Why Measure Employee Engagement and Productivity?

The maximization of economic benefit is traditionally indicated as the main objective of private enterprise. Based on this premise, as a general rule, our efforts will be aimed at reducing costs and increasing profitability.

But with this objective in mind we cannot fall into the mistake of conceiving strategies and implementing actions that improve the income statement, forgetting a fundamental aspect: before acting you have to know. Measure, measure, measure, is again the mantra that any manager must keep in mind before making any decision.

At first glance, measuring could seem like a simple operation: everything that passes through our hands, from raw materials to infrastructures to what it costs us to make the product or provide the service has a price. You just have to add them. However, there is one element that complicates the equation: the human factor. What is the value of a worker? How to measure your productivity?

To measure the productivity of employees, we must consider different parameters, depending on the activity they carry out. Let's take as an example a technology products company, in which we have some workers assembling and others in the R&D department. The two groups are key to the performance of the company, however, the way of evaluating them must be different.

In the case of assemblers, the metrics will be easy to obtain, since repetitive and stable processes will be evaluated: for a basic analysis of their level of productivity, it would be enough to know how many pieces each worker assembles in a given period. On the other hand, more experimental or creative processes, such as those carried out in the R&D department, the results of which we must consider in the long term, require a less narrow measurement, such as the average of success in a similar period of time, or the individual results regarding the team, or even those of the team itself compared to the results of the competition. To increase productivity check out these Top 10 Employee Engagement Ideas for Remote Working Team in 2020.

On the other hand, when we propose to measure the productivity of our team, we should do it to help our workers improve. Thus, we must make sure to return the information obtained, as this will contribute to the proper development of our company. Ensuring that employees understand how their productivity will be measured and being realistic about the results we expect from them will be two factors that will significantly influence the success of the strategy.

So where do we start? Consider the following:

1. Develop a numerical criterion to measure employee productivity: as in arithmetic distance and measurement problems, it is essential to do the calculation using the same units. Let's not confuse productivity with intensity: sometimes there are increases in production that are caused by an increase in hours worked or in work intensity, and this increase is reflected as an increase in productivity when this is not the case.
2. Search for clear and relevant indicators: metrics of pure and simple productivity, efficiency, or achievement of objectives are essential, but we must not forget others such as those that can provide us with the results of the training courses, motivation or the environment work that favours the worker, for example.
3. Calculate the work done by the employee qualitatively and quantitatively: obviously, the type of activity to be carried out is particularly important at this point. As we said above, we cannot equate the productivity of a mechanical department and a creative one, for example. In this case, the ideal way to find the quantitative metrics is to assign an economic value to the product, although perhaps the most rational way to do it would be to assign a weight to each task and average what has been completed in the stipulated time.
4. Define the calculation on a temporal basis: all calculations will have to be timed, whether in days, months, years, even decades. The longer the time span, the easier the analysis will be, but also less rigorous and therefore less useful. Let's keep that in mind.

These basic points will help us get started with the task, but we should not relax. Obtaining data is a task that requires a firm commitment to updating for correct decision-making: establishing temporary or specific references, updating information as often as possible, adding indicators that we might have missed in a first-round...

It is a constant work that will allow us to identify and subtract the productivity limiters, learn more about our company and take one more step on the road to success.

I am a content marketing head currently working in Wpoven. I have 4 years of experience in building content strategies to grow businesses. I love to write in my spare time.