What Drives Employee Productivity?

Targets are being met, productivity is good and morale seems to be high. But are your employees really invested in their jobs or are they simply doing ‘just enough’ to hit their sales targets? Are they passionate, determined to push harder and achieve more, or just coasting from pay packet to pay packet?

Driving employee productivity is a delicate balance of encouragement, motivation, inspiration and let’s be honest, money. You can’t forget that reward, rather than the ‘silver bullet’ approach to motivating a workforce, will have more of a beneficial effect on your bottom-line numbers at the end of the year. Everyone wants to feel that they’re getting the best possible wage for their work.

But money is not the only thing that fuels that passion to get out of bed in the morning and go to work.

Putting the right people in the right positions

Workplace assessment systems such as DISC and Myers-Briggs look at employee personality types so that bosses can put the right people in the right positions and give them varying levels of responsibility based on both experience and character.

However, simply dumping someone into a position a survey says they’re suited to doesn’t mean you’ve properly married up the person and position. Every consideration has to be looked at, including the simple fact of whether the employee even wants to be in that job in the first place. If they don’t, then you have a fundamental problem to address.

Key motivators

Understanding what motivates employees helps when you’re trying to improve productivity. It’s not all about assessment scores, or how many years’ experience someone has. You need to look at other factors, such as:

Your leadership style: Rather than putting all the onus on the employee, you need to look at your relationship with them and assess whether they feel you’re a boss that can be trusted. The most important aspects of an employee/employer relationship are a sense of support, honesty and feeling valued. Without that sense of worth, it will be difficult to motivate any employee to increase productivity.

Whether they have the right tools for the job: That includes not only equipment but training. If your company has gone through a digital transformation or upgrade but your team lack the skills to cope with the new advances, then you will notice an immediate dip in productivity, as well as morale. Training not only improves an employee’s skill set, but it makes them feel that you are investing in them. That, in turn, will create both a sense of job security and personal value within the confines of the organisation.

The opportunity for career advancement: While not everyone wants to rise to the heady heights of middle management, there are those who are looking for career advancement within their organisation. Ensuring there is the opportunity for climbing the ladder will motivate employees to greater levels of productivity.

Making sure they’re working smart, not just hard: Hard work is expected from every employee, that’s a given. But hard work that achieves little is counter-productive. Make sure your team are using the latest best practice methods for doing their job, and listen to their suggestions for improvements, too.

Creating a culture of openness: Following on from the previous point, it’s important that your workers feel their opinions are valued. So make sure your working environment is one that promotes openness, the generation and sharing of ideas and using knowledge management systems to communicate information from all levels, and the implementation of smart working practices.

Reward: Don’t underestimate the motivational aspect of rewards. This doesn’t just mean monetary remuneration, but other types of rewards too. Treats such as days out, bonuses, and work-related rewards such as share schemes can give workers a greater sense of investment in the company they work for, improve morale and drive up productivity.

Don’t underestimate happiness as a motivator: If someone isn’t happy in their job, their performance will suffer. Happiness is the greatest motivator of all and it’s essential to the success of any business. As a boss, it’s your job to make sure your employees (and yourself) are happy and by that, we mean truly happy with their position. Again, it comes back to ensuring there’s an atmosphere of openness and trust, allowing workers to voice concerns and get real, effective resolutions to challenges or conflicts. That, in turn, will encourage a greater level of productivity and a more successful business.