A number of agencies, and even countries, have attempted to create measures of 'happiness' - as an alternative to using GDP to value the work undertaken by people.
This needs further work - but shows some promise. Lots of activity is currently not 'caught' in official GDP figures. The work of volunteers, for example ... or the work of people that goes into 'free' services. When you use 'free' apps on your smartphone of tablet, your work might be ,more productive - and this might contribute to a 'better' GDP figure .... but often it won't.
The whole point of productivity is to make people more 'wealthy' - but we need to measure wealth in ways that reflects the priorities of citizens and workers. If people value leisure time over consumer goods, we might prioritise reduced working hours over increased GDP - and we might prefer to measure something like 'well-being' (or even 'happiness') over simple economic activity.
At the level of your own company, you can determine - to a large degree- how you prioritise 'outputs' and 'value creation' - depending on your own set of values and aspirations. But what do your workforce value? To what do they aspire? Perhaps you need to consult with them before setting all of tour business priorities. Perhaps real 'growth' is not just about more output.
This needs further work - but shows some promise. Lots of activity is currently not 'caught' in official GDP figures. The work of volunteers, for example ... or the work of people that goes into 'free' services. When you use 'free' apps on your smartphone of tablet, your work might be ,more productive - and this might contribute to a 'better' GDP figure .... but often it won't.
The whole point of productivity is to make people more 'wealthy' - but we need to measure wealth in ways that reflects the priorities of citizens and workers. If people value leisure time over consumer goods, we might prioritise reduced working hours over increased GDP - and we might prefer to measure something like 'well-being' (or even 'happiness') over simple economic activity.
At the level of your own company, you can determine - to a large degree- how you prioritise 'outputs' and 'value creation' - depending on your own set of values and aspirations. But what do your workforce value? To what do they aspire? Perhaps you need to consult with them before setting all of tour business priorities. Perhaps real 'growth' is not just about more output.
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