Building employee efficiency is critical for organizational productivity. However, it is one thing to build employee efficiency and another to sustain it. The reason is that a worker’s performance is not solely predicated on their skills or job proficiency. Organizational management plays a big role in ensuring and sustaining employee productivity.
The factors needed to sustain employee efficiency include good leadership, a clear vision, effective communication, a positive work environment and the right tools for the job.
Getting workers to build and sustain efficiency is not easy, but also not impossible. Human management is one of the most difficult aspects in business, and a good knowledge of the factors needed to sustain employee efficiency comes in handy, which is the subject of this article. So read on to learn more!
What Factors Contribute to Improving and Sustaining Employee Efficiency?
Employee efficiency is akin to motivation and can easily fade. As a result, it is not enough to put effort into building it once; there should also be work done to sustain it.
Here are the essential factors for sustaining employee efficiency in any organization.
Good Leadership
A leader has the ability to motivate employees by setting high standards, providing feedback and rewarding success.
A good leader will ensure that all team members have an opportunity to succeed. This means that they must provide training and development opportunities to improve skill sets and increase knowledge. They must also give recognition when someone does something well.
A good leader will also make sure that regular feedback is provided to team members. This helps them know what they need to do to improve and where they stand. It also allows them to identify areas of weakness and take corrective action.
Clear Vision
Communication is key to improving and sustaining employee efficiency. Employees must understand how their actions affect others around them. They must also be able to communicate effectively with their superiors.
A poorly communicated vision can lead to low employee motivation, a worse level of performance and higher stress levels.
To avoid this, managers must set clear expectations, roles and goals for each individual. This way, everyone knows exactly what is expected of them and how they can contribute to achieving those goals.
Employees are more likely to sustain efficiency when they have clear-cut knowledge and awareness of their roles and responsibilities. Also, it makes the management process for the leaders easier as it becomes easier to maintain duty accountability.
Delegating duties to workers according to their abilities and experience is crucial to avoid reducing the company output.
Effective Communication
We’ve touched on this a little already, but it’s worth reiterating the positive impact good communication can have.
Effective communication involves the free flow of information within the organization. Generally, information flows in three primary ways:
- Top to Bottom Flow of Information: This involves a downward vertical flow of information from the leadership to the managers to the members of the team or employees.
- The Bottom-to-Top Flow of Information: This involves the upward vertical flow of information from the organization members or workers to the leadership or management.
- Sideways Flow of Information: It involves left to right horizontal movement of information among co-workers.
Effective communication prevents misinformation and ensures everyone in the company is on the same page. Workers are usually more efficient when there is effective communication.
Flexible Organizational Rules and Policies
Human beings love freedom and feel uncomfortable with any situation that appears to take their freedom away from them. Strict work policies can rob workers of their freedom, making them feel choked. As a result, it ruins the energy in the workplace and reduces their efficiency in the long run.
For example, workers are in a better mental frame when they know they can easily express themselves about personal concerns without going down for it like needing some time off, etc. Happier employees make more mentally and emotionally stable workers, leading to efficiency.
Incentivize Employees With Better Compensation Plans
While there are a lot of other factors involved with employee motivation, there is no getting away from one of the primary factors people turn up to work every day: money.
Nothing motivates employees more than better compensation plans such as improved salary or payment scale, promotions, bonuses, etc. Interestingly, money is a strong motivator for workers because that is the reason they are working in the first place.
2022 has seen wide-ranging staff strikes in the UK as workers from a range of sectors, from rail workers to those in the legal profession, protest the poor performance of management in awarding them adequate salary.
With a cost of living crisis hitting the country and so many people working from home due to Covid-19 the niceties of ‘pizza Friday’, Foozball tables and beanbags are quickly forgotten with a greater emphasis on the monthly pay packet.
You could ensure early payment of salaries and wages, provide steady raises for deserving workers and add other incentives like bonuses for early completion of tasks to spice up the workplace.
Incentives stimulate workers to invest more energy into getting their jobs done and on time, which translates to the organization meeting its target. Salaries are not the only effective method for incentivizing workers. For instance, you could embark on an employee recognition program to make your workers feel seen for their good deeds.
Offer a Healthy Corporate Culture
Employee mental health is critical for their efficiency. As a result, a healthy work environment is a no-brainer. The reason is that your workers spend more of their time at work. Whether they work from the office or remotely, the point is that they give a significant part of their time to their jobs. As a result, they need to feel safe enough to work better.
Your employees are more likely to invest the best of themselves in their jobs when they feel safe in their careers. The organizational management and leaders should be able to make provision for unforeseen circumstances that could occur to workers, as life happens and is pretty uncertain.
You could also give your workers autonomy in making their own decisions as it concerns their jobs and time management. In other words, it is detrimental to the company’s progress to micromanage its employees.
Furthermore, there should be mutual respect among members of the organization, especially along the organizational hierarchy. The idea behind creating a healthy work culture is to breed positive energy that supports productivity and efficiency.
An alternative means is establishing a somewhat informal relationship with your workers by trying to know some personal information about them or asking questions about their health and life in general. It can be pretty amazing how much your workers are willing to open up when you indicate interest in their welfare.
Provide Regular Employee Feedback
Giving feedback is an avenue to provide a structural evaluation of organizational activities. It involves giving workers positive feedback on completed jobs and constructive criticism on areas where they did not perform well. You should, however, exercise caution when providing negative feedback as the goal is to correct rather than rundown your employees’ psyche.
Additionally, workers can give feedback concerning their stay in the company and their jobs to voice their likes and discomforts with their jobs. This way, management has an idea of things that need fixing within the organization.
Use Technology To Simplify Routine and Repetitive Tasks.
Workers unknowingly spend significant time doing repetitive tasks that could have otherwise been automated. By employing technological updates, you free up considerable time for more essential duties.
For example, online pay stub generators can help you automatically generate invoices, pay stubs and other financial documents, saving your payroll employee considerable time on calculation.
Collaboration tools like Google Docs and drive facilitate the easy sharing of documents without downloading every single file, thus freeing up storage space on employee devices.
Provide Employee Training Where Necessary
Employee efficiency is incomplete without proficiency or skilling up. Therefore, employee training is an excellent way to sustain their efficiency. The rationale behind this factor is that workers can give their best to their jobs when they have the know-how.
As a result, you can organize periodic tutorials to keep your workers updated with the latest trends and best practices in the industry to enable them to better discharge their duties.
Additionally, you don’t have to spend a fortune on organizing seminars and workshops as the internet makes it possible to learn from anywhere in the world through online courses. You can subscribe your workers to some online classes or purchase online video content to assist them in boosting their skills for better productivity.
This way, you can encourage on-the-job learning by providing assisted or accompanying guidance and corrections to give your workers a hands-on feel of education. You will discover that workers perform better when they are confident in their skills and abilities.
Embrace Remote Working and Telecommuting
Remote working is probably one of the biggest changes since the COVID-19 pandemic as more and more working-class people prefer working from home. Whether it gives them more family or me time, remote working somehow helps the work-life balance of most people.
Remote working and telecommuting improve employee efficiency by allowing them to work from a more comfortable environment while attending to other important things in their lives. For instance, if a worker is sick or has a sick child, they will likely request a sick leave which keeps them absent from work till the personal health challenge is resolved.
However, suppose they are allowed to telecommute or work remotely. In that case, the worker might get some time within the day when they feel slightly strong and will be more willing to get on their computers and get some good work done while under medication.
Interestingly, it adds to their speedy recovery while allowing them to be reasonably productive from home. Either way, it is a win-win situation for both the company and the worker.
How Can You Measure Employee Efficiency and Performance?
Below is a table describing the five most effective methods for measuring employee efficiency and performance in most top organizations.
| Measurement Metric | Measurement Details and Characteristics |
| 360 degrees feedback | It is an all-rounded measurement of employee efficiency where feedback is gotten from everyone who experiences the employee’s performance. It gives an overall view of the worker’s performance. Most performance assessments are based on behavioral competencies rather than technical elements of the employee’s role. It is a time-consuming form of assessment/ It involves up to ten people. The assessed individuals can feel exposed to criticisms. It has the potential to damage relationships in the workplace if not well managed. |
| Employe performance with behavioral competency | It requires a competency framework to function. It relies heavily on employee skill or behavior as it relates to their organizational roles. They are specific for recruitment and performance management. |
| Goals and targets | It provides employees with a clear target, thus eliminating ambiguity. It provides objective analysis of employee challenges on the job. |
| Employee’s quality of work | It provides a direct analysis of employee productivity by measuring work output. It reveals areas where a worker might need some training. |
| Work efficiency and productivity | It considers the time factor involved in measuring employee efficiency. |
Why Is Employee Efficiency Vital for Any Organization?
The easiest value of employee efficiency is seen in resource allocation and management. In other words, when workers can generate massive output with minimal resources, the company is at a great advantage. However, there are other reasons why employee efficiency is such a big deal in most establishments.
Here are some of the benefits:
- It Increases overall productivity
- It creates a conducive work environment
- Team trend is easily established for better program and project management
- It encourages worker’s growth and engagement
What Are the Tale-Tale Signs of an Efficient Employee?
An efficient employee is an invaluable asset to any organization. In the spirit of building an employee recognition culture to foster employee efficiency, being able to spot efficient employees is a handy skill. As the saying goes, a happy employee is a more productive employee.
Here is a list of the most common characteristics of efficient employees to help you spot them easily.
- They perform the job optimally with little or no supervision
- Efficient employees pursue self-development
- They have an open mind and are positive when corrected
- They are usually optimistic and upbeat
- They have great interpersonal and communication skills
- They are very receptive to feedback, whether positive or negative
Frequently Asked Questions
What Percentage Is a Good Employee Productivity Rate?
A good employee productivity rate falls between 70-75%, showing that the workers spend not less than 70% of their time working and about 25% or less on lunch and party breaks.
What Is the Importance of Productivity in Any Establishment?
Productivity is the easiest measure of a company’s success by ascertaining the output-generating capacity of its workers. It gives information about the long-term success of an organization by managing available resources.
For How Many Hours Can Workers Maintain Productivity per Work Period?
A work period of slightly below 40 hours per week is realistic enough to maintain workers’ productivity without jeopardizing their work-life balance. Some research reveals that cutting an hour or two from the conventional 40 hours per week increases employee efficiency.
Final Thoughts
Employee efficiency is a vital company target and requires proper management. However, making a one-time implementation of all or some key factors is insufficient for organizational progress. Instead, a consistent application of the key factors in this article will build the sustainability you desire for your establishment in the area of employee efficiency.
