Kerre Woodham: We work hard, but we don't work smart - how do we change that?

There’s no doubt about it; New Zealanders are hard workers.

But according to the productivity stats, we work hard and we worked dumb - like good, solid oxen.

We put our necks under the yolks and we trudge up and down our respective paddocks, but our output simply doesn't match our input.

The Productivity Commission released a report earlier this month and it shows that we work more hours per week than any other country in the OECD, but we are only 68 percent as productive.

So we work way more and can barely make it to a B- in terms of productivity - this wasn't always the case. New Zealand's economy has gone from being one of the most productive, to one of the least productive in the OECD.

That's not all on us. I mean, other countries have caught up and superseded us, but we haven't kept pace and we have dropped further and further behind.

Working more hours and putting more people into work has been the main way that production and income have grown over the last decades. And why productivity matters, is that it matters for the national well-being.  

So where are the companies? How do you become more productive? I imagine at the moment it's just a sheer hard grind doing what you do, without looking to refine, improve, streamline.

It's been a grind for the past three years and trying to find those highly skilled employees has also been difficult. There's a small pool of them, they get snapped up and it becomes a bidding war.

But for New Zealand Inc. to do better, to be able to afford all the luxuries that we did take for granted.

We were a productive and efficient economy, so we were used to a standard of living that has slipped and dropped.

We work blooming hard, everybody agrees with that, but we're not working smart. How do we change that?

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