Q & A: Jack ZengerMeasuring Up Are your employees as productive as they can be?

Would you like to double your profits? Outrageous as that goalmight seem, there's a fast way for most businesses todramatically increase profitability: Just tweak workerproductivity. Little gains in productivity turn into big profitsfast, says Jack Zenger, chairman of Times Mirror Training Inc., theworld's largest group of employee training companies (amongthem: Zenger Miller and Learning International). "Increasingproductivity by only 5 percent can increase profits by 50percent," promises Zenger.

Here's how Zenger's arithmetic works: In most companies,costs associated with labor comprise half or more of totalexpenditures. "Assuming the business has a 5 percent return onsales, a 10 percent increase in productivity will doubleprofitability," says Zenger.

That's a realistic goal, too, because productivity in theUnited States has been flat for a quarter century. While expertsdebate why American productivity can't seem to overcome itsplateau, Zenger has no doubt that easy, cheap strategies cantranslate into higher productivity for your company.