Why are Australian businesses suffering performance issues?

Businesses across Australia and New Zealand have witnessed a halt in performance in the first quarter of 2023, new research has revealed.

According to OpsTracker: The Performance Tracker for Operations in Financial Services from workforce management software company ActiveOps, the performance gains that companies were experiencing through the pandemic have now slowed down.

Jane Lambert, managing director of Asia-Pacific region at ActiveOps, said that the economy is playing a role in creating these issues, with high inflation, rising interest rates, and fears of recession being the key players.

“The economic backdrop in Australia is more positive than some other regions as the Reserve Bank has paused interest rate rises, giving respite to home owners, and the International Monetary Fund expects Australia’s economy to expand 1.6 per cent this year, avoiding the recession predicted for other advanced economies.”

Ms Lambert continued: “This is translating into operational performance, as A/NZ continues to be the top-performing region. However, the flatlining in overall performance in the first quarter might be a signal that further gains will be a struggle to achieve.”

The research found that Australia and New Zealand’s “OpsIndex score” was at 60.3 per cent for the first quarter of the year. While it remains higher than at the beginning of 2022, ActiveOps said that continued growth has stagnated.

The OpsIndex measures organisation’s agility, control, effectiveness, efficiency, and focus. All of which make up the total performance of a business.

Ms Lambert is advising that leaders will need to address emerging issues in order to keep ahead of the competition.

“Operations teams were already showing signs of wasted capacity and now productivity, as measured by work out per paid hour, is starting to dip.

“If that rebounds over the coming quarter, it could be attributed to a seasonal drop over the summer period, but if work out per paid hour continues to decline, the problem may be deeper seeded and will be something to watch in the months ahead,” Ms Lambert explained.

“For now, financial services companies in A/NZ need to continue to focus their attention on unleashing capacity and getting the best from their employees.”

With this in mind, there are some ways leaders can boost the performance of their teams.

Kanata released a five-step guide on how to improve business performance:

1. Define the present and future: Use outside resources to create a picture of the organisation’s current state and future state, related to market trends.
2. Pick a few well-defined goals: Prioritise three to five goals.
3. Create a plan: Detail the time the plan covers, actions, responsibilities, resources, and specific outcomes.
4. Get the right people on the job: Fit the best people to responsibilities.
5. Monitor activities and results: Use a system that gives feedback and forecasts against budgets and time frames.

Jack Campbell

Jack is the editor at HR Leader.