Why being productive instead of busy is good for business

TLDR:

• A productive workplace equals happier employees, and funnily enough happy employees are more productive - it’s a scientific fact.

• Leaders have an important job to do where productivity is concerned - and it’s very much about understanding what the obstacles to productivity can be.

• Obstacles such as access to the right information, time for collaboration, processes & systems and the behaviour of teams and colleagues can all play a big role in productivity.

A productive day at work is something that we all strive for. It gives us a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, and often makes us want to do more of what gave us that feeling in the first place.

It’s no wonder that organisations want their teams to feel that everyday - it’s great for overall business performance, and it’s not even a trick - it’s a win-win all round.

Don’t ya wish we could have that feeling every day - businesses wouldn’t have any problems right? But of course, employee productivity can be impacted by a whole heap of factors, and some are easier to prevent than others.

We can avoid the common productivity pitfalls through consideration, and we can ultimately protect business success, as well as employee happiness and retention.

What does productivity in the workplace look like?

In its’ natural habitat, “workplace productivity” is very much about completing tasks, one after the other, in the most efficient but simultaneously at a high standard. We can measure a business’s output through productivity, and that will look different from company to company. It may be as simple as seeing how much of something is created each day, or it could be more intangible and not visible at all.

The most important first step is to set expectations for each role, so that expectations are completely clear up front, and they know what they are working towards. We can gamify productivity here, it’s human nature to be competitive too, so if your employee’s can see a clear measure of what they’re working towards, they will most likely want to reach that number each day, competing with themselves or even their colleagues.

Additionally, we think that a large part of what we think of as productivity is actually the ability to be creative. It isn’t always about ticking off hugely impressive to-do lists, but rather about pushing through the mundane and finding creative ways to approach the BAU (business as usual). Engaging creatively with challenges adds to that feeling of productivity.

Why is workplace productivity important?

If we look at workplace productivity statistics, there’s a clear reason for businesses to care about high productivity. One report from Gallup shows that 85% of employees are not engaged or are actively disengaged at work, and that this leads to an approximate $7 trillion in lost productivity.

But designing your workspace and work culture in a way that allows people to do their best work is about more than just protecting your overheads. I really feel that productivity is the endorphin of the workplace. The more productive we are, the happier and more involved we feel overall.

Productivity is power!

What can affect workplace productivity?

Anything can affect workplace productivity! We’re humans, and we live in an unpredictable world. We have macro-level issues that can affect our productivity – COVID being a headline example – and then there are the more micro- or individual issues that can affect us. Everyone has different experiences and variables that can affect them, whether it’s computer updates interrupting their work, or whether a family member is unwell.

One element that can really impact productivity – for better or worse – is your workplace culture. Low workplace productivity is often a sign of low employee morale. In this way, workplace productivity and wellness are really closely linked.

There are a lot of moving plates involved in a company culture. Your vision and values, community, learning and development structures, leadership strength, processes, fairness… All of these (and more) play their part in the culture of a workplace – and if any one of those plates falls, you risk the level of productivity dropping.

There are of course other, more material barriers, too. Workplace productivity research shows that lacking the access to tools, data, and being unable to communicate with the team members you need can all lead to a significant loss in productivity over time.

Take communication, for example. You may not lose a huge amount of time over the course of a day trying to get in touch with someone, but that little loss adds up, and soon there’s a whole lot of wasted time to reckon with.

In order to increase productivity, leaders need to take ownership of these factors, and establish a more intuitive, transparent system that works for everyone – and a culture of openness that means issues can be raised and addressed at every level.

The Winter-Parrish HR approach to workplace productivity

At Winter-Parrish HR, we have a few ways of approaching workplace productivity in order to support and encourage our client’s employees.

There are no hard and fast rules, but a myriad of factors build up to an overall picture of engaged employees and increased productivity. These elements of our approach have proven successful in establishing a framework that allows everyone to be their most productive selves at work:

1. Celebrate employee achievements loud and proud!

If you want your team to feel motivated, you need to empower them to bring their whole selves to work. That means establishing a strong and supportive workplace culture.

Failure to recognise good work when it happens will ultimately lead to an unmotivated workforce, and individuals will either suffer burnout trying to impress, or lose all reason to deliver quality work for a leadership who don’t appreciate them.

On the flipside, a supportive culture that celebrates with employees, and has the frameworks and policies in place to support them at all levels, will find that workers want to go the extra mile. We recommend that hard work is highlighted and celebrated each month with something as simple as “Team Member of the Month” or shouting out great work in all-company meetings.

2. Try employee OKRs and goals

The work culture that you create is different for every business, and then again for every team within that business. That’s why our employee OKRs are so useful – they clearly define the expectations of each role, so that productivity can be measured against a reliable expectation – not a general, irrelevant set of guidelines, or generic time tracking.

Winter-Parrish HR recommends that every employee has KPIs. That gives our clients a good measure of how productive their employees are, as well as an idea of team productivity. We’re careful to make sure that these are not too rigid and restrictive. Someone may be working really hard and making great headway on a task, but they’re not necessarily at the results stage yet. It’s important to use scorecards as a way to understand the work, but not be guided solely by them. It’s also important to consider how we account for project-based work or new initiatives, or KPIs that can be attributed to multiple individuals.

What’s important about KPIs is clarity for employees. Let’s say you recruit somebody for a new role; you have a job description that has all the roles and responsibilities, but if the work is too chaotic or they have too many priorities, they can get lost. They’ll do everything but lose sight of which tasks are more important, or start doing something they think they should do, but that’s actually not helping. Scorecards are there to help give people a helpful direction.

3. Find tools that work for you

Good organisation can create milestones and steps within a process that act as a checklist and support productivity – but bad technology can easily cause inefficiencies that frustrate the whole process.

I’ve recently discovered Tablerone, a chrome extension that helps to manage your open tabs. For anyone like me who gets distracted by a host of open windows but can’t bear to close (and lose!) them all, it’s a godsend for keeping everything tidy and organised.

The productivity tools and software market is completely saturated, so it’s important that whatever you do choose, you communicate it well. Whether it’s a CRM tool or knowledge hub, the key is to ensure that whatever you adopt, you do so with clarity of purpose.

As companies grow, you can see many different working systems develop. It is important to streamline your tools, so there’s minimal overlap. I’ve seen companies where there have been so many systems in place that no one knows what they all do, and it impedes communication and workflow. It also ends up costing the company extra money. That’s not to say everyone needs to know everything – some specialisms require their own tools – but if you’re using two virtually identical tools for the same task, that’s a waste.

Part of how companies can tackle this is through thorough onboarding. This is a vital part of teamwork that often gets forgotten. Teaching new team members how to use your tools takes a lot of time, but I think people underestimate how much time this will eventually save. Make sure this happens, or you will find that team members will find their own way of completing tasks – and this may take them longer, or result in duplications.

4. Lead by example

I mentioned above that workplace culture has a huge role to play in encouraging workplace productivity. A large part of this is leading through a culture of transparency and accountability.

It is important that leaders have the right frameworks in place to support the needs of their employees. We can’t always plan for every eventuality, but it’s important that we’re talking about our priorities, and employees feel empowered to ask for help. Do you offer tech support, for example? Is there a sickness policy?

It’s vital that leaders instil trust in their employees. Open communication with your workforce means you can iron out misunderstandings and help people know where they stand. How are we communicating our vision and our values? Are we being fair? How are employees being rewarded? By setting an example of clarity – and being open to criticism – we can make sure our employees feel heard, and are united in their goal. That’s going to really help motivation and productivity.

5. Perfect your communication

These days, communication often needs to take place outside of standard work environments, between workers who aren’t in the same physical space. This can lead to the breakdown of the separation between our work and personal spheres, and can mean we’re more tempted to continue work conversations outside of the traditional workday.

These things have the potential to negatively impact productivity, as it blurs the line between work and personal time. It’s not good for our mental health, either – which in turn can negatively impact work. Managing your methods of communication to ensure that everyone can easily remain in contact at the right time can mitigate the issue.

Slack is a great tool for communicating within teams without the need for long email threads, or encroaching into social media such as Whatsapp, for instance – and I find Notion to be very helpful for sharing company-wide information, such as guides for processes and tools.

It’s not just about communication through remote work, though. We encourage employee feedback wherever and whenever we can. Our employee engagement surveys help us see what’s working at your company, and we recommend setting monthly ‘Ask Us Anything’ sessions with your leadership team and employees to help democratise conversations around how we work, and open up the floor to new ideas.

Bad communication is an obstacle easily addressed through your workplace culture, the tools and systems that you employ, and by ensuring that information is readily available when and where employees need it.

6. It comes down to leaders

Look at any workplace productivity examples or case studies, and you’ll find that, ultimately, workplace productivity comes down to leadership; in order to be productive, employees need to be able to have confidence in their leaders. That means keeping lines of communication open, and making sure that each team is aware of their overall purpose. Failure to recognise issues early-on can lead to problems with productivity very quickly.

And let’s address the obvious: if your people aren’t productive, your overheads will suffer.

It’s something that companies must prioritise at every level. Think of it like a race: if one person is getting far further ahead, and the rest of the team are dawdling, that motivated person is going to feel like they are missing something. They’ll stop running. Even the most conscientious worker can get slowed down if the people around them don’t have momentum.

A productive workforce, on the other hand, breeds more productivity. With the establishment of a great culture that prioritises engagement and high-performance mindsets, all levels within a company can reap the huge benefits of great work. The three buzzwords to look out for are communication, systems, and information.

Get all three elements correct, and you’ll have created a fantastic company culture that has productivity at its heart.