When Crown Workforce Management Systems asked me to produce a white paper on productivity, it allowed me to take a step back and ask the question, how can those who lead our key industries take practical steps to improve the productivity of their businesses?
We often hear about productivity in terms of the big headlines: the UK has a productivity problem; it lags behind other G7 nations. But productivity is important – not only as a measure of national competitiveness but in driving improvements to standards of living.
There are many factors that influence productivity: regulation, economic incentives, quality of infrastructure and access to finance. Although many of these are out of our control, we can make a difference, through process management, employee management, and employee engagement.
Understanding and managing organisational processes is key. Interventions can vary from ensuring the correct availability of materials and equipment in a plant, to the understanding of sources of variation in a call centre.
Employee management practices are also very important. We have to ensure that people have the right skills for the tasks they undertake and to maximise profitability, we also need to ensure this is at the right cost, especially in low-margin businesses.
Whilst getting skill allocation right is an obvious goal, various surveys have shown that a large proportion of employees are in roles for which they are either under or over-skilled. This misalignment takes a heavy toll on productivity. A clear understanding of employee attributes, including skills, preferences, strengths and weaknesses, goals and motivators is essential in improving productivity. Too often this vital information is not used, or even available to the most important influencer of employees’ performance – their immediate line manager.
Employee engagement plays a fundamental role, partly because engaged employees are more productive, and partly because they are more likely to propose and introduce innovations. Higher rates of innovation are present in larger, international firms because ideas travel through people and collaborations.
It’s important to stress, while these areas can help improve productivity, they should be supported by high-quality data. This must be continuously gathered and analysed to ensure the visibility of both processes and progress is made. Data on labour use, attendance, employee turnover, etc. should be related to actual results.
Link this with employee survey results about work environment and employee satisfaction to understand the correlation between employee performance and business performance.
The answer to improving productivity is in your people and harnessing the information at your disposal in order shape your future business plans.
For a copy of Pietro’s white paper and to view the video visit: www.crowncomputing.com/blog/videos/productivity
