The Essentials on How to Measure Productivity

In any business setting, it is actually very important for the management to measure productivity. This is because productivity is one of the main factors that define the success of the very business. No matter what industry the business belongs to, productivity is definitely needed as a contributing factor towards achieving the common goal of success. Of course, when it comes to productivity, the performance of the company’s workforce is an underlying concept here as well. Here lies the problem of measuring the productivity of your workforce. Remember that employees are people, and the performance of people is relative as it can come. So, how do you measure productivity in this aspect then?

There have actually been numerous methods implemented towards this goal. Here lies the concept of what are known as productivity metrics. When you are considering implementing productivity metrics in your organization, there would be factors that you have to study as well. First off, you need to ask yourself, just what do you want to measure with these metrics? With the many possible things you would want to measure, this could actually be a hard question to answer. Just focus on the goals and objectives that the company originally put in place, so that the quest for this would properly be guided. Aside from this, you would also have to determine the method on how you would measure the things you want to measure, as well as the course of action you would undertake once you do obtain these measurements. The method here would actually be your very own productivity metrics. The course of action here would be the actions that you are willing to undertake so that your goals and objectives would be achieved and realized.

When you are dealing with productivity metrics, you would also have to deal with what are known as the CSFs, or the Critical Success Factors. The four types of such factors include strategy, industry, temporal, and environmental. You may be tempted to include many CSFs, but you should not do this at all. This would only make the scenario all the more confusing, thereby losing the focus of the whole activity. Moreover, these factors would have quantifiable elements that would have to be measured against a certain threshold. This threshold specifies each of the factor’s current status. These elements that you can quantify are actually your KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators.

So, now that you have your CSFs and your KPIs, you can then move on to the development of your measurement tool. There are steps that you need to take in implementing this. The first thing to do is establish the vision of your measurement tool. You need to do this, so that you can then determine the strategic goals your measurement tool aims to achieve. Regarding your strategic goals, you also have to analyze each of them so that you can completely grasp the particular factors that hold influence over them. A measure per factor KPI, as well as a target value, should then be assigned.

These are just some of the steps that will help you in your quest to measure productivity in the workplace.