Everything you need to know about productivity management

Managing a team’s productivity is fundamental to a company’s success. Without it, it’s hard to determine if your team is moving in the right direction. Effective team management motivates workers to take responsibility for job performance and to produce superior results.

Productivity measures the ability to produce a good or service. More specifically, it is the dimension of how a company’s resources are managed to achieve business objectives, in terms of quantity and quality.

In this article, we talk about the importance of managing productivity in the workplace and provide fundamental tips on the subject. Check it out!

Why have a productivity management department?#

All companies want to improve employee productivity, but how often do they examine their own management practices as a means to achieve it?

Managing employee productivity requires a series of individual steps. It is necessary to measure the necessary tasks, collect performance data, maintain two-way communications, analyze results, and create a basis for decision-making.

In other words, this process requires close monitoring of workflows and, therefore, it can be an effective strategy to have an exclusive department for managing the productivity of all the company’s teams.

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What goals to use?#

The best way to manage productivity and meet organizational needs is to implement goals that work together to support a common cause. Dividing large objectives into individual, small, and achievable objectives makes it easier for employees to achieve results in a given period.

It is worth adding that setting team goals is a process that requires collaboration and communication. To help your team invest in these goals, you need to find a balance between maximizing individual skill sets and finding the best way to achieve your ultimate goal.

Our tip is: before defining them, check that your team understands the SMART criteria, which are directly related to agile management, to define goals:

• the more specific your goal, the more focused your efforts will be and the more likely you are to succeed;
• monitoring your progress towards achieving the goals is much easier if they are measurable;
• your team’s objectives must be realistic to be achieved in the appropriate time;
• even if your team is motivated to solve many problems, relevant goals ensure that you are solving the most pressing issues and that your team has the resources and skills to achieve the goal;
• to be productive and efficient with your time and resources, team objectives must have clear deadlines.

Using the OKR method#

Having an efficient workplace is the goal of every manager, agree? It needs to be productive, creative, and organized—big ambitions that have become buzzwords in today’s business environments. Traditional management and organizational leadership methods have long remained the norm in many companies, even if they were outdated or counterproductive. But that has changed.

When there is greater efficiency and productivity, companies are able to better see not only where they are, but what they want to be in the coming months and years to come. This is part of the reason why many smaller and start-up companies are considered executors in their industries, alongside more established and larger competitors and peers.

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Considering that before many organizations were satisfied with “improvising”, today companies know what they want and determine how to obtain it. This is a characteristic that defines many successful organizations today.

As a result, companies around the world have discovered their own culture and are now giving more value to strategies aimed at increasing productivity and business efficiency. What has changed? They have clearer, more realistic objectives that have a greater impact on the way in which the organization is managed. In other words, these companies are more focused and equipped to achieve those goals. One of the many methods and techniques used to achieve this is OKR — Objectives & Key Results or, in translation, Objectives and Key Results.

The OKR method is used by companies to create measurable high-level initiatives and objectives that can be tracked regularly over a certain period of time. What sets OKR apart from traditional planning, management, and development methods is its ability to track and reevaluate, as well as the frequency of assessment (generally quarterly).

When we talk about marketing, for example, we can cite the following OKR examples.

Create an industry-leading brand

In this case, the main expected results may be:

• hire a branding agency by the end of the year;
• launch 5 new advertising campaigns;
• reach 1 million viewers with new ad campaigns;
• get 20 media channels and partner on 10 conferences.

Improve product and brand communication

Here, the main results may be:

• create 6 biweekly periodical press publications;
• hold 5 webinars with more than 50 participants about the new features of the product;
• increase community members from 3,500 to 6,000.

Raise awareness with public relations campaigns

The main expected results may be:

• publish 15 press articles in relevant publications;
• organize 5 industry meetings with more than 100 participants each;
• speak at 2 conferences;
• sponsor 3 events with more than 500 visitors in related sectors;
• reach 500 thousand spectators with public relations activities.

The objectives of OKR are intended to motivate and inspire the organization and must be relational, realistic, and short. Everyone in the organization must be able to understand them. The main results, on the other hand, speak about what has been done so far to achieve these objectives, as well as what still needs to be done. Like the objectives, the main results need to be short and pleasant, to facilitate the integration of everyone - a good reference is 2 to 5 measurable and transparent key results for each objective.

How to optimize your productivity?#

Research conducted by CareerBuilder reported that more than two hours of productive work are lost every day.

Promoting a work environment that promotes effective time management and maximizes team productivity is a challenge for almost every organization. Different work styles, lots of meetings, and constant distractions often threaten optimal productivity.

Fortunately, business leaders have many tools and strategies at their disposal to improve the productivity levels of each team while keeping members engaged. Below, we share some strategies that you can start using today to help your team develop the most productive teams possible.

Build a more diverse team#

Bringing diversity to the workforce is effective at the business level. Cultural diversity can improve business through new ideas, strengthening the understanding and relationships of different customer groups, increasing innovation through multicultural networks and, consequently, increasing productivity.

Having a multicultural team helps to see old problems in a new light, helps with creativity, provides networking opportunities for new communities, and increases productivity through a new cultural understanding of social relations and marketing relations.

Having a management plan for dealing with diversity using social sciences is an ideal way to improve relationships within your team before problems arise. It also helps managers and all employees to better appreciate and take advantage of diversity in ways that will make their work more meaningful.

Work on training team members#

Providing training for your employees equips them with the tools to handle each task in the best possible way, for the benefit of your company.

According to LinkedIn’s 2020 Workplace Learning Report, more than half of the research and development professionals interviewed plan to launch enhancement programs in the coming years.

Some of your team can identify training that will be beneficial to them — this demonstrates that they are proactively seeking to improve their skills and have business needs in mind.

The effort to be continuously trained in your company culture shows that you are investing in employee skills and future development.

Worry about feedback#

Feedback leads to improvement, which in turn leads to increased productivity. People learn from mistakes, and clear, objective, and real feedback can help colleagues learn from their carelessness and be proud of what they did well.

Feedback provides a space for open conversations and reflection on processes, ensuring that any issues can be resolved immediately to allow for increased productivity.

Employees will be more productive when they feel their work is valued, and feedback is a great way to show that you care and want them to do the right thing next time.

Giving credit where it’s due builds trust and ensures that employees are willing to give 100% to the next project. When something isn’t planned, take responsibility. As a leader, everything depends on you. Accepting that things could have been better is the first step in returning to your victories.

Improve your internal communication#

Communication is essential to promote productive teams. If team members aren’t on the same page, how can they ensure they’re on the right track? Managers need to support employees by ensuring regular check-ins to assess progress and provide clarity about individual responsibilities.

Have a weekly meeting with the team and communicate regularly as needed. Create transparent to-do lists across the team so everyone can see who’s working on which tasks to apply responsibility.

Give team members autonomy#

The key to improving individual productivity is to eliminate or delegate unimportant tasks and replace them with value-added tasks. So give your employees permission to make decisions — whether it’s the meetings they attend, the email lists they’re part of, or the responsibilities they take on.

In addition, encourage them to block large periods of time in their calendars to carry out daily work, in addition to small periods for fixed activities, such as daily planning, e-mail, and other tasks that are part of the corporate daily routine.

Set attainable goals#

There’s nothing more motivating than knowing the fact that each next day you’re getting closer to your final goal. At best, your employees should be aware of the company’s goals and their personal goals. Long-term business goals must be broken down into attainable milestones. Otherwise, you run the risk of low team productivity caused by the inability to measure the results of hard work.

Have a manager who transmits trust#

As an entrepreneur, you’re probably used to making most important decisions. You probably also make a lot of less important decisions, as do the professionals who work for you.

Take a step back, look for solutions for your employees, and require your managers to do the same. Encourage them to hold their employees accountable for solving problems and coming up with ideas. Teach them to trust that employees know what they’re doing — if not, they hired the wrong people. There may be a learning curve when handing over control, but instead of taking power away by mistake, have managers available to help and answer questions without judgment.

In today’s complex and collaborative workplace, in times of digital transformation, the real challenge is to manage not only your personal workload, but also your collective workload.

It is important to understand that each area of a company requires different approaches to productivity management. Marketing teams, for example, play a variety of roles and need the right tools. Additionally, they need to know how to use the tools to their full capacity. Make sure your team has access to useful tools to help them carry out successful campaigns, reduce costs, and compete in the industry.

While we’re talking about productivity, continue on our blog and discover how to increase the productivity of your retail marketing team.