13 Ways Your HR Function Can Drive Higher Employee Productivity
Introduction
Your organisation’s HR function is tasked with everything across the employment lifestyle, from recruitment and induction to performance management and payroll. However, one of its overarching responsibilities could be to maximise worker productivity. Indeed, your HR team might be key to achieving high productivity in your workforce.
Generally defined, productivity is an employee’s output (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) relative to their cost to the organisation. Given this, productivity is an important measurement of efficiency and success. So what are the main ways in which your HR function drives higher productivity in your workforce? Explore these 13 ways in which your HR department can facilitate a more efficient, effective workforce.
1. Set clear goals
HR can help managers in providing employees with clear individual and team goals. These are the starting point for achieving your productivity goals since they give your workers something to aim for. SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely) are defined and achievable, and this can help set explicit standards for your employees. Clarifying expectations also makes it possible to track and benchmark productivity and measure performance, so then you can provide feedback for improvements and make adjustments.
2. Match employee competencies to tasks
HR can help leadership with assessing and tracking employee skills and matching them to tasks, projects, and teams. Matching the right skill sets to the relevant tasks is essential for maximising productivity and leveraging your workforce. The process can also help you identify gaps in your employee’s competencies and adjust training and development requirements as needed.
3. Measure and manage performance
Your HR function can assist with well-defined performance metrics and an appraisal program aligned with an appropriate incentive system. These support high productivity by aligning performance outcomes to organisational goals like customer satisfaction and revenue. When you have a clear idea of their productivity, you can take measures to reward performance and motivate or train poor performers.
Performance metrics relating to productivity include:
Customer satisfaction - Measure productivity by conducting customer surveys and obtaining other types of feedback from customers. You can easily identify the best-performing team members.
Output or time - You can track productivity by quantity measurements such as how many tasks, parts, items, and products are completed or produced within a given timeline. You can also track how long it takes to complete a task and leverage other time-related metrics like absences, breaks, and delays.
Quality - Productivity can be measured by referring to the quality of products, services, and completed tasks. This can be determined with customer surveys, line manager feedback, and other relevant measures.
Sales - Sales conversions, number of sales attempted, and new customer numbers are some of the key metrics for sales staff.
Profits - Track collective productivity by measuring how much profit your organisation generates for every dollar in salary you spend.
4. Design effective incentive systems
It’s not surprising that motivation and productivity tend to be linked. For example, positive feedback, bonuses, prizes, and other rewards can motivate your employees and encourage them to become more productive. Some employees might prefer additional paid time off rather than a bonus. Find out what motivates your employees, whether it’s extrinsic or intrinsic rewards, and design the right incentive systems to keep them motivated.
5. Support training and development
Your organisation’s HR function can help raise the bar in terms of education, training, and development programs that help employees upskill. Not only will your workforce continue to upgrade their competencies for higher productivity; they’ll also have the opportunity to grow, develop, and self-actualise to reach their professional goals. This could have added benefits like increasing engagement and retention.
A proactive and strategic approach links your overarching company goals with skills needed for now and the coming years, and trains (and recruits) according to these needs. Simultaneously, it should also refer to existing skills gaps and individual employees’ professional goals to inform training and development programs.
Employee training and development can take many different forms, including one-on-one coaching, formal training courses, seminars, mentoring, and on-the-job learning. Find out what your employees want to learn and how they want to learn, such as through completing a formal training course or on the job, and try to accommodate their preferences if possible.
6. Offer leaders data insights
HR plays a crucial role in tracking employee data and providing leaders with the right information to make hiring and other workforce-planning decisions. Tracking and extracting the granular details of employees can be a daunting process for busy managers and leaders.
The HR function can, for example (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), prove to be invaluable during performance reviews and assessments. It can assist with establishing and overseeing a detailed performance management system encompassing the metrics, measurement, and training and coaching programs. It can then capture the necessary data to generate detailed reports for insightful decision-making by leaders.
7. Promote health and wellbeing
Comfortable workstations and an ergonomic working environment go a long way in ensuring your employees feel supported and well at work. The more comfortable and happy they are, without distractions resulting from discomfort, the easier they’ll find it to focus and be productive.
HR can spearhead further efforts to promote employee safety, health, and wellbeing with wellness programs. These can include free gym passes, healthful food vouchers, and providing nutritious snacks in the workplace. In some cases, simple measures like ensuring a policy of regular breaks can lead to substantial wellbeing improvements. These could have benefits such as reducing the number of sick days taken, which has a direct impact on productivity and your bottom line.
Other possible measures for wellbeing may include better lighting, more natural lighting, comfortable seating, standing desks, setting a comfortable temperature, and minimising background noise.
8. Seek employee feedback
HR can drive high productivity and performance by obtaining feedback from employees. As an example, regular anonymous surveys create a safe channel for communication whereby employees can feel comfortable expressing their opinions. Make it clear you care about their welfare and opinion. Employees who feel heard can feel more engaged and committed to the organisation, especially if the leadership acts on their feedback.
Furthermore, taking stock of employee sentiment and satisfaction levels in this way regularly provides invaluable insights for the organisation’s decision-makers, allowing them to make smarter decisions on creating a happier, even more productive workplace with improved morale. As research suggests, happier workers are 13% more productive without doing more work hours than their discontented colleagues.
9. Facilitate flexible work arrangements
Offering flexible work arrangements to suit individual preferences can have a favourable effect on your employees’ creativity, innovation, and productivity. For example, you could allow employees some flexibility in their work hours and to work some of the time from home if they prefer it.
Furthermore, flexible work arrangements can convey the idea that you trust your employees enough to manage their workloads and care about their personal priorities. It has the added benefit of reducing costs for your organisation while saving commuting time for employees. As such, employees can be supported in becoming more productive with their time. Indeed, research shows telecommuting can lead to higher productivity.
10. Encourage work-life balance
A strong work-life balance policy reduces the risk of employee burnout and other mental and physical consequences. With a better work-life balance, your employees can be more empowered to do their best and achieve productivity and performance goals. HR can promote better work-life balance by encouraging managers to focus on productivity, supporting flexible work policies, and fostering parent-friendly policies.
11. Empower employees
Your HR managers can assist with developing initiatives for empowering your employees. For instance, encouraging managers to delegate appropriately and avoid micromanaging team members can give employees the space to empower themselves and take ownership (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of their work. In many cases, they may feel more trusted, capable, and accountable.
Your teams can become more innovative and productive as a result. They’ll have the opportunity to gain leadership competencies that allow them to develop in their careers while benefiting the organisation. Managers will free up their own time to concentrate on higher-priority tasks.
12. Promote team-building efforts
HR can promote team-building efforts that foster a cohesive workplace culture that then motivates employees to do their best for the organisation. Examples include team lunches, Christmas parties, and team-building game days. Spending time outside the work context in this way can nurture a sense of community and solidarity, paving the way for greater trust and more dynamic collaboration as well as individual productivity.
13. Supply the right tools for efficiency
HR can lead the way in providing the right tools to boost efficiency and productivity in your employees. Whether it’s software platforms for collaboration and communication, hardware, machinery, or something else, the right tools eliminate manual tasks and repetition. HR should encourage every department in the organisation, including the HR department itself, to review tools and systems regularly and ensure they’re in line with best practice.
Conclusion
Proactive management efforts like setting clear goals for employees and performance appraisals and management are some of the ways HR can help increase productivity. Incentive systems, training and development, and relevant data insights are also important. Addressing employee needs with wellbeing policies, flexible work, the right tools, and team-building exercises are other ways HR can assist. In these ways, your HR function can prove to be instrumental for growth, revenue, and the success of your business.
