Free Productivity Benchmark

Before you hire again, see what your team produces against your industry.

Compare your revenue per payroll employee and wage costs with published New Zealand industry figures. Then use an optional self-assessment to identify questions about sales, processes, systems and management that are worth investigating. Your initial results are available without contact details.

Your numbers aren't saved unless you ask for the report.

Productivity Benchmark

Search for the activity that best describes your business, such as engineering, freight or building.
Count everyone paid through PAYE, including full-time and part-time employees. Use people, not full-time equivalents. Exclude owners paid only through drawings. Use a count that is meaningful alongside your financial-year figures. Recent hires and seasonal changes can affect the comparison.
Enter total income excluding GST, using your profit and loss statement. You can use figures such as 800k or 12.5m.
Enter gross wages and salaries before employee tax. Exclude employer KiwiSaver contributions and ACC. This adds a wages-to-revenue comparison.
Enter 0 if you are not planning any new roles.
Use the base annual salary before employer KiwiSaver and ACC. The illustration excludes other employment costs.

Which areas are worth investigating?

How true is each statement for your business as it runs today?

Sales and pricing
We know which customers and products contribute the most margin.
We have reviewed our prices in the past 12 months.
We know where new business comes from and how dependable those sources are, including referrals.
We follow up every quote or enquiry within an agreed time.
We know what it costs to win a new customer.
Process and admin
Our main processes, from order to invoice, are documented and followed consistently.
We know approximately how many hours our team spends on administration each week.
Work rarely waits for one person’s approval or knowledge.
We track how long our main jobs take from start to finish.
When something goes wrong, we address the underlying cause.
Systems, data and AI
Our main systems share information without people entering it again.
Our management reports are timely, reliable and suited to the decisions we need to make.
Our accounting and operating systems are maintained and fit the work, whether hosted locally or in the cloud.
We have written rules for staff use of AI, including which customer information can be used.
We assess tools against a defined business need and decide when AI is unsuitable.
Management and skills
Our managers have received training for their management responsibilities.
Each manager knows the two or three measures they own and reviews them weekly.
The business could run well for a month without the owner or general manager.
Staff turnover is stable or falling.
We have a plan for the skills the business will need over the next three years, including AI.

Get the full report

We'll email you a link to your report with the first three moves for each area unlocked. Share it with your board or your accountant.

When you ask for the report, we save your figures so we can send it. You can delete them any time from the link in the email. See our privacy policy.

01

Start with a useful comparison

Choose your industry and enter your payroll headcount and last financial year’s revenue. Add annual wages and planned roles if you want more context. The result shows your figures alongside the available industry comparison and identifies the source year.

A difference can prompt a useful discussion about your business model, product mix, prices or the way work gets done. Use it to choose what to examine before committing to a larger change.

02

Look at the work behind the figures

The optional 20-statement assessment covers sales and pricing, process and administration, systems and AI, and management and skills. Your ratings show where practices appear more established and where they are less consistent.

You can see the scores on screen. If several areas score equally, they are shown together. A low score gives you a question to investigate using business records and examples from daily work.

03

Keep the comparison in perspective

Revenue per payroll employee compares total income with payroll headcount. What you sell, pricing, outsourced work, hours and your mix of full-time and part-time employees help explain differences between businesses.

Discuss the comparison alongside your margins, customer demand and how work is delivered.

04

Take the useful question into the business

Review the result with the people who understand your customers, finances and operation. Check the inputs, identify the most plausible explanation and decide what further evidence would help.

You can request an emailed report containing your comparison, completed assessment scores and three suggested actions for each assessed area. You can also speak with us directly about a priority the result has brought into focus.

Discuss what your result means

FAQ

Questions answered

Where do the industry figures come from?

The comparison uses published Stats NZ Annual Enterprise Survey figures for total income per employee and salaries and wages as a share of total income. Your result identifies the industry, business-size grouping where available, source year and any provisional status. The source link is shown alongside the figures.

How should I count people?

Count the people paid through PAYE, including full-time and part-time employees. Use headcount, not full-time equivalents. Exclude owners who are paid only through drawings. The timing of your payroll count may differ from the source survey period, so consider seasonal and recent staffing changes when reviewing the result.

What does the illustrative gap mean?

We subtract your revenue per person from the industry figure, take half the difference and multiply by your payroll headcount. The employee equivalent uses that halfway revenue-per-person figure while keeping revenue unchanged.

Will my figures be saved?

Your figures are not saved unless you request the report. If you do, we save the information needed to provide it for up to 24 months. You can delete the saved benchmark information from your private report, which you open using the link in the report email. See our Privacy notice for the wider handling of enquiries and contact details.

Does this use AI to calculate the result?

No. The financial comparison uses fixed calculations and published industry data. The self-assessment uses your selected ratings. Both are starting points for a business discussion.

Do I need to finish the assessment before contacting you?

No. You can discuss a business priority at any time. The comparison and assessment are optional tools to help frame that conversation.

Next

Related

Business consultingSpark SprintBusiness Opportunity Brief

What does the comparison make you want to understand?

Tell us which figure or operating issue deserves a closer look, why it matters and what you want to change. We can explore whether a focused review, a Spark Sprint or a defined project would be useful.

Discuss your priorities