Employee Productivity – How to Measure and Improve

How do you build a working environment where employees can work with satisfaction?

Employee productivity is nowadays a trend. Thanks to the managers’ understanding of the psychology of the workplace and using new tools and technology.

Employees are the most important and valuable asset for a company. After all, the productivity of the employees is what makes a company successful in the first place. 

This blog is about how you can define, measure, and improve employee productivity at your workplace.

What is Employee Productivity?

We often think that the productivity of employees means getting more things done each day. Wrong. Employee productivity means getting important things done consistently.

Employee productivity is defined as the amount of work an employee can perform in a given time. It is a simple measurement but the factors that influence it are varied and complex. These factors include everything from the tools employees use to the environment their organization builds to achieve success.

No two employees’ productivity can be the same, there will always be a difference. For instance, an employee who spends a long time completing one outstanding piece of a project is as important as a person who creates large volumes in a short time.

Businesses can measure productivity on a company or a team level, and also by looking at each individual’s rate of output.

How Do You Measuring Employee Productivity

By now you know what productivity of employees means. It is very important to increase the productivity of an employee at your workplace. However, if you want to increase, you need to measure. 

One of the best ways to measure the success of an individual, a team, or the overall organization is by using the employee productivity formula. The basic idea is to compare the input with the output. Below is the formula:

Productivity = Output unit (the volume you create) / input unit (labor hours and resources)

Efficiency and effectiveness measurements

You can measure productivity by efficiency – How simple it sounds.

What transpires, though, if efficiency is high but the quality is low? By including quality requirements, productivity effectiveness metrics attempt to resolve this query.

For instance, at a contact center, the number of calls finished where the customer has given the service level a rating of 7/10 or higher could be used to determine an employee’s productivity. Although this type of assessment depends on quantifying quality, which is not always achievable, it offers more information than efficiency measurement alone.

In addition to employee time, certain productivity metrics also consider the monetary investment that went into the outcomes. For instance, Employee A might have improved greatly as a result of the employer’s thorough training. Employee B, on the other hand, might have been hired with the same skills. An organization might score Employee B’s productivity better if we include financial costs.

The capability to do these kinds of measurements can become even more important as businesses consider hiring new employees or providing training for a new type of workplace. Which is more expensive: employing the necessary talents or training new employees? Is it more affordable to “purchase” productivity or to develop it in-house?

The A, B, C, & D of Productivity at Work

Factors Affecting Employee Productivity

No two employees are the same. Some employees might be highly productive while some might take longer than others to complete a task. A few reasons why the productivity of employees may vary is due to personality, work styles, or their ability – the reasons which you cannot always control. But there are factors that you can alter to help the employees reach their highest potential.

Below are a few factors that can affect employee productivity:

• Employee Wellness

Are your employees healthy and happy? As an employer, you must provide your employees with all the tools they might require when they don’t feel their best. Doing this will show your employees that you care and help avoid future problems. Creating wellness programs, offering them healthy food options at the office cafeteria, and encouraging your employees to put their welfare first will help you develop a healthy and happy workplace.

• Communication Tools

How easy is it for your people to communicate with each other while they are at work? To improve employee productivity, offer your employees business communication tools and channels that are easy to use, reliable, and high-quality. This will help your employees have clear communication and avoid any confusion. Efficient social technologies help improve employee productivity by 20-25%.

• Management Practices

Is your team leader engaged? How does this impact employee engagement? To improve employee productivity, managers should be available and approachable when in need. Also, managers should be capable enough to work with individual employees’ strengths to help them develop and perform. Organizations that want to set the best example of employee productivity try to help people emotionally invest in their work and use their talent to the fullest. 

• Tools

Provide your employees with the right tool at work and also train them to use those tools effectively. Providing tools is not enough, the tools should be intuitive and of high quality in order to avoid extra time and effort from the employees to get the work done in the proper manner.

• Training

Train your employees to perform their daily tasks and tackle routine challenges with no hassle or minimum help. Provide them with the right level of onboarding and continuous training to help them update their skills as per trends.

How a Centralized Business Management System can Help You Maximize Productivity?

Ideas to Improve Employee Productivity?

We have touched on a few things that affect employee productivity like management practices, training, wellness, etc. However, what should you do if the members of your team are not productive as you expect them to be? Below are some ideas that would motivate your employees and boost productivity.

• Encourage and Praise

Praising your employees when they are productive will make them feel good. Send the message to their entire team to recognize the employee and to let others know that you value your employees’ hard work and effort.

Apart from that, try to find out ways to encourage your employees when they are working on a challenging task. It will make them feel a supporting hand and make them believe that you have confidence in them.

• Give People Time to Refuel

It may seem illogical to offer employees time off to increase their productivity, but doing so makes sense if it also gives them a chance to rest and refuel. Undoubtedly, burnout prevents us from giving our best effort.

• Define Clear Goals

That adage that suggests breaking up difficult work into manageable pieces? It’s relevant here. Despite the fact that it might seem obvious to you, that the team member may not fully understand your expectations for their work, thus you occasionally need to be more detailed about the fundamentals.

Make sure the employee is aware of the requirements, including the due date and method. Make it clear that if they have any queries, they may do so and receive a helpful response. Set both long- and short-term objectives with the employee and make sure they are aware of the procedures necessary to accomplish them.

• Create competition

In an organization, we work in groups and also want to compete and be the best. You can introduce some friendly competition along with some rewards that will help motivate a not-so-productive employee who feels switched off from their job.

• Offer Incentives

Offering rewards and benefits for good outputs is a trusted strategy for so many businesses. But on a closing note, how you implement your incentive program can make or break its effectiveness.

Online Productivity Tools: Cost Effective and Hassle Free Work

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that many companies may sometimes observe a productivity slump but that phase is not permanent. Once you have identified the root cause of the low productivity in the workplace, ensure taking appropriate steps and bringing in the right solutions for your employees.

Get in the best communication tools, and performance management tools to see which employee lacks productivity and implement the above methods to boost their morale. UBS is one such HRMS tool that helps you establish clear communication, work management, and much more. Get in touch.