NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND — Squeezing more productivity out of employees while keeping costs down in an ancient ambition and many an effective and ineffective technique has been employed in its pursuit. A British business consultant has proposed what may be one of the more provocative methods: nudity. According to self-dubbed “business psychologist,” David Taylor, an excellent way to get the most out of employees is to encourage them to work in the nude.
Only one day a week, mind you. The kind of hyper efficiency that a naked workforce is likely to let loose upon an unsuspecting populace can’t be underestimated, after all.
Taylor points to an improvement in productivity experienced by onebestway, a design and marketing company which The Sun reports he provided consultation services for when it was losing money and firing employees this past spring.
“Inviting an organization to go naked is the most extreme technique I’ve used,” Taylor admits. “It may seem weird, but it works. It’s the ultimate expression of trust in yourself and each other.”
Mike Owen, the 40-year-old managing director of onebestway, observes that “We’re either brave or mad. But I did tell everyone they didn’t have to do it – only if it felt right. As a creative company, we persuade our clients to be brave and this was about taking on some of the braveness ourselves.”
Owen’s company was so brave that it not only experienced a notable improvement but will be featured on cable channel Virgin 1’s July 9th airing of Naked Office.
Staff didn’t go full Monty all at once, as Owen explains it. Instead, they photocopied body parts and sketched a nude model in anticipation of the day when they, too, would bare their all in an attempt to become more than they were.
When the day to shed inhibitions and garments arrived, all but three staffers showed the world what they were made of. Two women stripped down to black underwear and one man kept his dangly bits secure with a banana hammock.
The only woman to fully participate in the nude work day was 23-year-old Sam Jackson, who proclaimed the event to be “brilliant.”
As Jackson explains it, “Now that we’ve seen each other naked, there are no barriers.”
A lesson for the world at large.
