Employees are one of the most important assets of any organization. Standing in a global arena, all companies are looking at outdoing one another in various segments. If the organization has to reach a certain level of success or at least accomplish its future goals, then the employees and the organization have to work in sync with one another. The terms employee efficiency, team productivity, performance management, team effectiveness, performance audit, and performance uation are used interchangeably today.
Let us discuss team efficiency or, rather, productivity in its entirety, along with allied factors and effective methods, which play a decisive role in taking any organization towards success.
Defining Employee And Team Productivity
Employee productivity is a trending topic in management circles today. Every employer is looking at extracting the maximum output from its employees in a competitive business scenario. It is nothing but the ultimate output produced by an employee, which involves converting time and effort into producing quality deliverables. The more productive the employees, the more work an organization can extract from them. It leads to more profits in the short term as well as the long term.
In this context, it is worth mentioning that single employees do not lead to organizational success. Several employees work in tandem with one another to deliver outcomes as ascertained from time to time. Employees work in teams in each and every department in an organization. So, team productivity is crucial. High-performance teams lead to increased productivity, foster collaboration, and enhance well-being at the workplace. But how to track team productivity? Let’s find out.
Techniques To Monitor Team Productivity
Here, you will get to know about team productivity monitoring techniques.
- Creating Effective Communication Networks – Communication is the core of all kinds of businesses. You have to communicate with both internal and external stakeholders to effectively run an organization. An organization needs to communicate the specific deliverables from each employee in a detailed manner. As an HR Manager, you must communicate both the employee and team goals along with the deadlines. Attaching numbers to expected results can further cement the outcomes.
Furthermore, communication should be both ways, top-down and bottom-up. This is in reference to the open-door policy, which many management proponents stress.
- Getting Employee Productivity Monitoring Software – You can get such software installed on the devices used throughout the organization or connect them through cloud services. Moreover, such software can also be integrated with payroll and appraisal systems to deliver multi-faceted outcomes. Supervisors and managers have a better knowledge of the events occurring on a daily basis concerning each employee.
Many such tools show activities that employees engage in on a real-time basis. Every organization can get such software for tracking employee productivity today to improve workplace performance.
- Setting Clear Targets or Goals – You must ensure to set up targets for every employee in a team. Once you set the goals, these act as benchmarks against which you can effectively measure the outcomes. You can set daily, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly targets. In case the employees are not able to reach their targets, you can counsel them or take corrective action against them.
- Creating An Effective Feedback Mechanism – You should create a culture of regular feedback from superiors and managers within an organization. The seniors are in a better position to check for key improvement areas and also applaud tasks done well. Moreover, this feedback has to be accompanied by proper data. Maintaining these metrics will ensure that no one is giving or receiving baseless or just qualitative feedback.
- Motivating Employees – Superiors should motivate employees in every possible way. Rewards and recognition apart, a simple pat on the back or a few words of acknowledgment can set an employee’s performance on track. This applies to all the employees within an organization working as a team. Even if there is a single employee in a team, in a small organization or start-up, this is necessary.
At some point or the other, a single employee may also need to communicate or collaborate with another department to reach workplace objectives. HR Managers must adopt team-building activities to inculcate an atmosphere of warmth and togetherness. Challenges also bring out the best in employees, so that is another aspect one has to look into.
- Facilitating Proper Training And Development – Monitoring team efficiency or employee efficiency does not stop at enforcing policies or installing software alone. An employee should also get proper training in his area of work. Secondly, the management and HR Managers must take into account employee churn or attrition. The employee’s career development is as important in this context. So, when employees leave the organization, the incumbent speaks highly about the same. It also affects the company’s reputation in the eyes of a new recruit or prospective recruit.
Factors Affecting Employee Productivity
Two main factors affect employees at work.
- Personal Life Of The Employee – The employee is not isolated from society. So, organizations have to study the entire environment in which the employees interact. Family relations, background, personal relationships, and mental health conditions also affect employee productivity. A happy and mentally sound employee is more likely to deliver the best for the organization.
- Work-Life Balance – This is an external factor that can affect the employee and, in turn, team productivity. An organization needs to ensure that the employee has a work-life balance. Sound policies that cover working hours and holiday hours clearly help in separating work and personal lives. It also includes when or how the superiors can connect with an employee who has taken an off day or leave. An overworked or frustrated employee can never deliver the best.
Ways To Improve Employee-Team Productivity
Now that you have read about various ways to improve team productivity and can also fall back on particular software for tracking employee productivity, it is time to take some corrective steps.
- Training employees is one of the first and foremost ways to ensure that they can deliver as per requirement.
- Managers should adopt a more flexible approach so that employees are open about their issues.
- Organizations should continuously keep employees motivated so that they deliver their best under all circumstances.
- Employee engagement also takes the top spot here, as it is one of the clear determinants of an organization’s success.
You can incorporate some of the techniques mentioned above. Firstly, you must go through the organizational environment. Follow it up with the study of the microclimate as well as the macroclimate to enforce the right objectives.
ProHance is one of the best workplace analytics and operations management software that is used by more than 24 countries today. Organizations trust ProHance to deliver integrated and error-free results, which lead to more profits. You can track employee efficiency on a daily basis or according to your preferred timeline. This helps eliminate disappointment, both for the employer and employee, when the time for appraisals comes, or annual revenue figures are released. Start using ProHance now to get reliable data on employee and team metrics at the click of a button.