Productivity levels have increased, according to new data. Find out how your agency stacks up as the New Year kicks off.

With 2018 underway, now is the perfect time to think about your productivity levels across the business.

In particular, carving out some time to consider your recruitment agency's Gross Profit (or Net Fee Income) per full time equivalent staff member. Doing this will help provide you with a clear set of benchmarks to work from during the year ahead.

To help, take a look at the latest staff productivity figures that Staffing Industry Metrics has shared with APositive this week.

Put simply, data from 121 Australian and New Zealand recruitment agencies reveals improvement in productivity levels for all team sizes in 2017.

However, it's the larger teams that are making the most headway in this buoyant market.

If you read last month's article on high staff turnover in the recruitment industry, you will know the smaller teams have experienced the highest churn levels. This means, in many cases, the increase in productivity is due to a similar volume of work being carried out by less people.

So, how do your productivity levels stack up compared to these 2017 findings?

Recruitment agencies with 10 or less staff
Annual productivity growth of 1-4 per cent

1. Average annual gross profit per person lifted four per cent to $201,000.
2. The top 25 per cent of participants lifted gross profit per person by two per cent to $244,000.
3. The top 10 per cent improved by one per cent to $338,000.

Recruitment agencies with 11 to 20 staff
Annual productivity growth of 3-12 per cent

1. Average annual gross profit per person lifted 12 per cent to $176,000.
2. The top 25 per cent of participants lifted gross profit per person by seven per cent to $220,000.
3. The top 10 per cent improved by three per cent to $276,000.

Recruitment agencies with 21 to 40 staff
Annual productivity growth of 3-10 per cent

1. Average annual gross profit per person lifted six per cent to $178,000.
2. The top 25 per cent of participants lifted gross profit per person by 10 per cent to $210,000.
3. The top 10 per cent improved by three per cent to $230,000.

Recruitment agencies with 40+ staff
Annual productivity growth of 10-13 per cent

1. Average annual gross profit per person lifted 12 per cent to $255,000.
2. The top 25 per cent of participants lifted gross profit per person by 13 per cent to $270,000.
3. The top 10 per cent improved by 15 per cent to $288,000.

So, regardless of team size if your productivity per person has improved by 10 per cent or more during the past 12 months, you are tracking better than most recruitment agencies in Australia and New Zealand.

P.S. If you found this article interesting, you might also like to read: Size matters for staffing and recruitment agencies.