According to Jim Harter, Ph.D., a thought leader and coauthor of the book, Wellbeing at Work, only half of the employees know what’s expected of them at work. To make matters worse, some managers have no clue about their job description.
This is a sad state of affairs, and it results in low productivity at work, which eventually affects the organization’s bottom line. If this sounds familiar to you as a business leader, you might be asking yourself how do you manage your team’s productivity.
The answer lies in effectively managing your team members’ productivity. Sadly, the problem of low productivity at work has been around for a while. But thanks to digitization, the curve is flattening. So, before jumping to the solutions, let’s take a look at the history.
Workplace Productivity over the Years
According to the McKinsey Global Institute report, ‘Solving the Productivity puzzle,’ the decline in labor productivity growth in the US and Europe dates back to the 1960s. This was after the 1960s Boom. Sadly, the decline continued in the 1990s and early 2000s, thanks to the global financial crisis that happened around this time.
Over the years, productivity growth at workplaces has been struggling to rise. Because of digitization, the declining growth only fell by 0.5% between 2010 and 2014. This is a remarkable improvement compared to the 2.4% rate of decline ten years ago.
Currently, it is anticipated that labor productivity growth should rise to 2% per year. However, this can only come to be if organizations adapt to technology and use it properly. Therefore, the critical questions remain: what’s affecting your labor productivity, and how can decision-makers like you bring the change?
Factors Affecting Teams' Productivity
Several factors come into play to influence teams’ productivity levels. Therefore, we’d like to categorize them into two—internal and external factors. By internal factors, we mean the things that are personal and non-work related. And by external factors, we mean everything that comes about from the work environment.
Stress from home, illness of all types, and financial constraints qualify as internal factors affecting your team members’ productivity. On the other hand, external factors include work area stress and encompass things like colleague and management relationships and working conditions.
Think about it – if your team members are not at peace, there’s no way their productivity levels can go higher. Therefore, if you value your organization’s success (which we know you do), it would be best to look out for the team through your effective leadership. But how?
Tips for Managing Your Team's Productivity
Below are 4 simple strategies for managing your teams’ productivity effectively.
1. Establish Clear Evaluation Metrics
The first step to success is setting a clear foundation. By this, we mean coming up with clear goals and metrics for evaluation. By all means, your goals should be SMART—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.
For example, your goal may be increasing the lead acquisition rate. The evaluation metrics for this goal can be bound by quality (qualified leads) and Quantity (number of leads acquired). To certify the objective of the smart goal, you can bind it by time.
When this is clear for everyone, tracking progress and success will feel like a walk in the park. Besides, if you want to increase efficiency, sit with your team and develop the goals and evaluation metrics together.
2. Team Building, Support, and Regular Training
One of your many objectives should be empowering your team members through coaching and training. They won’t be able to meet the changing targets with antiquated skills in their toolboxes. For example, today, digitization of processes is the order of the day. Therefore, it would be best if all your team members regularly received upskilling tools to discharge their duties successfully and keep up to date.
The bottom line is to equip your team with everything they need to realize the organization’s goals, even when the goalpost is constantly moving. With the proper support from their leaders, you can help increase their productivity.
3. Encourage Positive Relations amongst Colleagues and the Managerial Department
Fostering positive relations amongst team members goes a long way in helping you increase labor productivity. When there’s more empathy and understanding with few negative disagreements, there’s nothing that can stop you from establishing a strong team.
Your team members should feel free to come to you at any time whenever they have something to share. And you should feel empowered to maintain an open line of vertical communication in your organization.
4. Evaluate Results and Performance Based on the set KPIs
After setting up your organization’s goals and evaluation metrics, the next thing you want to do is evaluate your results based on the key performance indicators (KPIs). Without an evaluation, you can’t know for sure if you’re on the right track or not.
Managing Productivity with Business Coaching
Managing productivity for your organization can be simple and effective when you have an established plan and clear goals, KPIs, and teamwork. Most importantly, you can achieve all these effortlessly with the right business coaching.
If you’re wondering how to go about it, this is where Sounding Board Inc. comes in handy. With our AI-powered platform, we can help you manage your teams’ productivity through impactful business coaching for leaders. So, feel free to request a demo here and get to learn how our coaching platform works.
