Johannesburg, 01 Jun 2020
Many companies assess employees’ productivity by the number of hours they spend in front of their screens. But does this make them more productive?
Gerhard Hartman, Vice-President for Medium Business at Sage Africa & Middle East, believes not and says companies need to change their attitude – and approach – to productivity. He also believes the onus is on companies to help their employees navigate this difficult time. They must support their workforces as the latter struggle to cope with the demands of being a productive employee, being a teacher and being a parent, not to mention being a human being stressed by events around them that they can’t control.
Half of the employees represented in a survey commissioned by Sage say they have never been asked about what would make them more productive. While businesses have been talking about flexible working for years, the current situation has forced its adoption virtually overnight. However, the accompanying challenges make for a less than ideal remote-working scenario, which could result in decreased productivity, despite longer hours spent working. This is where support from management can prove invaluable.
The answer lies in a dual strategy that focuses on people and processes. If a business leader assumes their people are motivated purely by a salary, or their processes don’t need adjustment to create more productive conditions, they are making big and widespread mistakes.
“You cannot just define your processes in your business without taking your employees and managers on the same journey,” says Hartman. “They run in parallel. You need to make sure that while you’re changing your business, you keep your workforce engaged.”
Productivity is primarily about output: how many items come off the line, the number of customer calls made, which KPIs are being targeted. But keeping exclusively to an output definition leads companies to regard their employees as drones. This view is dangerous as it denies another important factor from being considered, Hartman adds: “If you have a productive workforce, you’re going to have happy customers, or it’s going to affect your bottom line.”
Yes, happy workforces lead to satisfied customers. This doesn’t only involve employees that have direct interactions with customers. Most employees see being valued as the biggest contributor to their productivity. In a customer-centric business culture, that satisfaction relates directly to ultimately meeting customer needs. The result is a virtuous circle: satisfied customers lead to satisfied employees lead to satisfied customers.
Building a productive culture
The synergy between happy customers and a happy workforce is enabled by processes, hence focusing on people and processes will improve productivity. There are several ingredients necessary to improve productivity.
First is to recognise the vast importance of culture, says Hartman: “You can invest in your employees, but if they don’t have that culture of success or culture of serving a customer or culture of making sure you run a successful business, then you’re going to have a problem. You need a culture of service to customers, a culture of taking responsibility and analysing why things work or don’t work.”
The second crucial ingredient is strategy. This strategy drives specific needs, looking at what you use to define output and success, then scrutinising the culture and processes – the way business is being done – determining the outcomes you need. This approach then reveals your choices as well as their consequences.
“One approach is to change a process, making it more automated. But it is going to influence an individual’s job, and they’re going to need to be skilled to make sure they can perform that new task. This should be a two-way street. Managers can say what needs to change, but it’s the employee on the ground who uses the process. They should be able to give feedback.”
Change won’t be easy. Many people might resist improvements because it means adapting to change. It’s incredible how easily we can conflate something comfortable as necessary. A strategy will guide the business leading from the front. Still, employee buy-in is essential if the rest of the company will follow.
“A strategy defines where you want to go to as a company,” says Hartman. “But then you also need to have HR coming into that conversation, to say: ‘But if we go on this journey, how do we take our employees along?’ If you execute that correctly and you get the buy-in, you will have a win-win for all.”
Four steps to a productive culture
How can business leaders start this change and maintain its momentum, informing the strategy, culture and buy-in it needs?
Hartman recommends four steps that a company can cycle through towards better productivity:
1. Look for inefficiencies: Where are the bottlenecks? Unpack processes and roles, looking for better ways to do things, such as automation. For example, can your manual invoicing processes be automated? Talk to your employees and ask what slows them down.
2. What are the problems? You might be dealing with a workforce problem, or a process problem, or a management problem. It might be slow software or morning traffic contribution to productivity bottlenecks. Using monitoring and reporting can help you spot problematic trends.
3. Growing the business: You need to challenge yourself and ask if you’re still on the right course. Is the business delivering to its objectives? Manage your business soberly and make sure that you challenge your strategy continuously.
4. Experiment: Don’t be scared to experiment, regardless of whether you got a positive or negative outcome. It’s not right or wrong – it’s a different output to what your expectation was. Experiments will evolve your thinking and your processes behind that.
The secret to high and continued productivity is to be a people-centric company. This doesn’t mean being led by your employees, but to honestly listen to their needs, and invest in their buy-in of your strategy and vision.
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