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With the rising challenges of today’s business opportunities, managers and business owners understand what productivity really is and how they can manage it. Productivity is a pillar to every business achieving success, with the aim of increasing it in the workplace being a constant goal. Learning how to manage productivity is essential to boosting profits and improving business relationships, but it is also vital to maintaining that productive state. A UK study has indicated that workers can stay productive for only two hours and 53 minutes per day. Hence, it’s imperative to maximize productivity management to get as much work done as possible.
What is Productivity Management?
Productivity management is the skills that managers and business owners apply to help individuals and teams improve their overall productivity. Much in the same line of people management, leaders use goals, incentives, development, and communication techniques to aid employees and teams to increase their productivity and fulfill their tasks to achieve business goals. By no means does this imply that managers have the essential role in pushing people harder or having employees work faster. Instead, they recognize each employee’s skills and strengths to get the best out of each person.Â
There are ways to manage productivity that doesn’t entail pushing employees well beyond their level of experience or expertise. Leaders play the vital of a coach in these settings and should be able to recognize and reward employees for their viable contributions. Understanding people’s strengths and work abilities can work better toward their professional goals.Â
To understand productivity management, it’s essential for managers to know how productivity can be boosted in the workplace. This can be done in several ways, such as:
- Setting SMART objectives – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based.
- Communicating properly connects teams and allows collaboration to get work done efficiently.Â
- Building trust to confidently delegate responsibilities is vital to a successful team.Â
- Providing feedback to employees by reflecting on their progress and showing them specifically actionable ways to improve is valuable to increasing productivity.Â
According to a Gallup study, managers account for up to 70 percent of employee engagement. Employee engagement is the engine that fuels productivity and, therefore, profitability for every organization. This is why productivity management is vital to success for every business.
3 Types of Productivity
Productivity management is focused on maintaining a measure of doing the right thing effectively, which is outcome-oriented. This is often expressed in three forms:Â
1. Partial-factor productivity
Commonly referred to as the general definition of productivity, partial factor productivity measures the ratio of total output to a single input. It allows managers to determine the contribution of each factor in producing and generating output. Single input factors can be labor, energy, capital, machinery, materials, etc.Â
This productivity is often used by production managers due to the availability of known factors and access to data that can easily be compared. In addition, partial factor productivity measures provide more accessible references that relate to specific processes, allowing them to make the proper decisions towards productivity management. However, if used alone, it can often lead to misinterpretation.Â
An example of partial-factor productivity is when a business aims to increase labor productivity which increases energy and material productivity since they are closely associated.Â
Partial-factor productivity is also categorized into different types:
- Labor Productivity is the total output ratio based on per hour of work per person. It is mainly used to determine a worker’s efficiency when producing a higher value product.Â
- Capital Productivity is the measure used to determine the relationship between total output and physical capital used. This includes the different assets used, such as workforce, machines, tools, land, etc., which are essential in production.Â
- Material Productivity is the ratio bounded by the total output produced with the per-unit cost of materials used, referred to as total input. This technique is used to measure productivity involving material cost and has a significant role in the cost of production.Â
- Machine Productivity is the ratio between total output and total machine hours in operations. This allows managers to measure a machine unit’s proficiency at transforming raw materials into finished goods or services.
- Personnel Productivity measures productivity for employees who don’t necessarily work with machines and operations-based work. Productivity is determined by aligning output with the general workforce and their specific functions.
2. Multi-factor productivity
Multi-factor productivity measures more than a single input and is defined as the ratio of the total output and total input used to produce the finished goods or services. It indicates the combined effect of all the included inputs to generate the total output. For example, having both labor and capital be indicating factors that determine the ratio of total output using a subset of information.Â
Multi-factor productivity, also known as total productivity, includes all quantifiable factors and output for consideration. It is considered a more accurate representation of the real economic conditions and is valuable to productivity management.
3. Total factor productivity
Total factor productivity is identified by measuring the combined effects of the resources used in production, such as labor, capital, raw material, energy, etc., and dividing it into the output. This type of productivity provides an inclusive index for measuring productivity as it can reflect the changes in outputs and inputs. In addition, it has the benefit of easy calculation, which makes it more useful to gain economic viewpoints for immediate reference.Â
However, total factor productivity is limited in highlighting the interaction of each input and output separately, making it too broad to be used for specific improvements. For reference, total factor productivity is mainly used in Japan, whereas labor productivity is the focus in the US. This means that the term productivity is determined in the US according to how much output is made at a given time, while overall performance is the standard for the Japanese.
7 Productivity Management Tips
To boost profits and improve business productivity, here are seven productivity management tips you can apply:
1. Track progress for tasks
Managers and business leaders should be able to measure and analyze how teams are utilizing their time. Automation software can track several metrics to identify the work teams are progressing on. Factors such as the time it takes for teams to complete tasks or how many jobs per day are met can define productivity and identify improvement points.
2. Commit to deadlines you've set
Setting deadlines and committing to your intended schedule have been proven to improve productivity. Productivity management involves building a team’s reliability to meet deadlines and remaining focused through different tasks. Making sure that goals are met based on a schedule you’ve determined is a primary responsibility for management to maintain.
3. Don't multitask
While the idea of multitasking to meet quotas seem like a part of everyday business, it’s not a healthy practice. Multitasking can reduce efficiency and can even cause damage to your brain.Â
Instead, focus on one task at a time instead of wasting time transitioning between different jobs.Â
Focusing on one task allows you to concentrate on a given job and helps you remain motivated to complete the job correctly before moving on to the next task. In addition, by prioritizing your tasks according to importance, you can focus on more pressing work that needs to get done and improve productivity.Â
4. Be proactive
With the challenges businesses face today, organizations need to be more proactive to stay competitive. Being proactive allows you to go beyond your current status to identify vulnerabilities you can already work towards reducing or eliminating. Unfortunately, when businesses don’t proactively prevent possible problems, they encounter certain disasters that can often be difficult to troubleshoot.
5. Stay focused at work
Staying focused at work is vital to productivity management. This means removing distractions from your environment as much as possible. From creating well-organized and visually stimulating office space to reducing background noise made by machines and co-workers, businesses need to provide a suitable area to focus on work.
6. Take breaks
Despite the misconception, taking breaks is healthy and vital to productivity management. A person’s mental ability takes plenty of benefits from taking breaks. The neurons activated by working actually get strengthened with the time gap of a break. In addition, working for long durations can cause exhaustion and severe stress, so allow your team time to replenish their mind and mental resources to remain creative and be more productive.
It also helps if you create a stress management program to ensure employees are giving it their 100 percent all the time.Â
7. Avoid unproductive meetings
To increase productivity, avoid holding unproductive meetings that eat up valuable time. Instead, consider changing your meeting methods when regularly scheduled meetings don’t seem to accomplish much. For example, announcements and specific topics can be communicated through email. On the other hand, set quick standup meetings instead for updates and instructions. This can raise the probability that meetings won’t take too much of your time away from the work you need to do.
Conclusion
Productivity management allows business leaders to understand better the intangible inputs that determine valuable output. This provides more understanding of the areas of concern or the measure of progress that a business is undergoing. When a company offers focuses on achieving and maintaining productivity, it allows more probability of attaining success.
1 thought on “Productivity Management: Definition, Types, and Tips”
Really enjoyed this post. Much thanks again. Fantastic.
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