At my first job, we had people holding down jobs that have all but disappeared today. It was, at that time, a small, fiercely ambitious company building computers and some of the employees I am talking about didn’t really have difficult-to-acquire skills. Specifically, we had three stenographer-typist-secretaries, a telex machine operator and a receptionist–in a branch office of 30 people.

For a some what more difficult skill, when needed I could have allocated to me a colleague from our software support team to come with me to prospects’ offices to “give demos” of our applications. But that didn’t last either. All of us sales executives were put through a series of training modules to be able to demonstrate our great products ourselves! You know what happened to the other roles. The fax and email replaced the telex. Later we were given PCs and soon laptops. Like everyone else I learnt to type my own proposals and correspondence. And the man from security moved to our floor and became our receptionist-cum-security guard-cum-administration manager. I knew from friends in larger companies that we multi-tasked way more than they did. But there was a broad change afoot with the “easier” roles migrating and consolidating in others.

Over the years, I have seen large multinationals using more rigid delineation of roles and responsibilities. With more “specialization”, they had the advantage of having a resource for every task. Employees dived deeply into their areas of expertise and did their jobs better and faster than their multi-tasking small company counterparts. In that environment, deadlines were strictly adhered to–after all, resources were abundant so there were no excuses for slippages.

Perhaps it was a simpler time, but the pressures to produce were not nearly as intense. We may not have seen all the changes in the air then, but they clearly happened.

 Flash forward a decade and the climate at most businesses, large and small, has changed. Lean economic conditions and reduced financial leverage has resulted in a common theme of “understaffing”. A recent article in the Washington Business Journal, points to a recent business confidence survey of 427 IT companies by industry group CompTIA. More than half (54%) reported they were understaffed. Also, more significant staffing short falls were found at larger companies with revenues over $100 million. Clearly, unlike the relatively easygoing environment even in theoffices of my ambitious, first employer, the demands to produce across businesses have only increased.

A corollary of chronic understaffing is chronic employee dissatisfaction. A recent Bloomberg Business Week blog post suggests that 20% or more of the workforce of a typical company feel frustrated. And the authors are quick to point out that this figure does not include the employees who are already too “checked out” to even experience stress–a situation that cannot be good for productivity, agility and competitiveness!

So are we all permanently doomed to late nights and stress eating? Perhaps the changed work paradigms of today cannot be rolled back to less stressed times. But there are smarter ways to retain effectiveness, and manage performance. Here are four ways forward that can positively impact the productivity equation:

• Enhancing Employability

  
  Globalization is often considered a prime driver of high unemployment rates in developed countries. However, “unemployability” of human resources is a factor that continues to fuel the fire of unemployment. Outsourcing to developing countries is becoming less about cost arbitrage and more about acquiring intellectual capital and skills. Planning for skill set shortages including making training more available, not only for today, but for those five years from now, is the best way for a global company to increase its pool of available resources in all geographies. This strategy may or may not include expensive formal training, but must drive increased inter-departmental rotations and cross-geography cross-functional exposure that redistribute intellectual capital.

• "Partnering" to Outsource

  
  Smart organizations are looking to outsource more non-core and even core activities to service providers that will sign up to align with their business goals. This requires a paradigm shift with buyers evolving from the earlier mindset of “managing vendors” towards “virtualizing business” with symbiotic, deeply engaged specialist partners. Providers too need to offer not just the common outsourcing services, but consultative, customized solutions for the resource crunch that enterprises face today–by adopting a more comprehensive approach to business. This includes globally expert sourcing capabilities and experience in skill areas that the client is short on.

• Balancing Decentralized Resources

  
  Technological advances and modern telecom have made it easier for businesses to organize around their local markets while still remaining connected to the corporate hub. While decentralization can result in greater responsiveness to local market needs (including better language and time zone servicing), smaller satellite offices mean that people are more likely to juggle multiple roles. Careful planning of which tasks need to be decentralized, like through establishing shared services operations, will help reduce the unnecessary duplication of roles and optimize work.

• Reducing Waste

  
  We all recognize that longer hours at work do not translate into better results. C-level executives are not always the best people to monitor inefficiencies. Ideally, managers on the front lines should be conditioned to spot waste (e.g., manual processes that could be automated, tasks that add little value, unnecessary meetings, etc.) that result in more work for fewer tangible results. The senior executives must build a result-oriented culture with waste elimination as the key element.

Only by rethinking our approach to resource productivity will businesses be able to regain the effectiveness, specialization, and timeliness that they were accustomed to in the past with the cost and performance efficiency that the future demands.