17 February 2020

Productivity indicators to boost business performance

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Table of contents

Measuring employee performance is an essential part of assessing the financial health of the business. Productivity indicators reveal trends before their consequences become apparent. Since people are a company's greatest asset, it is important to make sure that your investment in them is really paying off.

Interested in some productivity and effectiveness indicators that you can start measuring?

The importance of collecting productivity indicator metrics

Employee productivity measures the effectiveness of the workforce over a given period. In addition to providing a realistic picture of staff efficiency, the indicators also indicate different factors such as employee satisfaction and commitment.

These are important aspects, which is why there is a need to productivity techniques labour. Understanding the productivity of your staff is paramount to improving operational performance and more accurately targeting any efforts designed to improve satisfaction.

Productivity is also an indicator of the level of happiness and job satisfaction, The commitment and conviction of the employees in the company's mission.. Low productivity in itself may convey that the existing structure is not conducive to a positive workflow, but it may also highlight more serious cultural or corporate problems.

These employee productivity indicators are an invaluable measure for understanding the best strategies that can be put in place for helping the team to reach its full potential and forgetting about having to work overtime.

Examples of such indicators

KPIs can look at team performance, employee efficiency, absenteeism and attendance rates, as well as turnover and attrition rates. One of the most common ways to measure employee productivity (as an average) is:

  1. To account for the total income of a company during a specific period.
  2. Divide by the total number of employees.

While basic, it can be a good starting point for measuring this variable. More comprehensive indicators would provide metrics for quality of work per employee, production rate, management satisfaction and efficiency per employee.

In practice, this could be the case in a company where, after several months of strong production and growth, it becomes apparent that production is decreasing significantly in one of the main teams.

A closer examination would show that, despite having been producing much less than normal, the amount of resources allocated and the accompanying workflow have not been adjusted too much.

The productivity of your employees can be measured to determine where the problem lies and whether current performance compares favourably with the established baseline.

References on worker productivity

Indicators about employee productivity can be the first step in discovering where the problem lies and give a clue as to how to solve it. with examples such as the flexible remuneration.

For example, if hours worked have not changed, but you see a significant increase in absence rates, it may be a problem of satisfaction or poor scheduling.

Some useful reference points include:

  • Absence rates or work absenteeism
  • Attrition rate
  • 360-degree employee reviews
  • Satisfaction rates

Management based on metrics derived from productivity indicators promotes more objective and realistic, action-oriented decision making in which the margin for error is minimised.

Edenred Spain

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