How to boost unfavourable productivity metrics

Every business cares about productivity, or at least they should. Productivity is arguably one of the most important factors for your success as a business, since it measures how effectively you can convert inputs to outputs. Productive organisations produce more, spend less, and ultimately make bigger profits with fewer errors and hiccups along the way.

But what are you supposed to do if you have unfavourable productivity metrics? In other words, if your productivity is lacking, what steps can you take to boost those numbers and support your organization in becoming more efficient?

Measuring Productivity

It’s not always easy to measure productivity. Although most of us have a keen intuitive understanding of what productivity is and why it’s important to business, we struggle to concretely define it in terms of objective metrics. That’s because there are usually multiple competing ideas for what best represents productivity.

For example:

• Time spent. Is productivity merely a measure of how much time you spend on a given task? In some ways, this makes sense. A person who gets 10 tasks done in a day is almost indisputably more productive than a person who gets 8 tasks done in a day, all other factors being equal. But what if that latter person produces better quality work?
• Total output. We can also consider productivity in terms of quantity and quality of output. This is especially valuable in industries focused on creation or concretely measurable productivity systems, but it’s not exactly applicable in careers and fields that are more nebulous when it comes to output.
• Process and efficiency metrics. It’s also possible to measure productivity in terms of process and efficiency metrics. For example, how closely are your procedures followed, and how much are your employees producing compared to what you’re paying for them?

How to Boost Unfavourable Productivity Metrics

In any case, if you come to realize that your productivity metrics aren’t quite where they need to be, there are many strategies that can help you create more value.

• Analyse prospective root causes. You should start by analysing the prospective root causes. Is your productivity issue relegated to a single department or a handful of individuals? If so, conduct an investigation and see if you can figure out what’s going on. If and when you uncover the root cause of a productivity problem, devise a strategy for addressing that root cause, and your issues will likely disappear.
• Meet with the team. You can also meet with the team having the productivity issue. Don’t be judgmental or accusatory, but do open the floor to a conversation and ask some critical questions to see if you can get to the bottom of the issue. Do these employees have an intuition for why productivity is lower than expected? Do they have ideas for how to make it higher? You might be surprised at what they come up with.
• Redesign your processes and workflows. Improving your workflows can make a dramatic difference in your overall productivity. If you cut redundant steps, streamline existing steps, and polish your processes for speed and efficiency, you’ll have much more fluid processes for your workers to follow—and they’ll spend less time on their main work.
• Introduce automation. Automation is one of the most powerful tools available to your business, since it can essentially cut out the need for manual labor with respect to the most important processes in your business. Apply it everywhere you can.
• Provide more motivation. Sometimes, productivity is mostly a motivation issue. How can you inspire your employees to work harder or produce more? Can you give your workers more autonomy or rewards for doing great work?
• Empower your leaders. Great leaders can inspire teams to reach new productivity heights. Appoint good leaders and make sure they have everything necessary to be successful in their roles.
• Boost morale. Morale has a direct impact on productivity. The higher employee morale is, the more productive your employees are going to be. There are many ways that you can boost employee morale, such as increasing compensation, distributing specific rewards, offering unique benefits, or simply hosting team celebrations.
• Look at recruiting and hiring. If your productivity issues seem to run deeper, consider examining your recruiting and hiring strategies. How are you staffing your organization? Are you sure that you’re recruiting people who have the skills, experiences, and culture fit to succeed here?
• Adapt. Optimising productivity is an ongoing process, and not something you can genuinely complete. You have to have a continuous, adaptive mindset if you want to keep improving.

Addressing underlying productivity issues isn’t always easy, especially if you aren’t sure how to measure productivity. But if you continue making a concentrated effort to boost productivity in your organization, and you keep a close eye on your most important metrics, you’ll be in a fantastic position to succeed in the long term.

This article is from the Brand Desk. User discretion is advised.