Productivity

FACTORS THAT AFFECT IMPROVEMENT OF PRODUCTIVITY

It has been observed that the following nine factors should be taken care of if an organization has to effect changes needed to improve productivity and profitability:

1. Work that is challenging, creative, and interesting and provides an opportunity for “stretch” performance.

2. Participation in decisions that have a direct effect on the individual’s job.

3. Compensation that is tied to performance and to share the productivity gains. This needs a realistic appraisal.

4. Communication and authority channels in simplified form.

5. Competent supervision.

6. Recognition of achievement.

7. Opportunity for self-development.

8. Opportunity for stewardship, care of and attention to customer and co-worker needs.

9. Organizational style and patterns should be more flexible to the possible extent.

These provisions for providing job satisfaction and necessary motivation is not a simple task. It is really very complex in nature. No simple changes or group of changes such as revision of pay, or job enrichment will be sufficient nor will any misdirected notions of “human relations” or paternalism will yield any result.

Certain basic techniques, methods, and programs are available for the organization and to the individual manager which taken together will go a long way for creating a proper environment for improving productivity. These are known as Results Management Methods which forms the basis of managing subordinates. They are as follows:

1. Job Development: Matching the content and level of an employee’s job responsibility to his or her skills and abilities.

2. Performance Appraisal: The process of appraising a subordinate’s performance against previously set and established goals. This provides feedback on performance, a tool for self-development, and a device for recognition of performance.

3. Subordinate Development: Providing the environment for continuous learning, self-development, and growth on the job.

4. Communication: Improving the communication process using upward communication so that subordinates are informed about matters which affect their jobs.

5. Leadership Style: The adoption of leadership and supervisory styles that promote “results thinking” and hence improvement in productivity and job satisfaction.

6. Delegation and Control: Learning and practicing the art of delegation utilizing self-control by subordinates.

7. Organizational Style: Adopting an organizational form that provides for flexibility in authority and communication and overcomes the inflexibility of the classical bureaucracy.

If improved output alone is not reason enough to begin looking at team productivity, managers might consider team productivity from the point of view of their own career development. The changing direction of management requires that managers of the future be fully conversant with and qualified in all the functions of managing, including managing team productivity. If the competitive position of an organization is that it has achieved the past is to be maintained, managers and members of organization must have not only a solid business education but also skills in the following essential areas; team-work, oral communications, listening, learning how to learn, goal setting, motivation leadership, self esteem, problem solving, creative thinking, personal and career development and interpersonal negotiation.

In short, to make things change and to improve productivity in an organization, the manager should do the following:

1.Make commitment to yourself to improve.

2. Be an architect of your own organization.

3. Set goals that are unique and that others have not achieved.

4. Choose the path of highest resistance rather than the one with the least resistance. The payoff will always be higher.

5. Take some risks because it is the right thing to do and needs to be done.

6. Recognize that you are an entity in yourself and that you can initiate change.

7. Know that you are responsible or your own problems. What you have is what you have made?

8. Do not wait for the signal from above. The ball is in your court and you can throw it any time you wish.

To initiate change, managers can do a number of things. The following steps are suggested as steps for action:

1.Start by preparing a vision of how you see your team working two or three years from now. Discuss this with your team members, visualize it with them, and gain their commitment to reaching it.

2. Study and understand your team members. What are they like? What do they need? What do they want? What can they contribute to the team? How can you set up a culture that will tap their unused and unleashed resources? Work with them in this process.

3. Analyze the way your team is working today. Use a survey or whatever is best suited to your needs to help you diagnose and understand the team problem that you are now experiencing. Share these problems with your team. Get them to help you develop action steps to correct the problems.

4. If needed, enlist the help of outside resources. Most organizations have their own specialists who are qualified to assist as facilitators and team builders. If there are no such specialists or resources within the organization, go outside.

5. Once a team has started to make the change, be sure that you have designed ways to monitor the improvements. Provide ways to reinforce the change in a positive way, and reward the team for the successful adoption of action steps that increase its productivity. The improved results will themselves be rewarding, but it is helpful to offer more tangible rewards as well: special recognition, favours, opportunities for personal development, financial rewards. If possible, try to design your system so that more people produce, the greater the financial reward and incentive.

The whole issue of managing productive teams boils down to what is in it for you, the team leader. When you get improved performance from your team, you will feel greater satisfaction with yourself, your work will be more fun, your career position will improve, and you will be on the way to greater financial reward.