As businesses strategically plan for future growth, employee productivity should be organizations’ top priority.
The most important element of a company are its employees, after all, productive employees are what makes a company successful in the first place.
Striving to improve employee performance is where employers invariably focus their energy, but what about employee productivity? These concepts may be related, but they are not the same thing. Smart employers work to achieve a golden combination, an engaged workforce that is also highly productive.
Employee productivity measures how much a person achieves (output) against how much effort they put in (input). Productive employees embrace teamwork, use tools efficiently, automate workflows and continually look for ways to innovate.
Business leaders who are committed to improving employee productivity do not necessarily have to approve big raises, give lavish gifts or promise new incentives. However, there are more practical and effective ways to generate greater productivity from the workforce. It all starts with employee engagement. Disengaged employees are a drain on companies. Engaged employees show up more often, stay longer, and are more productive overall.
According to an economist, Mr. Tunde Oyediran, improving employee efficiency must be the top priority of every business owner aiming for growth and scale. This makes evaluating new ways to ensure your employees are always productive, remote, or in an office setup crucial.
He stated that “it is no secret that employees are the lifeblood of any business. They are the ones who interact with customers, produce products and services, and ultimately drive company growth. For this reason, businesses must do everything they can to boost employee productivity.”
He added that “COVID-19 has forced businesses of all sizes to reevaluate their operations. For many organisations, this has meant a shift to remote work. While this transition may have been challenging, it also presented several advantages and opportunities to improve employee productivity. One of the most significant benefits of remote work is eliminating time spent on commuting.”
Ways To Improve Employee Productivity In Workplace
If organisations want to make employees productive, it will need to make sure they are working in optimal conditions.
Allow flexible schedules, make the work hours flexible and allow remote work. Select positions eligible to work remotely, define availability hours for remote workers, define specific response time, and instruct employees to log their time for productivity reports.
Provide better employee training: Training and development help improve employee knowledge, and then their work performance, by extension.
Stop micromanagement in task delegation: Task delegation is productive in itself, but managers often cannot let go of tasks they have given to others, so they micromanage every detail, rendering task delegation pointless.
Improve office communication: In teamwork, good collaboration leads to optimal productivity and efficacy, and good collaboration stems from good communication and feedback. Build teamwork purposefully. Productivity-rich teamwork does not happen by accident, you and your team will have to make an effort to become an effective team.
Encourage self-care: Encouraging employees to take care of themselves goes a long way in encouraging employees to care about their tasks and projects. Encourage the use of health insurance benefits. Make sure employees are aware of all health benefits the company offers, and then make sure to encourage them to take the available full-physical exams, vaccinations, and other benefits.
Once an organisation understand the importance of employee productivity for the success of the company, the management needs to implement the right steps to measure, calculate, and most importantly, increase this valuable business resource.
In order to do so, management needs to pay equal attention to what is beneficial for the company and what’s beneficial for the employees, make sure you improve workplace conditions, optimise emailing and meetings, allows flexible employee schedules, provide optimal employee training, refrain from micromanaging everything, improve office communication, as well as encourage employee self-care.
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