Running a team is a huge responsibility, so imagine running a whole company of 10-50 employees or more? Having your own business is one of the best accomplishments in life, but it has its fair share of responsibilities. The biggest of those responsibilities is hiring top employees and then ensuring they are performing their duties efficiently. Measuring employee productivity throughout employee monitoring may seem like a difficult task since each employee has their own unique set of duties as well as working styles. However, there are ways to easily keep track of productivity to make sure your business is well and thriving, here are some of them:
1. Set Performance Standards
You can’t track your employees’ productivity without first coming up with measurement standards to base off from. You need to set the performance metrics you will use to evaluate production, which is no easy task. Every team and the member has their own job role and sometimes performance standards are not the same for everyone. The most important thing is for each employee to be aware of their responsibilities. You should also set short and long-term goals for employee production before tracking it.
2. Highlight Documentation & Communication
Communication in the workplace is a given crucial factor in order for the workflow to function smoothly. However, it’s also an important factor for tracking employee productivity because it holds each employee accountable. Try to promote documentation and communication of performance by encouraging self-reporting on a daily basis. It will save you more time and effort in tracking down each employee’s daily tasks, not to mention help you plan future tasks and take on any problem that occurs, knowing the course of action that was taken.
3. Use a Productivity Monitoring Software
One of the most efficient ways you can track employee performance is by using employee productivity tracking software which will save lots of time and effort. It’s not only that, you get to have accurate data on each employee to fairly measure their productivity. This software helps you create labels and metrics for performance, see which websites and apps are most used by each employee, and track all activity on their device during working hours. It helps eliminate the bias in self-reporting and get the true working hours for each employee and give feedback and action accordingly.
4. Track Using Digital & Social Platforms
There are other ways of tracking productivity that might take more time than software but are still effective. They depend on each job role and responsibility of employees so you have to be fair when setting which to track. You can check things like e-mail activity since it plays a huge role in almost every work position. You can also check the workplace social platforms and their activity on them, whether there is interaction with their team and colleagues.
5. Measure The Right Metrics
Many employers make the mistake of measuring productivity using time metrics. This is far from accurate since you can have two employees with the same skills and when given the same task, one will take longer to finish it, which doesn’t mean they are any less efficient. That’s why it’s important to identify the right metrics to measure productivity by, so instead of the amount of time, make it the skill of time management. It’s also wiser to set metrics that measure the quality of work rather than quantity; after all, what’s the point of a lot of work done if not done properly?
6. Provide Constant Feedback
Did you know the best way to track productivity is to provide feedback? How so, you wonder? It’s pretty simple, once you provide feedback to your employees, you can track their response to it and whether they are trying to improve their weak points. You should also give them the tools needed for such improvement. Feedback and training to promote success is a miracle worker when it comes to boosting productivity. You can measure several tactics before and after giving your employees feedback to check what works best with them.
These are the easiest ways you can keep track of productivity among your employees and they are all efficient with varying degrees. Using technology for such tasks as a manager is, of course, the best path to take to save time and analyze data right away instead of spending time on collecting, analyzing, and then coming up with a course of action. Just remember while tracking employee productivity to factor in the human element, which means giving passes here and there for less productivity. Remember, your employees aren’t robots, they have their own personal lives and can struggle to be productive some days.