Profile International has recently published the findings of two separate reports unveiling the names of the companies which are better meeting the current economic and market challenges and leading their sectors in terms of productivity, both in the USA and UK.
In the UK Profiles International analysed financial data from nearly 600 publicly-traded companies quoted at the London Stock Exchange. These companies were firstly grouped into 60 industry sub-sectors based on their Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes and then into 18 industries to produce a more meaningful analysis.
The results for each industry sector revealed the most productive companies to be:
Aerospace and Defence: Rolls Royce GroupBanking: Lloyds Banking Group
Business Services: Harvey Nash Group
Construction: Berkeley Group Holdings
Consumer Products: Diageo
Financial Services: Intermediate Group Holdings
Food Production: Hilton Food Group
Healthcare: Shire
Industrial: Johnson Matthey
Insurance: St James’s Place
Media: ITV
Natural Resources: Soco International
Retail: HR Owen
Software: Micro Focus International
Technology: Northamber
Telecoms: Inmarsat
Travel and Leisure: Enterprise Inns
Utilities: Drax
Profile International research also shows the amount of revenue each company generates per full time employee, so that the list of the most productive companies and their respective revenue per full time employee, looks like follows:
Soco International - £6.1m
St James's Place - £5m
Legal & General Group - £4.7m
Dana Petroleum - £3.6m
Anglo Pacific Group - £2.9m
Intermediate Capital Group - £2.2m
BP - £2m
Standard Life - £1.8m
Royal Dutch Shell - £1.8m
Prudential - £1.8m
The best performer is a natural resources company, Soco International, which generates £6.1m of revenue per full time employee, outstripping any other company in the report by a little more than £1m. Second in the list is an insurance company, St James’s Place, with revenue per full time employee standing at £5m.
In the USA the same investigation revealed that the most productive companies are:
1. AT&T Inc.
2. The New York Times
3. Bank of America
4. Capital One
5. LeapFrog Enterprises
6. Colgate
7. K-Swiss
8. Domino's Pizza
9. Cinemark
10. Wyndham Worldwide
11. Safeway
12. Blackboard
13. Coca-Cola
14. Priceline.com
15. Lexmark
16. Penske
In the USA the Profile International study covered over 2,200 companies and 203 industries.
With unemployment nearing double digits and companies looking to maximize resources, the Profiles Research Institute sought to understand the factors that drive employee productivity within an organisation.
To reach its conclusions, Profiles International defined productivity by using the well-accepted ratio of revenue produced per full-time employee.
For both the USA and UK investigations, once the companies ranking highest in each category were identified, Profiles Research Institute took a closer look at the practices that enabled them to out-produce their peers and analysed the results and the contributing factors behind the results. The follow-up research identified ten key attributes which were grouped in two different categories. In a group were included the attributes concerning and directly linked to people, in the other one were instead listed attributes more genuinely linked to the company organisational effectiveness.
People Attributes
1. Performance-driven culture 2. Effective managers
3. High employee utilization
4. High employee effectiveness
5. Encouraging innovation
Strategic and Operational Attributes
1. Technology sophistication
2. Financial sophistication
3. Operations sophistication
4. Effective distribution channels
5. Marketing and brand sophistication
Being named one of America’s or UK’s Most Productive Companies is a tribute to superior human capital management practices, as well as an acknowledgement of the hard work and commitment of the companies’ staff.
For winning organisations, this is a great opportunity to let their employees know how much their business leaders appreciate their contribution by celebrating the moment. This is also a very good opportunity to let prospective hires, as well as customers and prospects, know that these are well-run organisations and leaders in their respective industries.
According to the report, companies that can demonstrate a performance-driven culture, with effective managers who encourage innovation will generally achieve higher productivity, as measured by revenue per full time employee.
Technical, financial and operational “sophistication” were also considered important factors in maximising output per unit.
“It is more important than ever for companies to benchmark their people processes to ensure they maximise the productivity of the people they employ”, managing director of Profiles International, Martin Goodwill, said.
In the UK top ten most productive companies five are in the natural resources industry, while four are in the insurance sector. Just one financial services firm, Intermediate Capital Group, made it into the top ten.
A number of companies in the top 100 are not household names with the first bank, Lloyds Banking Group, appearing at number 96 on the list with revenue per employee standing at £265,000.
Profiles International UK managing director Martin Goodwill said: "We undertook this research to ensure that our employee assessments continue to reflect the requirements of today’s challenging economic environment. While the findings confirmed much of our existing knowledge, they also demonstrated that it is more important than ever for companies to benchmark their people processes to ensure they maximise the productivity of the people they employ. We have made the report available online – and we hope that managers will download it and use the information to inform and improve their own processes."
