What is Workforce Optimization?
What is workforce optimization and how can it impact your bottom line? We explore what this means for all industries but specifically how it can...
How to increase workforce productivity
Workforce productivity is the sum of what employees do each day. Put simply, this concept denotes the total amount of goods and services produced through an understanding of an organization's biggest asset—their people. Payroll often ranks highest among company expenditures, sometimes using up to one-third of a company's revenue. With labor shortages impacting the supply of available workers and turnover rates, employers must hire the right people and ensure that they’re creating environments for employees to be able to work in the most efficient manner. Hiring, onboarding, and productivity standards are extremely important for businesses to invest in.
If workforce productivity is the output, organizations must consider a myriad of inputs. Some considerations happen during initial interviews, where employers search for employees with the right skillsets, aptitudes, and mindsets. However, much of workforce productivity relies on day-to-day operations, leveraging human resources in the right ways—through the right metrics and insights, management and oversight, and tools and investments.
Workforce productivity prescribes the measurements that show how daily outputs fluctuate over time—and measures how and why these numbers fluctuate. Measuring employee performance ensures that employers can optimize workers' time on the clock by acknowledging both efficiencies and places where their employee's performance can be improved. In doing so, organizations can evolve to streamline operations and productivity in the workplace levels in the best way possible. This will remove any friction that impedes employee productivity in the workplace.
Workforce productivity is the outcome of the goods created and services rendered by employees each day, measurements are the tools to qualify and quantify the relevant metrics accurately. The desired outputs will generally trend with client demand or production goals. Workforce productivity metrics create the link between what employees produce and required levels of demand. That means employers must relate employee production with the documented processes, communications, and methods that move them toward desired goals.
So how do you measure productivity? Companies must leverage the right metrics to succeed. In all the complexities of day-to-day operations, we can boil down measurements for productivity in the workplace into six major categories: the physical work environment, individual behavior, managerial oversight, quality management, market conditions, client demands, and technologies. Here is a brief overview of what these metrics mean:
Optimizing employee productivity means knowing what to do with the right metrics. This entails utilizing the right software technologies to lessen the burden of managers and analyze key metrics to inform operational decisions. There is no way for managers to manually track everything their employees do, and this is where the right technologies are critical to improving employee productivity. Incorporating the right software technologies doesn't mean managers don't interact with their employees—it only means they can be more strategic in their interpersonal interactions, leveraging automation for a more clear picture of daily productivity.
Successful companies know their business operations inside and out. However, in a time of rapid change and unprecedented shocks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it's hard to know what to expect.
Productivity targets now may not correspond with future demand: when boom or bust markets come, we must have the tools to know what to do. Essentially, workforce productivity metrics must provide the context of market fluctuations and demand's flexibility over time.
Importantly, innovation occurs at a fast clip. What was thought to be efficient in the past may not be effective tomorrow. Think about the manufacturing line before Henry Ford's paradigm-shifting ideas. Individual workers were tasked with assembling an entire car to just assembling one part. This one new idea cut the time to make one car from over twelve hours to less than two! This is a great reminder that dedication to changes that increase employee productivity requires some flexibility to recognize and allow improvements in day-to-day operations.
Strategies to optimize employee productivity inherently involve tracking key metrics in order to implement new ways to streamline operations. To accomplish a holistic approach to workforce productivity that doesn't involve unreasonable expectations or forgo workers' health and wellness, organizations must leverage technology to reach their goals. Ways to increase employee productivity are often intertwined with company culture, proper management, and good communication.
Furthermore, productivity in the workplace involves investing in the right technologies to ensure peak efficiencies. Volan Technology offers software packages that are tailored to specific company needs and can be leveraged to reach production targets and quality levels that consumers expect. Ultimately, workforce productivity tools include metrics and technology alongside the right implementation strategies. Here are a few strategies for leveraging tools that optimize productivity in the workplace:
In companies across all industries, budgets are tight, and competition is fierce; organizations can't lose an inch in the marketplace. Workforce productivity prescribes a set of strategies and tools to reach peak efficiency throughout an organization. This includes basic metrics related to individual, daily goals, alongside what should be documented in the workplace environment, organizational culture, and managerial practices that can help organizational productivity in the workplace. Importantly, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for every company. Whether you have a large or small business, leadership must understand the ins and outs of their organization. Workforce productivity relates directly to overall business growth, individual careers, employee turnover, and customer satisfaction.
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