (Gros & Alcidi, 2010).

Identify some of the steps that supervisors can take to improve their department's productivity.

A supervisor is useful in ensuring their departments experience growth in productivity by following the following steps. They need to emphasize the importance of providing high-quality products (White-Davis, 2000). He or she should, therefore, communicate effectively with his team of employees and encourage them to ensure quality production. Besides, a supervisor should provide information as well as give the employees support to achieve the required productivity. It would be irrelevant to inform the workers how you want them to offer quality products yet they have less know-how about the process. Thus, there is the need to give them relevant education about the requirements and assist them in the production process to reduce errors. This way they will be encouraged to learn.

Furthermore, it is significant to provide meaningful responses or feedback to create a proper or comfortable working condition for your employees. A supervisor needs to understand how to respond to the issues being brought up by the employees because this action will help build a good working relationship. Such a state of understanding will empower the workers to employ the necessary measures given to ensure the firm achieves a high quality of production. As stated earlier, the productivity of an organization is highly dependent on the supervisor but not the employee.

Describe some ways in which supervisors' impact safety performance.

Supervisors impact safety performance in an organization by ensuring necessary steps are taken as well as preventing carelessness and misconduct. If a worker gets an accident in a workplace, the company will experience a decline in the productivity (Hickey, 2017). Injuries affect a supervisor since he or she will have to fill out reports concerning the accident, attend meetings to investigate the cause or reason for the accident, as well as provide recommendations for future steps to be taken to avoid further injuries. Therefore, to evade all these tiresome processes, supervisors need to ensure safety is attained in a firm.

Cases of casualties among the employees mean that the supervisor will have extra work to do which is challenging. Besides, the productivity of the team suffers whenever a person is injured because finding, selecting, and training a replacement could be tough. The company will lose the wounded person's services when being treated since finding an experienced replacement is a problem (Hickey, 2017). All these activities revolve around the supervisor's role hence he or she plays a prominent role in ensuring safety in workplaces.

References

Gros, D., & Alcidi, C. (2010). The impact of the financial crisis on the real economy. Intereconomics, 45(1), 4-20. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10272-010-0320-0

Hickey, D. L. (2017). Supervisors: As leading indicators of safety performance.Professional Safety, 62(4), 41-44. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1899732583?accountid=45049

White-Davis, K. (2000). Development of a recommended florida department of revenue leadership training program for front -line employees to improve trust between employees and supervisors (Order No. 3045498). Available from ABI/INFORM Collection. (304679313). Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/304679313?accountid=45049