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Productivity doesn’t mean doing more – it simply means that more steps were taken. This could’ve come as a result of increased input where more hours are worked and if so, it may be less productive.
While doing more may seem like you’re more productive, it actually means that you’re performing better at the expense of increased effort – which may be masking a flawed fundamental of workforce management.
There’s a Huge Difference Between Performance and Productivity:
Performance is the process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. It’s your ability to accomplish the expectations of your organization. The success of performance is usually managed against set KPIs, goals, and objectives.
Organization reward systems are an obsession with KPIs, where one’s job performance equals good ranking with the hypothesised concept of a task or activity’s requirements.
The common practice is that performance measurement is connected to organizational goals and a set of metrics used to quantify or qualify the efficiency and effectiveness of actions taken.
However, this leaves you vulnerable to the misconception that you are more productive when you improve your performance.
Performance doesn’t mean that you produced anything. It means that you did something to a particular standard. What’s alarming is that performance can improve at the expense of productivity.
Productivity is a commonly used but often misunderstood. Proper definition of the word is derived from its root, produce. It centres on output – what is produced. Whereas performance is based on activity, be it quantitative or qualitative.
Workforce productivity means attaining the highest possible outcome, while consuming minimum factors of input.
If you’re only measuring performance or allowing the misuse of the term productivity, a generalized hypothesis would be that your productivity is declining. Meaning, it takes more people to produce less. Productivity growth is essential if you want to grow your profitability.
Before you jump to the conclusion that productivity means shrinking your workforce, it doesn’t.
For starters, you could begin making sure that every working hour is aligned with what you produce. Effectively, you buy time with a premium for knowledge, experience and skill.
At the end of the day, you are buying time. So, instead of thinking about how many employees you have or need, shift your focus to thinking about time – hours. How many hours do you need for what’s being produced? Is every hour that you’ve bought contributing towards your outcome?
With the confusion of what productivity means, minimal attention is focused on the hours worked. Therefore, it’s likely that your employees have idle time in their day, being consumed by social media or working double time (when work is being repeated) – and wasting time by working on things that don’t make a difference. Make it a habit to utilize every hour for the right thing, the right way.
Don’t confuse productivity and performance – more importantly, don’t use the two words interchangeably. Productivity is the measure of output per hour worked in workforce management.
