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Norway most productive country in northern Europe: research

A report detailing productivity levels in over 35 countries says that Norway’s output per person has grown by 9 percent over the past year, despite the country having t one of the shortest working weeks.

Published: 16 August 2017 17:16 CEST
Norway most productive country in northern Europe: research
Photo: pxhidalgo/Depositphotos

The second annual Global Productivity report, released by B2B marketplace Expert Market, reveals the workforces that bring the most back to the businesses they work for, and the results revealed that the Nordic region is the most productive in Europe.

The report investigates productivity levels in over 35 countries using GDP per capita data divided by the average number of hours worked to determine the productivity sum per person, and identify the countries with the most effective workforces. 

Norway emerged as the overall productivity winner in Northern Europe, ranking in second place overall, with an output per person that has grown by 9 percent over the past year. 

Norwegian workers enjoy one of the shortest workweeks at 27 hours and yield an impressive productivity sum of £39.72 (337 kroner) per person for every hour worked.

The results of the report show that being chained to your desk does not necessarily translate to an economic advantage, say the researchers behind it.

“Our data has shown, both this year and last year when we first ran the study, that there is a definite correlation between a shorter working week and productivity. Countries that have shorter working weeks in general are more productive, whereas countries which have a culture of presenteeism and long desk hours actually get less out of their teams,” Adelle Kehoe, lead researcher at Expert Market, told The Local via email.

READ ALSO: Feature: How to get a job in Norway (from 2013)

Kehoe added that there were some exceptions to the trend.

“Germany, for instance, has the shortest working week of all of the countries included but productivity there has gone down. This suggests that in Norway and Denmark, the move to shorter hours must have come with a very clear cultural shift about what you can get done in a shorter space of time, and a focus on focusing and delivering while at work and then having more time away from the office to reboot in between,” she said.

Iceland climbed the list by the most places, moving by 10 positions from 15th to 5th. 


Graphic: Expert Market

Workers in Iceland clock up slightly longer hours than Norwegians but appear to put their time to much better use, according to the report, as the productivity per person skyrocketed by 48 percent in just 12 months. 

Denmark also ranked among the top 10 most productive countries, moving up from 7th to 4th place. 

The UK is one of the few countries in Europe where the output is in decline – the productivity per person dipped by an alarming 7 percent over the past year alone. 

The results of the report added important perspective in discussion of how different working cultures can be effective, Kehoe told The Local.

“I think there is an interesting conversation going on, especially in tech and new businesses about the impact of presenteeism, or the culture of long working hours. This study is a simple way to assess the outcome vs. the input and work out which approach yields the best results.

“Seeing the performance of countries like Norway and Denmark really backs up our ethos as a business where work-life balance is championed and there are no medals for time spent at your desk,” she said. 

READ ALSO: Norway named the world’s happiest country

WORK

Drug and harassment allegations plunge Bejart Ballet into turmoil

Switzerland's prestigious Bejart Ballet Lausanne company faces a probe as allegations of drug use, harassment and abuse of power raise the question why nothing apparently changed after an earlier investigation raised similar issues.

Published: 13 June 2021 12:07 CEST
Drug and harassment allegations plunge Bejart Ballet into turmoil
Bejart Ballet dancers perform at Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" in the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, on April 3, 2013. credit: YURI KADOBNOV / AFP

The company, founded by the late legendary French choreographer Maurice Bejart, was placed under audit on June 4 over allegations touching on its “working environment and inappropriate behaviour”.

The Maurice Bejart Foundation announced the audit just a week after revealing that the affiliated Rudra Bejart ballet school had fired its
director and stage manager and suspended all classes for a year due to “serious shortcomings” in management.

While the foundation has revealed few details of the allegations facing the two institutions, anonymous testimonies gathered by trade union
representatives and the media paint a bleak picture.

Swiss public broadcaster RTS reported that a number of unidentified former members of the Bejart Ballet Lausanne (BBL) company had written to the foundation, describing the “omnipresence of drugs, nepotism, as well as psychological and sexual harassment”.

Many of the accusations allegedly focus on Gil Roman, who took the helm of BBL when its founder died in 2007.

Roman did not respond to AFP requests to the foundation or BBL seeking comment.

‘Denigration, humiliation’

The French choreographer faced similar allegations during a secret audit a year later, but was permitted to stay on and continue as before, according to RTS and the union representing the dancers.

“We cannot understand what might have been in that audit that would have allowed them to clear him completely,” Anne Papilloud, head of the SSRS union that represents stage performers in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, told AFP.

“The accusations back then were word-for-word the same as today: harassment, denigration, humiliation, insults, temper tantrums, drugs,” she said, citing former company members who had contacted the union in recent weeks and had said they were around during the 2008 audit.

One dancer told RTS on condition of anonymity that it was common for Roman to publicly humiliate dancers who made a misstep, while another said he often asked dancers to bring him marijuana.

“Drugs were part of everyday life at Bejart Ballet,” the broadcaster reported her saying.

Papilloud meanwhile told AFP that the “vast majority of the testimonies I have heard have been about psychological harassment”.

Drug-use had been mentioned, mainly linked to how the drugs “provoked outbursts of anger”, she said.

She said she had also heard a small number of complaints about sexual harassment, although not involving Roman.

‘Terror’

But what stood out most in the dozens of accounts she had heard in recent weeks was the sheer “terror” people described.

Their reaction to what they had been through was “extremely strong”, she said, “almost at the level of post-traumatic stress”.

Papilloud said that as a union representative she had long been aware that BBL was considered a difficult place to work, with low pay compared to the industry standard and little respect for working hours.

But the recent revelations of “an extremely toxic working environment” had come as a shock, she said.

Over 30 current and former BBL members had contacted the union following the upheaval at the Rudra Bejart ballet school, she said.

The school, which halted classes and fired its long-time director Michel Gascard and stage manager Valerie Lacaze, his wife, was reportedly fraught with psychological abuse and tyrannical over-training.

One student described how she had found herself surrounded by teachers and other students who “humiliated and belittled” her, the president of the foundation’s board, Solange Peters, told RTS.

One teacher present at the time reportedly compared the scene to a “lynching”.

The revelations about the school appeared to have “opened a Pandora’s Box”, spurring alleged victims of similar abuse at BBL to come forward, according to Papilloud.

“We have really been inundated,” she said, adding that many hope that “this time, things can change”.

Following close communication with the foundation, the union too is hopeful that the current audit will be handled differently than the last one, with more openness and independence, Papilloud said.

“I think this will not be an audit where things are swept under the carpet.”

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