No-nonsense Guide for Productivity

40% The portion of our actions driven by habits rather than conscious, informed decisions (Kohn, 2014). 

Think about for a second, this means 40% of the actions taken by the workforce is driven by habit and not consciously.

Let's define productivity first :

Every organization shares the common goal to "Increase Workforce Productivity". 

The key question the leadership team always ask "How can we improve the productivity of our workforce and empower them with the tools and technology to achieve more"

Why it is so important to enhance productivity?

More productivity = more cost saving = more progress = more shareholder value = more growth = more profit.

But, the biggest challenge is how? Organizations have invested a significant amount of money to get the best collaboration tools, assuming the best tools will help them to achieve their goals. But surprisingly it is not as simple as it may sounds.

So what organizations can do differently to achieve their goals?

Identifying and recognizing that fundamental changes are required to improve the overall productivity of the workforce is the first step towards the progress.

I have identified the following components which can help the leadership team to put together a strategy to improve workforce productivity.

 Ask Right Questions 

• How much time do we spend talking about work vs doing work?
• How many hours do we spend in meetings and email?
• How often are people doing redundant work?
• How much work do we need to make up after hours?
• How much shadow IT do we have?

These are just a few examples. But, once you have identified the right questions, finding the answers would be much easier.

Get a deep understanding of the existing environment

 It is absolutely important to have clarity on "What do we have" in terms of tools, products, services, applications. Once you have a deep understanding of your environment, it will help you to ensure they all run like a well-oiled machine and helping organization to achieve their goals.

Start with building the inventory of every tool and products, inventory will help you to identify the redudent tools, technology at sunset, doesn't provide the data you need, and much more information. Once you have inventory, start analyzing:

•  Who is using these products or services?
• How much it is costing the organization?
• What are the top use-cases for each product?
• What are the limitations of each tools?
• Which tool has a high impact on the overall business functions?
• Which tool is critical to the organization?

Marry the organizations goals with the process

All organizations have a vision, goals, and objectives. If you ask anyone in the organization what are those, I bet a very few people will remember it.

Also, every organization has a certain way of doing things. Most of the time they are documented, and we call it "process".

 Again, the challenge is how many times people read the process to do certain things and it requires a significant amount of time, effort, and investment to ensure they all are current and up to date.

 So, how do we go about ensuring every decision taken in the organization is align and driven by the objectives and goals defined at the top level. The answer to this misty is very simple, you just need to ensure that every decision, project, the process is tied back to at least one of the organization's goals or objectives.

 For instance, if the organization's goal is "Reduce the operating cost", then next time you initiate a project to decommission old tools or applications, your project is tie back to the organization's goal. As a result, at any given time, you've absolute clarity and data about every project and new initiative in the organization.

Plan big, start small

 Have a clearly defined long-term goal. For instance, if your organization wants to improve the overall collaboration experience for users, defining and launching a long-term program with a numerous small project, helps to keep the momentum going and never lose the track of the overall drivers behind each small project. Also, it helps management to measure and monitor the overall progress of the program.

Let the data drive the decision

 As saying goes “In God we trust. All others must bring data.” - W. Edwards Deming. In today's time, the data-driven approach helps organizations to get to the bottom of anything and tailor the overall approach and strategy based on the data. Data helps you to verify your assumption and hypothesis and based on it change the course of the action.

 Standardization is the key

Every organization has one or another way of doing things. Imagine every person or department start doing things in their own way, where the organization will end-up. Hence, it is important to identify and standarized the key processes. Standardization allows you to predict the outcome no matter who is executing it.

Standardization also helps to expedite the overall decision making process, and as a result, organization enhances the overall productivity.

Imagine a scenario where your company rolls out new products or services and customers reach out to the support team for assistance. I bet every person responds differently to the same questions of the customers. And now think about another scenario where your organization has provided pre-defined templates to respond to each question. Which scenario you think will better serve the organization.

User Adoption

No matter how good your product or service is, if the customers are not using it and not benefiting from it, then it is as good as the product or service doesn't exist. Hence, it is extremely important to get the user buyin. One of the approaches your organization can take is by providing adequate training and having a very strong support model to assist users. In addition, constantly working with the users, listing to their challenges, and taking action to resolve them will result in long-term success.

Create feedback loop 

By setting up a system that constantly collects feedback, and you analyze it, improvise it and change the course of the action based on the feedback, is the bulletproof strategy for success.

Often time, you might have seen the organization jump on to address the problem when it became too big, by the time leaders realize, it is either too late or requires a significant number of efforts. So, detecting and identifying the problem as early as possible, will not only save the cost and efforts, but also helps to retain grater customer satisfaction. 

As always, I welcome your feedback/comments.

Cheers,

Satish