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Posts Tagged ‘employee productivity’

Businesses from the entrepreneur to the multi-billion Fortune 100 organizations face challenges every day. Yet, there is one huge looming challenge that is currently not being addressed affecting business productivity.

This week when listening to the news, I heard about New England school districts that are giving As in efforts as part of the overall grading system. As a young child back in the dark ages when classes had 30 to 40 students, the effort (which is totally subjective viewpoint by the educator) was part of the report card. Of course for some students for example who found reading simple and easy, their efforts probably were not as strong as those who found reading complex and hard.

I know this to be true because I consistently scored As in the results from reading and Cs in the effort.  These marks were fairly consistent from third grade to high school when efforts were no longer part of the overall  grading process. (Note:  My father and his entire family were avid readers. By the age of 12, I was reading about 1,000 words a minute with 95% comprehension and all without any formal reading course. So reading for me was literally effortless and remains the same today some 40 plus years later.)

Years ago one of my colleagues Doug Brown of Paradigm Associates made this statement that still resonates with me:

People confuse motion with progress and activity with results.

By just focusing on effort at the exclusion of results, can potentially create a very unproductive workforce. Given right now from employee productivity research (the most recent being a Gallup poll), the majority of employees are not giving 8 hours of work for 8 hours of page (8 for 8), then the future looks very dim indeed if the up and coming workforce believes efforts trump results.

This trend of rewarding effort appears much in line with the other public education trends such as eliminating Valedictorian and Salutatorian or worse yet giving multiple Valedictorian awards because some students or rather their parents are upset that they are not number one or two. Yet, these many of these same parents probably believe in the supporting the best player (number 1) in any given sport and probably engage in conversations with others about who should be ranked number 1 or number two.

As many have argued against this type of behavior is let’s eliminate any playoffs and give everyone the #1 award.  Of course, this would significantly impact performance in future events.

How future American businesses deal with this challenge remains unclear.  However if these small business owners, entrepreneurs to C Suite executives thought they had productivity problems in the past, they haven’t experienced anything yet.

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A recent media request that I received from Evan Carmichael asked to provide inexpensive tips to improving corporate culture and overall business operations. Numerous people in management positions from the  small business owners to the entrepreneurs to the C-Suite executives are all seeking ways to reduce cost while improving the performance of their workforce.

S0 what does inexpensive mean?  From a logical perspective, this word is almost the opposite of expensive.  When we hear the word expensive many think big bucks.  Conversely, when the word inexpensive is used, we may think cheap to actually free.  However, is this truly accurate?

For example, employee productivity research from Gallup Poll suggests 70-75% of the workforce are disengaged to actively disengaged meaning 8 hours of work are not being delivered for 8 hours of pay.  When an organization has a modest payroll of $100,000 this means $75,000 of salaries are not securing a positive return on investment.

Another example is the cost of employee turnover which is part of talent management to a business.  When an employee leaves, the cost is estimated at 1 to 3 times the total annual salary plus benefits.  If the total compensation package is $30,000 on the low side, then is investing 10% inexpensive to retain that employee. Hmmm…???

The words we think, write and use can affect our results.  So the next time someone uses the word inexpensive remember that term is indeed relative to the big picture.  And sometimes being cheap can hurt an organization’s corporate culture and employee productivity far more than management realizes.

Social media addiction popped up on one of the many daily briefs I receive. The latest report can from Retrevo Gadgetology study asking social media users about their behaviors. (Note: The actual blog page was removed.

In an article in Psychology Today, entitled Social Media Addiction Engage Brain discussed several reports and appeared to look at these behaviors more from a psychological sense of community and communication.

Other social media statistics suggests that 50% of all Facebook users come back daily. So it appears there are some very real behaviors specific to people being engaged on a regular basis with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

What this means for employers is less work is being done. The mobile device now has replaced the land line phone as well as Internet (desk top based computer) as  an employee productivity distraction or obstacle. Employees will not be delivering 8 hours of work for 8 hours of pay or what used to be called 8 for 8.

One of my clients actually set a policy about cell phone use because of loss productivity. Her employees literally began going to the bathroom every 15 minutes to check their voice mails. Now if this does not sound like somewhat of an addictive behavior, it does sound like a lack of personal discipline and ethics.

Regardless if you call it an addiction (I am awaiting for the first insurance claim to be filed stating he or she is suffering documented psychological withdrawal and then for some doctor to assert this is now a disease!), a lack of self-discipline or just a sign of the times, the need to be connected 24/7 is now part of today’s workforce and society.

I have observed people:

• Tweeting in Church
• Writing on Facebook walls
• Surfing the Web
• Answering email
• Texting

The only problem is these people were also engaged in:

• Listening
• Driving
• Working on assigned tasks
• Talking to someone else face to face

Brain research continues to demonstrate the brain is not designed to multi-task. Yes it can multi-task. However, the error rate goes up (think quality of results) the more multi-tasking going on and the time to finish also increases. Now it takes longer to do what needs to be done and there are more errors. How will that work for you or your organization?

Bottom line the need to be connected and response to a mobile device 24/7 will eventually translate into lower profits because of less efficient and effective employee productivity.  Companies will need to address this issue with policies and then enforce those rules if they want to stay with the flow of business and not fall behind.