Understanding Workplace Productivity
A company's success is closely tied to its productivity. Higher productivity often translates to better overall performance. One way to enhance productivity is by automating recurring tasks. From production gains through suitable equipment to utilizing productivity calculation software, numerous tools are available to accurately quantify a company's profitability by precisely measuring its productivity.
Why Focus on Workplace Productivity?
Companies need to understand their daily performance. This knowledge allows them to determine the hours required to produce a good or service, calculate the necessary workforce for timely order fulfillment, increase revenue, value capital, and boost profits.
From an economic perspective, workplace productivity is defined as the quantity of goods or services produced over a given period, relative to the hours worked by employees. Higher production generally indicates better productivity. This concept dates back to the industrial revolution era, where assembly line jobs often pushed workers to their limits with the sole aim of maximizing output and enriching the company, often disregarding the human element.
Today, Western countries have moved away from these relentless rhythms. While companies still strive for increased production, they also have a responsibility to improve employee productivity by considering their well-being at work. Failure to do so can result in legal repercussions under employee protection laws.
The Purpose of Productivity Calculation
Whether calculated by position, team, or sector, the fundamental principle remains the same: quantity produced divided by the amount of work required. The calculation of work quantity is based on the number of employees needed to produce a given good or the total number of hours to be planned. This is referred to as per capita productivity in the first case and hourly productivity in the second.
Employee management software allows companies to know the precise cost of each employee per hour, month, or year. The widespread use of this management system within companies greatly simplifies productivity calculation and also helps to set a sales price, estimate the break-even point and define profit, among other things.
Why is Productivity a Key Issue for Companies?
Understanding production capacity is essential for any structure, whether it manufactures physical goods or offers services in the tertiary sector. By considering work hours, company expenses (salaries, operating costs, fixed costs, and loan repayments), revenue generated, time required to complete an order, etc., companies can determine profitability, measure productivity, and ensure long-term sustainability.
Improving production no longer means simply producing more, but producing better. This highlights the difference between production and productivity. Production measures the quantities manufactured in a given time. Productivity incorporates the concept of efficiency in the manufacturing of a good or in the provision of a service.
This notion of improving the quality of productivity is therefore one of the drivers of the company, which allows to retain employees longer in their positions (and thus limit turnover which is very expensive for the company), but also to have employees satisfied with their jobs, ready to participate in the general effort and thus in the success of their work tool.
Enhancing Human Management for Increased Productivity
Effective employee management contributes to increased productivity. By giving employees the opportunity to express their views on improving their working conditions, the tools at their disposal, or by placing trust in them, the company can only quickly observe that productivity is improved through collective investment.
The combination of forces that initially have nothing in common provides an additional boost to the entrepreneurial community and generates overall motivation that is reflected, as a result, in final productivity.
Thus, human management is now at the heart of the debates of modern companies that take into account, much more often than before, the professional and personal capacities of the employee, their motivations and their skills. All this is based on regular training that allows them to progress in their professional career.
This notion of give-and-take is therefore one of the drivers of the company's productivity and its improvement. Investing in suitable equipment or software will never do everything. The productivity gain will always pass through the human factor which will allow, by its daily work, to increase the added value.
