Productive employees are responsible for most of the successes a company accumulates. They create winning ideas, and better yet, they are generally integral parts in bringing these ideas to fruition.
But how do we actually measure a team’s productivity?
In previous eras, metrics such as time-in-office or time-in-seats were commonly used, but work doesn’t look or work the way it used it. For example, while the pandemic forced workers to work from home, most companies found that teams could still be productive even when they weren’t in the office.
Given that these fundamental changes aren’t going to disappear anytime soon, it’s probably time to rethink how we measure productivity and how we can genuinely drive impactful business results.
Here are 3 great ways to measure productivity within your teams.
- Create clear objectives
It’s critical to create alignment between performance goals and the results you hope to achieve. Are your teams on board with these goals? Do they match what success looks like for different teams? The objective should be clear to each team and the broader company. Ensure you communicate these objectives to the teams.
2. Focus on quality and results
It is important to use metrics to measure your team’s productivity that makes sense. Rather than using traditional metrics that may not work for your teams, implement metrics that measure how well your team achieves objectives. Identify the appropriate metrics for measuring quality and outcomes and for ensuring performance is on track.
3. Assess employees’ engagement
It should be emphasized that productivity and engagement are no longer connected (spoiler: they never were). Nevertheless, there have been numerous studies focused on the impact engaged teams can have on a business.
Start measuring the engagement rates of teams in group discussions, their response rates on surveys and how they behave on social media. Are they active brand ambassadors, or do they work in silence? It is essential to find metrics that make sense to the way you work but focus on how you can measure and manage a teams engagement.