Top Issues That Affect Company Productivity

Every company can improve their productivity in small ways. Evaluating your current flow of production is important as well as finding solutions to mitigate issues that prevents your company from reaching its full potential. It is essential to look at your company’s overall performance and evaluate individual employees as well.

Company Productivity

Processes should standardize and simplify the necessary tasks that keep business running smoothly. They should enable organizations to undertake complex work but oftentimes, your company’s processes can hurt productivity if they are not properly managed. Take these common company process issues and solutions into consideration.

Problem: Empowering with permission–but without action.

It’s not empowering when people are given more responsibility, yet must still obtain an unreasonable number of approvals and sign-offs to get anything done. This signals a lack of trust.

Solution: Grant new responsibility with the ability to act on their work and make executive decisions that align with their current role.

If you do not feel that your employee can sign-off on certain tasks, spend the time and effort into training him or her to make executive decisions that reflect your company’s vision and values.

Problem: Bottlenecks.

Just because a process has been executed one way for a long time doesn’t necessarily make it the best option. Companies will often overlook sources of process slowdowns because of their lack of visibility and inability to understand the impact of a bottleneck.

Solution: Continuously evaluate your processes.

No process can withstand decades of production.  Adapting to innovative technologies and being open to fresh solutions is the best way to improve processes. Be aware of a process that seems to slow down your business and actively pursue a way to improve it.

Problem: Redundancy.

Unnecessary steps in a procedure causes wasted time, money, and effort. This could mean repeating tasks that do not offer any value or multiple employees working on the same tasks due to improper communication.

Solution: Eliminate non-value-added activities and steps.

These include wasted time, wasted movement, wasted inventory due to overproduction, duplication of effort and errors, customer delays, waits for approvals, delays due to batching of work, unnecessary steps, and rework. Also aim to improve your company’s internal communication to ensure that each department, manager, and employee are all on the same page and have clearly defined roles in achieving each task.

Individual Employee Problems

When employees are distracted and unhappy, their productivity suffers, and ultimately so does the company. It’s important to address these issues below to ensure your employees perform at their highest potential.

Problem: Job Security.

When workers are unsure about the company’s future or their personal success, they may not work to their full potential.With an unemployment rate of around 3 percent, job security — even among those who are employed —  is an ongoing concern despite the decrease in recent years. An employee who thinks their job is at risk may be more likely to look for work elsewhere, tell others negative things about the organization, and exert less effort in their work if they think they do not have a future there.

Solution: Managers need to proactively communicate and empower their employees.

Actively communicate with employees on their performance and work, even if it is proving negative feedback. If you do not communicate well, rumors can circulate and employees can feel insecure if they do not hear feedback from you personally about their work. Managers also need to build employee confidence. Ensure employees feel in control and confident in their day-to-day role and that their contribution is always valued.

Problem: Lack of engagement.

If your employees are not engaged in their work, this can lead to employees speaking negatively about the company, exerting less effort, and lacking motivation to succeed. According to Gallup, 51% of the U.S. workforce is not engaged. Disengaged employees cost organizations between $450 and $550 billion.

Solution: Transformation mode.  

Many corporations are experiencing transformation mode, where leadership is about enabling the full potential in others. It’s about allowing employees to be their authentic selves so they can leverage their strengths and unique perspectives. Employees want to feel valued and challenged; they want to be trusted and given the freedom to explore and learn within the job. Give your employees the opportunity to demonstrate strength and leadership while continuously keeping them informed on their performance.

If you would like to improve your company’s productivity, you must be proactive in addressing issues that are preventing your company to succeed. Contact BDeWees Consulting to help discover the pitfalls in your company processes!

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Jim DePew
Vice President & Consultant
Mobile: (330) 631-9022
Office: (330) 915-2355 Ext: 103
Email: jdepew@bdewees.com