How Much is it the Employer’s Responsibility to Ensure Employee Productivity?

Every business owner knows what’s expected of them when it comes time to onboard a new hire. When the training videos are all watched and the new employee is lined up to kick butt and take names, is that when your job as overseer ends, or is there more that you can do to get more productivity out of your staff?

It’s an intriguing question to ask because the answer will reveal a lot about your business philosophy and management style. When it comes to managing your personnel, the two extremes that you will fall somewhere between are 1) you are completely hands off and expect your employees to follow established policies and meet quotas, or 2) you are highly involved and listen to every employee need and concern so that they can get the most done possible for your business.

Looking at the first extreme, we can see that, in every job scenario, there is a minimum set of expectations that a manager must meet:

• Job training: A worker must know how to do their job before they actually do it.
• Tools to do the job: For example, the team requires functioning workstations in order to work properly.
• A working environment that fosters productivity: Is your office optimized for productivity, or does it suffocate innovation?
• A paycheck: Is your team getting paid the agreed-upon amount for their time?

In other words, the employee expects their employer to provide these four basic services for their time and work in the office. This, of course, leads to another question: Do you provide only the minimal requirements for your team to accomplish their goals, or do you give them everything you can to help them destroy the competition?

Why ask this question? If the employee is working at their maximum capacity with the best tools around, they’ll feel more motivated to get more done. Whether or not you believe this as an employer will be apparent to your staff. For example, if you are mostly concerned that your team is meeting quotas in a timely manner, you might feel that they don’t need any additional support in order to perform their jobs properly; when in reality, they might be struggling.

However, if you go out of your way to improve the productivity of your staff, you might find that the benefits far outweigh the costs. This entails creating quality working environments for your team, giving them the tools they need to optimize workflow, and paying them salaries that are commensurate with their skills. This might sound like a lot of effort, but by showing your team that you believe in their potential, they’ll be far more likely to work harder and push out higher quality work. This leads to more profits, which increases your bottom line.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a challenge to increase workplace productivity. More or less, it requires taking responsibility for the work that your team pushes out. Understand what motivates each individual and what tools they would prefer for their work. Ask them what changes they would like to see integrated into your organization so you can help them perform their job better.

These discussions might shed some light on how your team functions, and what you can do to get the most productivity out of each of them. Maybe they work better on their own devices instead of the bulky workstation they’re provided with. Or, perhaps the current workplace doesn’t augment their individual work habits. For example, introverts might not appreciate the open office environment, and might get more done working at home than in the office. Or, perhaps the extrovert finds the cubicle environment suffocating and would prefer the open office.

Whatever you find out about your staff, you can be sure that you’ll be able to apply it to the workplace to help them accomplish the most within their scheduled time in the office. However, this is a benefit that isn’t going to produce itself. You have to take the initiative to help them achieve their best.

In fact, if you’ve never really considered asking your team about the state of their workflow with their current tools, you might realize that their productivity is suffering. If they are struggling to accomplish their goals due to not having what they need, their morale is drained, which isn’t good for anybody. If this is the case, it’s better to buckle down and get what your team needs to be productive. The profits will vastly make up for the expense.

If you simply have too much on your plate to perform these tasks, outsource them to Directive. We can make sure that your team is operating with the best tools available so they, too, can understand the benefits that the latest technology can bring to the office. We can also integrate mobile technology that’s designed to help your team accomplish their daily tasks remotely, and our professional IT technicians can troubleshoot and resolve problems with your company’s workstations to ensure they function properly.

If you’re ready to learn more about how you can increase the performance of your staff with technology, give Directive a call at 607.433.2200.