Productive employees are the force behind successful businesses. If employees are not motivated to perform at their best, companies struggle to achieve their goals. In the workplace, productivity can be defined as the ratio between output and input, where output is the number of services and goods delivered, and input is the amount of labor and operational costs. Thus, productivity is a measurable value.
Measuring workplace productivity helps companies develop growth strategies, keep costs under control, and improve performance metrics.
Here are a few essential tips to help managers and business owners measure and increase employee productivity.
Implement a Time Tracking System
Alongside money, time is the most valuable commodity in the business world. It’s impossible to measure or increase employee productivity without effective time management strategies. Many digital solutions are designed to help business administrators manage employee time.
Get a time keeping app for your team, and you’ll get highly accurate and detailed timesheets with valuable insights about your team’s performance. Employees can update their hours in real-time using their smartphones. It cannot get easier than this.
Digital tools have taken time tracking to an art form, so find the right one for you. You will quickly organize workflow in your company and increase productivity as a result.
Assign Clear and Specific Tasks
Assigning clear and specific tasks is essential for measuring employee productivity accurately. Employees must know what they need to do and how much time they have available. Without clear instructions and time limitations, self-management becomes a challenge.
What is the expected output in a given period? Turn expectations into measurable objectives. The tasks that reach the employees’ to-do lists should be specific and include action verbs. A task like “call new clients” is neither specific nor measurable. However, measuring the success of a task like “make five sale calls per day” is a lot easier. You’ll be able to tell at the end of the day whether the employee’s productivity met your expectations or not.
Deadlines are also an excellent way to track and measure employee productivity. Without deadlines, there’s no end goal to work towards, and most individuals are most likely to procrastinate on a task.
Offer Constant Feedback
An important thing to consider when analyzing employee productivity is that self-assessment is challenging. Employees may find it problematic to evaluate themselves objectively. They may not know how they stand because they don’t have a comparison term.
As a manager or business owner, you can help employees manage their time and energy more efficiently. To achieve this goal, you must measure their productivity and provide detailed, real-time feedback.
Getting feedback will help employees understand if they are performing according to your expectations. It will also help them understand their strengths and weaknesses. When offering feedback, make sure to focus on positives too. Let employees know when their performance is excellent. If you suggest areas of improvement, also discuss potential corrective strategies.
Providing feedback is one of the most useful management practices because it produces immediate results and helps employees maintain stable performance.
Provide Growth Opportunities
An excellent way to measure and increase employee productivity is to give employees the chance to grow professionally. Assign a task that is a bit more complex than the last one. Make employees with different skill sets work with each other. Ask employees to make independent decisions. Give them flexible tasks so they can practice self-accountability.
The more opportunities they have to learn things, refine their skills, or test new work approaches, the more productive and engaged your employees will become.
Training sessions and courses are also great opportunities for professional growth. After implementing a training program, you will notice a significant increase in productivity. A training program can help employees make fewer mistakes, improve their precision, and communicate better. All these improvements will reflect on their productivity.
An important thing to consider is that motivation soars when employees feel challenged. They must also sense that they have adequate help to evolve professionally. Moreover, employees that are strongly motivated to stay within the company will be more proactive about maintaining top productivity.
Final Words
Use these management tactics to help your employees improve their performance and productivity. Every employee can become a high achiever with proper guidance and in the right work environment.
Set clear objectives with deadlines, track work hours, offer feedback, and help employees learn a bit more every day about their profession and role. The results will not fail to appear.
Any investment in employee productivity will improve your company’s culture and produce long-term benefits.
