Productivity is established on employee happiness, employee investment, and teamwork!

Companies such as Apple, Netflix, Google, and Dell are 40% more productive than the average companies. What are these companies doing differently that created such a huge margin of difference?

While the quality of candidates plays a considerable role in determining work ethic and work behaviour, these companies focus more on improving the employees' experience in the workplace to optimize productivity.

Employee Happiness

According to research, employee happiness can increase the work output significantly. Regardless of the job role, a happy employee spends less time worrying and stressing, boosting productivity by 12 percent! Employee happiness is achieved via the mixture of flexibility, trust, and pay.

Dell's "Connected Workplace" initiative was an example of promoting flexibility in the workplace. Flexible employers allow their employees to decide when and where they prefer to work. This flexibility makes employees feel appreciated and encourages work-life balance.

The initiative taken by Dell focused on improving technology that boosted collaboration amongst employees. It helped them use the interface quickly and store their data on the cloud with maximum security, increasing ownership. It further increased productivity as the launch of better technology increased employees' time by 25%, allowing them to use that time to get more work done and work wherever they wanted or were needed.

In addition to flexibility, trust plays an equally important role in improving employee happiness and productivity. Trusting your employees can reduce the excess time spent on managing spending limits, audits, and employee time tracking. Netflix demonstrates complete trust in its employees and provides them with the freedom to act in the company's best interest. They implemented a no expense policy - employees take a vacation as per their needs. The feedback system is more of an interaction with their colleagues and exchanging ideas and suggestions to improve. The employees are trusted to work and not take advantage of the freedom as they believe that the employers are responsible for paying them.

Lastly, 'pay' given to employees enhances employee happiness. Amazon demonstrated this in 2018 by raising the minimum hourly wage to $15, which was more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Employees who are paid more are often more motivated to work. As a result, they demonstrate more productivity and efficiency in the workplace.

Employee Engagement

Employee happiness is one component of productivity; employee engagement increased productivity by 44 percent. An engaged employee is more productive than a satisfied employee as it increases their investment in their company. Referring to Dell's "Connected Workplace" initiative, it was discovered that sales teams that had an inspiring leader-led were 6 percent more productive than the average leader. It improved the training experience for employees via learning through coaching, mentoring, and feedback! For a leader to be inspiring, they have to show a keen interest in the lives of their employees, be a listener and empathetic. It made the employees want to come to work!

Teamwork

Teamwork can push employees to optimize productivity. This team orientation was demonstrated by Apple when they were creating iOS 10! Together with a team of 600 engineers, they ensured that the rewards were received as a team and not individual success. This encouraged the engineers to put their best foot forward and work as a team instead of working individually, further improving their efficiency. On the contrary, Microsoft had put together a team of 10,000 engineers to develop the Vista operating system. They used a different approach wherein only 20% of the group was compensated for individual performances and excellent reviews. While Apple's team-based approach developed the iOS in less than two years, Microsoft's software took about five years to build. This highlights the importance of teamwork in improving productivity and efficiency in the workplace.

A combination of employee happiness, engagement, and teamwork help these companies improve their productivity. A lack of these components can make it difficult to motivate employees and sustain excellent mental health. The productivity and efficiency at the workplace depend on the employees' hard work, as proven by Netflix, Dell, Amazon, and Apple. It is not dependent on the company's brand but on how the companies invest in their employees.

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