In a previous post, we discussed the importance of employee productivity for businesses across all industries. Labor is a significant input into so many businesses, it’s crucial to make sure you’re getting the most out of that input.
In that article, we also discussed developing metrics for measuring employee productivity. But those metrics are only useful if employees are engaged and participating in the efforts to measure and improve.
HR Technologist suggests some tips for encouraging such engagement.
Track Individual Employees’ Progress
Productivity of your company as a whole is important; however, your company is made up of individual employees, so it’s important to measure them as individuals as well. If delivered correctly, individual feedback will help motivate the employee as an individual.
As we alluded to in the previous post, involving employees in the creation of metrics to track performance is critical to ensure their involvement and commitment to achieving desired results.
Encourage Employee Participation
There are many ways to encourage employee participation in productivity measurement processes. Perhaps the most obvious is to tie overall productivity or improvements in productivity to compensation. But, don’t stop there. There are opportunities to be creative in encouraging greater productivity.
For instance, games or challenges can be a fun and motivating way to drive employees toward greater output. Challenges can be individual, team-based, or some combination thereof. Challenges don’t, though, have to be pitting one employee or one team against another. Employees can be encouraged to beat their personal best, as well, continually driving toward ongoing improvement.
Motivate Employees
This may sound easier said than done; however, good employees typically want to perform well at work, and financial incentives aren’t the only way to encourage and motivate employees.
Public recognition, for example, is a great motivator that costs very little. Public recognition and shared celebrations are also great ways to emphasize teamwork and highlight the contributions that employees are making to the company’s success.
Employees like to feel that their efforts make a difference. Tying performance to measurable metrics—and celebrating successes—can be a great way of doing this.
Consider Unusual Circumstances
“While it is important to focus on productivity, certain difficult times may make some other agendas take on more importance,” writes HR Technologist. “Especially when the organization and its employees are going through a large change, the focus may shift to building resources rather than going for productivity.”
Employee productivity should not be overlooked as a key driver of your business’s success. In order to maximize this productivity, it’s key to effectively measure it.
This requires both developing effective metrics, which we discussed in a previous post, and engaging employees in the evaluation effort, which we discussed here.