Feel Like the Workforce Has Gotten Worse?

The Productivity Data Says Something Different.

Attendance can feel harder. Reliability can feel worse. Managers may see more attitude problems, less engagement and a different work ethic than they remember from years ago. Yet U.S. businesses are producing substantially more output per labor hour than they were twenty years ago.

That contradiction is worth understanding. Sometimes what looks like a worker problem is really a problem with scheduling, supervision, job design, workflow, employee fit or the way labor is being used. Workforce Consulting is about figuring out which problem you actually have before deciding how to fix it.

Think Workers Are Less Productive Than They Used to Be? The Data Says Otherwise.

Ask an experienced manager whether the workforce is better today than it was twenty years ago and you may get a quick answer: probably not. Attendance may feel harder. Turnover may feel higher. Managers may believe employees are less engaged or that it takes more effort just to maintain the same operation.

Now for the surprising part: U.S. labor productivity is substantially higher than it was twenty years ago.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics defines labor productivity as real output produced per hour worked. The BLS nonfarm business productivity index increased from approximately 85.4 in the first quarter of 2006 to approximately 120 in 2026—an increase of roughly 40% in output per labor hour.[1][2] That does not mean the individual employee works 40% harder, possesses 40% more skill or has a better work ethic. Productivity measures the result produced by the entire operating system surrounding that worker.

That distinction matters. Companies can produce more per labor hour because of better equipment and technology, but they can also improve productivity through scheduling, workflow, management, worker selection, process design and better use of labor. BLS separates productivity growth into contributions from capital, workforce composition and broader gains in productive efficiency; research on individual firms also shows that management practices and workforce decisions can materially affect productivity.[3][8]

So perhaps the more useful question is not, “Why don’t people work like they used to?”

It is:

“What are better-performing operations doing differently with the people they have?”

That is where workforce consulting gets interesting.

The Number on the Report Usually Is Not the Whole Problem

Short headcount, turnover, absenteeism, overtime, unfilled positions and missed production all get management’s attention because they are measurable. But a measurement is not necessarily a diagnosis.

An operation can be short ten people for entirely different reasons. Recruiting may be weak. Compensation may be out of line with the local labor market. The schedule may not match when the work actually occurs. Transportation or parking may create unnecessary friction. Employees may begin with the wrong expectations. Onboarding may be inconsistent. One supervisor or shift may retain employees while another continually loses them. The job itself may be poorly designed, or the company may be carrying the wrong mix of permanent and flexible labor.

Since 1999, Labor Staffing has had a view inside employers across different industries, facilities, management structures and labor markets. That experience has taught us to look beyond the visible shortage and examine the system producing it. The objective is not simply to sell an employer more people. It is to understand why the operation needs them, where labor is being lost or wasted, and what could improve the result.

Scheduling Is a Productivity Decision

Consider something as ordinary as a work schedule. An operation that has historically scheduled everyone from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. may discover that it does not actually need the same amount of labor throughout the entire day. A smaller group may be needed earlier to prepare equipment, receive materials, open the facility or get the operation ready. Demand may increase sharply later in the morning. Another group may need to begin later so adequate labor remains when orders are completed, rooms are turned, freight is processed, production closes or customers are still being served.

The company may not have hired better workers at all. It may simply have become better at buying labor hours when those hours produce the most value.

Research demonstrates how important scheduling decisions can be. A randomized field experiment involving Gap stores found that a package of more responsible scheduling practices increased store productivity by 5.1%. The intervention addressed schedule consistency, predictability, adequacy and employee control.[4] Research covering more than 1.4 million transactions at a restaurant chain found that real-time, same-day scheduling reduced server productivity by 4.4%, while short-notice schedules provided with more advance notice did not produce the same overall productivity loss.[5]

The lesson is not simply to make schedules more flexible. It is to match labor to demand without making the workforce itself unnecessarily unstable.

Seven Operating Levers That Can Increase Labor Productivity

1. Put Labor Where the Work Actually Happens

Start with demand rather than tradition. Determine when the work actually enters the operation, when it peaks, where bottlenecks occur and when activity falls away. Then compare the workload curve with the hours employees are actually scheduled.

That may mean staggered start times, overlapping shifts during peaks, shorter targeted shifts, later crews, different weekend staffing or changes by day of the week. An employee scheduled for eight hours does not automatically create eight productive labor hours simply because eight-hour shifts are traditional. The objective is to make the labor curve follow the workload curve as closely as the operation reasonably allows.

2. Do Not Confuse Flexibility With Chaos

There is another side to scheduling. Employers can become so aggressive about matching labor to demand that they create unpredictable schedules that damage attendance, retention and performance.

The Gap experiment is important because the productivity improvement did not come from simply cutting labor. Its scheduling intervention also emphasized greater predictability, consistency and employee control.[4] Restaurant research likewise found that extreme real-time scheduling flexibility could impose a productivity cost.[5]

The goal is therefore not maximum variability. It is useful flexibility inside a workforce structure that employees can realistically live with.

3. Remove Paid Time That Produces Nothing

Before assuming more people are required, look at what the people already there spend their time doing. Employees may be waiting for equipment, searching for tools or materials, walking excessive distances, waiting on another department, making unnecessary trips across a facility, waiting for approvals, handling avoidable rework or standing idle because the next part of the process is not ready.

Lean operating methods specifically target forms of waste including waiting, transportation, unnecessary motion, excess processing, defects and unnecessary inventory.[6] NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership also emphasizes flow, setup reduction and process design as ways to improve productivity and reduce wasted effort.

A company can add ten workers to a broken process and simply create ten more people waiting.

Sometimes the least expensive labor hour is the one you discover you never needed.

4. Match the Person to the Actual Work—Not Just the Job Title

Two positions carrying the same job title can demand very different employees. A warehouse associate in one facility may require speed and repetitive picking endurance. Another may spend substantial time operating equipment or working inside a warehouse-management system. Two housekeeping assignments may differ in pace, property layout, room mix and service expectations. Two production positions may require completely different physical abilities, precision, equipment knowledge or tolerance for repetitive work.

Assignment fit therefore involves more than whether an applicant technically qualifies. Schedule, commute, physical demands, pace, equipment, environment, supervisor style, previous experience and employee expectations can all affect whether someone succeeds in a particular operation.

Research on management, worker selection and productivity has also found that better-managed firms tend to recruit and retain more capable employees. Workforce selection and operating performance are not entirely separate problems.[7]

5. Design the Workforce Around What Is Actually Permanent

Not every labor hour carries the same level of certainty. Some work is genuinely permanent and predictable. That belongs in the permanent core. Other demand moves with production, occupancy, freight volume, events, contracts, seasonality, projects, launches, customer demand or economic conditions.

An employer that permanently staffs to its highest imaginable workload can end up carrying excess capacity when demand falls. An employer that staffs the permanent workforce too lean can create excessive overtime, fatigue, lost production and continuous emergency recruiting when demand rises.

The better workforce-design question is not simply, “How many employees do we need?”

It is:

“How much of this demand is sufficiently predictable to justify permanent headcount, and how much should remain flexible?”

Temporary staffing can then become part of workforce design rather than something used only when somebody quits.

6. Improve the Management System Around the Worker

Sometimes the worker is being blamed for a management problem. Are expectations clear? Is performance measured? Does the employee know whether they are succeeding? Does the supervisor recognize problems early enough to intervene? Are strong employees recognized and retained? Are recurring performance problems investigated, or does the organization simply replace the employee and start over?

Research involving thousands of firms has identified strong relationships between structured management practices and productivity. Practices involving monitoring, goals, incentives and people management can affect both employee performance and the type of workforce a company attracts and retains.[7]

Experimental evidence points in the same direction. An eight-month field experiment involving commercial airline captains tested performance monitoring, feedback, target setting and incentives. Performance monitoring and target setting produced significant productivity improvements in the measured fuel-efficiency dimensions.[8]

Hiring another employee does not repair a system that poorly manages the employees it already has.

7. Follow the Employee’s Entire Journey

An employee’s workday does not begin when the supervisor sees them at the workstation. The employee first had to find the opportunity, understand the job, decide the pay and schedule were worthwhile, arrange transportation, reach the property, find parking or exit public transit, locate the entrance, navigate the facility, reach the time clock, find the supervisor and arrive ready to work.

Friction anywhere in that journey can eventually appear on a management report as an attendance problem, turnover problem or recruiting problem.

Labor Staffing has reviewed operations where multiple staffing providers struggled to maintain headcount even though the employer offered competitive pay, free parking, access to public transportation and an attractive working environment. Looking at the operation from the employee’s perspective revealed something that the headcount report did not.

The public-transit stop was still a significant distance from the actual work area. Parking filled early. Employees arriving closer to shift time were pushed farther away. Once workers reached the property, they still had to travel through the facility before reaching the time clock and their actual work area.

The shortage was real, but part of the problem existed before the employee ever clocked in.

One practical response was operational rather than recruiting: using onsite resources to help transport employees from distant parking areas to the facility entrance.

Twenty additional applicants would not have fixed that particular problem.

This is why workforce problems should be investigated as operating problems—not automatically categorized as recruiting failures.

Better Workforce Decisions Start With Better Diagnosis

Many employers first call a staffing company when they need people. That makes sense. Sometimes the solution really is better recruiting and more workers.

But recurring shortages deserve a deeper look.

If employees are consistently accepting jobs but failing to start, that is a different problem from too few applicants. If one shift retains workers and another continuously loses them, that difference matters. If several staffing companies experience the same failure at the same location, the common denominator may exist somewhere other than the recruiting office.

Labor Staffing approaches Workforce Consulting from the perspective of an operator. We look at the workforce inside the context of the business: demand, scheduling, recruiting, employee experience, supervision, labor utilization, provider performance, operating friction and workforce structure.

Sometimes the answer is better recruiting. Sometimes it is a different staffing model, a scheduling change, a better onboarding process, a change to the job itself, stronger onsite management or a different provider structure. And sometimes the most valuable conclusion is that the employer does not need more temporary workers at all.

Understand the problem first. Then decide what solution actually fits.

Talk With Labor Staffing About Your Workforce

If the same labor problem keeps returning, adding more people may solve the immediate shortage without solving what keeps creating it.

Labor Staffing can review the problem with you, examine how the workforce and operation interact, and help identify where a different approach may produce a better result.

Let’s talk about what is actually happening.

Sources

[1] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Productivity and Costs, Second Quarter 2026, Revised
BLS defines labor productivity, or output per hour, as real output divided by hours worked.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.htm

[2] Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED — Nonfarm Business Sector: Labor Productivity (Output per Hour) for All Workers
Series OPHNFB. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHNFB

[3] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Total Factor Productivity
BLS analyzes labor-productivity growth through contributions including capital intensity, labor composition and total factor productivity.

https://www.bls.gov/productivity/

[4] Saravanan Kesavan, Susan J. Lambert, Joan C. Williams and Pradeep K. Pendem — “Doing Well by Doing Good: Improving Retail Store Performance with Responsible Scheduling Practices at the Gap, Inc.” Management Science, 2022. DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2021.4291
The randomized field experiment involving Gap stores reported a 5.1% increase in store productivity following implementation of responsible scheduling practices.

https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/mnsc.2021.4291

[5] Masoud Kamalahmadi, Qiuping Yu and Yong-Pin Zhou — “Call to Duty: Just-in-Time Scheduling in a Restaurant Chain.” Management Science, 2021. DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2020.3877
The study analyzed more than 1.4 million restaurant transactions and found that real-time scheduling reduced server productivity by 4.4%.

https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/mnsc.2020.3877

[6] National Institute of Standards and Technology — Manufacturing Extension Partnership, Lean and Process Improvement
NIST discusses lean methods for identifying waste, improving process flow and reducing non-value-added activity.

https://www.nist.gov/mep/lean-and-process-improvement

Additional NIST research referenced:

https://www.nist.gov/publications/inventory-and-flow-time-us-manufacturing-industry

[7] Stefan Bender, Nicholas Bloom, David Card, John Van Reenen and Stefanie Wolter — “Management Practices, Workforce Selection and Productivity.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 22101, 2016. DOI: 10.3386/w22101
The research examines relationships among management practices, employee selection, retention and firm productivity.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w22101

[8] Greer K. Gosnell, John A. List and Robert D. Metcalfe — “The Impact of Management Practices on Employee Productivity: A Field Experiment with Airline Captains.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 25620, 2019. DOI: 10.3386/w25620
The field experiment examined performance monitoring, feedback, target setting and incentives.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w25620

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Frequently Asked Questions

Workforce Consulting is built around the problem the employer actually wants to solve, so there is not one fixed package. Labor Staffing may review an employer's staffing model, recruiting process, existing staffing providers, scheduling, attendance, retention, labor utilization, onboarding, supervision, employee experience, transportation or facility-access issues, local labor-market conditions, and the mix of permanent and flexible labor.The scope can be narrow or broad. An employer may want an outside opinion on one recurring staffing problem, or may want us to examine how several parts of the workforce system interact. We may review available workforce data, speak with management, examine current processes, compare shifts or locations, observe the operation firsthand, or follow the employee experience from recruiting through arrival and actual work.The objective is not to begin with a predetermined solution. It is to establish what is happening, identify the factors most likely contributing to the problem, evaluate realistic alternatives, and give the employer useful recommendations about what to do next.

There is no standard price or duration because the scope can vary substantially. A focused issue may require little more than a phone or video consultation. A more complicated engagement may involve research, data review, interviews, travel, onsite observation across multiple shifts or locations, and involvement lasting days, weeks or potentially longer.When onsite work is required, the scope may also include normal travel-related expenses such as airfare, lodging and per diem. Labor Staffing works with the client to define what needs to be evaluated and the expected level of involvement before establishing the consulting fee and expense structure.The goal is not to make an engagement larger than it needs to be. It is to define enough scope to understand the problem properly and give the client recommendations worth acting on.

We believe the diagnosis should come before the solution. A workforce consultant who begins an engagement already committed to reducing headcount, cutting a particular expense or selling a particular service risks evaluating the operation through the lens of that predetermined outcome.Labor Staffing may ultimately recommend reducing labor hours or changing the workforce structure when the facts support it. But the appropriate answer could also be different scheduling, stronger supervision, process changes, better onboarding, a different staffing model, changing providers, moving labor from one part of the operation to another, or adding capacity where a shortage is creating greater downstream costs.The same principle applies to consulting compensation. Incentives can influence professional judgment, which is why the objectives, scope and fee structure of an engagement should be clearly defined. Labor Staffing does not guarantee a particular savings, headcount reduction or operating result. Our role is to evaluate the situation as objectively as we can and recommend what we believe makes sense for the operation—not manufacture a predetermined result.The importance of independence, objectivity, clearly defined scope and disclosure of potential conflicts is also reflected in professional consulting standards published by the Institute of Management Consultants USA.Source: https://www.imcusa.org/about/ethics/member-code-of-conduct/

Yes. Labor Staffing's Workforce Consulting can be a standalone service, and the client does not have to replace its existing staffing providers or use Labor Staffing to supply workers.In some situations, that separation can be particularly useful. Labor Staffing can evaluate staffing-provider performance, workforce structure, recruiting, scheduling, attendance, retention, operating friction and other workforce issues without the engagement automatically depending on Labor Staffing receiving the resulting staffing business.The recommendation may be to change providers, but it may also be to improve the current program, change schedules, address an operating problem, adjust the workforce mix, improve onboarding or supervision, or leave an existing provider in place. The employer can implement the recommendations internally, through its current providers, with Labor Staffing, or through another resource.

Labor Staffing brings an operator’s perspective to workforce consulting. Since 1999, we have worked inside the realities of recruiting, staffing, attendance, turnover, scheduling, supervision and day-to-day workforce operations. That experience matters because a workforce problem that appears to be a recruiting problem may actually begin somewhere else in the system.Our approach is practical. We look at what is happening, how the employer is currently handling it, what alternatives are available and what the consequences of those alternatives may be. Sometimes the answer is better recruiting or a different staffing provider. Sometimes it is a scheduling problem, an onboarding problem, an operational bottleneck, a workforce-design issue or something as simple as unnecessary friction in an employee’s daily experience.Labor Staffing can also provide Workforce Consulting without becoming the employer’s staffing provider. That allows a client to use us strictly as an outside evaluator and implement our recommendations internally or through existing providers if that is the best fit.And the engagement does not have to end with a report. If the client wants help implementing changes, measuring results or continuing to evaluate the workforce as conditions change, Labor Staffing can remain involved. The goal is not to sell a predetermined solution. It is to help the employer understand the workforce problem well enough to make a better decision.