FAQs
What strategies can we implement to increase productivity within our teams?
There are two strategies, neither of which work alone, but combined together in a special way, achieve steady increases in productivity month after month.
Continuous improvement and employee engagement driven from the bottom up is a powerful combination.
How can we measure productivity effectively?
The simplest measure is value produced divided by cost of production.
Other measures look at labour productivity – value or quantity per hour.
The same technique is used for any limiting resource.
An entire specialism has arisen around all the reasons non-productive time occurs. Better to save the cost of this and focus on bottom-up continuous improvement.
What tools and technologies can we leverage to enhance productivity?
The key measure is bottom-up continuous improvement.
It’s necessary to provide company information on costs, customer feedback, remediation levels and everything else that could be improved.
Push data access to the bottom to the level of discomfort.
The continuous improvement process will throw up a demand for low cost tools to enable the improvements.
Adopt a technology to celebrate success of the employee-led continuous improvement, but please no bonuses!
How can we foster a culture that encourages high productivity?
Traditionally higher productivity is seen as bigger bonuses for the Bosses.
Before the high productivity culture you need to create a culture of fairness and care for each other.
If your culture is based on ‘buying a used car’, that is you want to pay as little as possible for the car and guarantee with extras, while the seller wants to maximise the price and minimise the benefits: if that’s your culture then you’re not exhibiting care for your employees. Your employees won’t care about either. You need a culture of care.
What training or development programs can we introduce to improve productivity?
We have a range of programs from single manager coaching, through formalised manager development programs to group manager workshops.
How can we increase employee engagement in our organisation?
Show that you both care about and for your employees.
Listen to them, be present in their workspace.
Respond to their ask for help, but help through, not over, their immediate manager.
Top Ten Employee Engagement Tips
What are the key drivers of employee engagement in our industry?
Your employees, your people, want to feel valued, to be respected.
They want to be heard.
They want a voice to make things better.
Drivers of Employee Engagement
How can we measure and track employee engagement?
You can spend a small fortune on software to measure it and people to manage it.
If employee engagement doesn’t affect the Profit and Loss account then don’t measure it.
Employee engagement is as much use as a one-handed clap without continuous improvement!
What role does leadership play in fostering employee engagement?
It is easier for bad leadership – micromanaging, criticizing, not being present – to make things worse than good leadership makes it better.
A good leader treats people with respect, builds relationships, is trusted and honest, and inspires the team.
A good leader mutates a team of strangers into a team of mates.
Employee motivation
How can we leverage feedback to improve employee engagement?
Employee engagement is not about re-decorating the toilets.
Don’t run employee surveys, go and talk to them. When they trust you they will tell you.
Don’t try and fix all the negatives at once.
Humans like positive change, sure and steady is best.
Executive? What do you do and what should you do
What are the main reasons for employee turnover in our organization?
A horrible statistic is that 60% of job leavers want to get away from their Boss not the job.
Improving the relationship between the manager and the team will stop this category of job leaver.
Very few job leavers give the true reason in an exit interview.
Our jobs are dull and boring. Staff turnover is a big problem!
How can we improve our employee retention rate?
Treat people with respect and train them for the next job.
If you have the most productive people their pay should reflect that.
Read more about Staff retention here
What role does compensation play in staff retention?
Pay should be good enough for it not to be an issue.
Good people deserve good pay.
You manage people to lead them to be good.
Achievement, recognition, money
How can we create a work environment that encourages employees to stay?
The work environment is about relationships. Build those relationships constantly.
This is a major activity for Motivation Matters.
Talent retention
What strategies can we implement to improve work-life balance and retain staff?
Until you have the right relationship with your people any work is dire, and a balance is impossible.
When the relationship is good you must be careful not to ask too much too often of your people.
They will be more productive and happier to push hard when the need arises. But if that need arises every week, you need to provide more resource.
What strategies can we implement to increase our profitability?
You can reduce the cost of remediation and manpower by the bottom-up continuous improvement with employee engagement approach.
This is a major activity for Motivation Matters.
The Very Boring Subject Of Margins
read more here about The Very Boring Subject Of Margins
How can we reduce costs without compromising on quality or employee satisfaction?
You can reduce the cost of remediation and manpower by the bottom-up continuous improvement with employee engagement approach.
This increases employee satisfaction too.
This is a major activity for Motivation Matters.
Ten ideas to absorb the increased costs from the National Minimum Wage escalator
How can we increase our market share and profitability?
The increase in profitability from employee engagement and continuous improvement provides funds to grow market share.
These activities are mostly in the core processes that change very slowly with time.
Any new products or services are likely to require many of those cost reduced core processes.
Double your profit
What new revenue streams can we explore to boost profitability?
The employee engagement and continuous improvement process clears out a mass of obstructions leaving a clearer view of what is now possible.
New products, new markets, new business terms.
Revenue Growth from Operations
How can we improve our financial management to increase profits?
The employee engagement and continuous improvement process increases cashflow.
Profits naturally increase and can be reinvested to drive more growth in the future.
‘Impossible results’ say the HR partners!
How does employee engagement affect productivity and profitability?
On its own employee engagement does very little.
But the employee engagement and continuous improvement process drives productivity and profitability.
Attempting to raise productivity and profitability by working harder is doomed to failure.
Reduced process times – continuous improvement – means more is done in the same time. A much better approach to continuously raise productivity by working less than working more.
What is the impact of high staff retention on our profitability?
Saving the cost of recruiting new people.
Saving the cost of training new people.
Working relationships continue to mature.
How can increased productivity contribute to staff retention?
Good people deserve good pay.
People would prefer to work for a company known to do ‘good’ things.
Have a budget to support local issues.
Read more about Tribal Loyalty here
How does profitability affect our ability to engage and retain employees?
People want to work for a winning company and not worry about their employer shutting down.
What is the relationship between staff retention and productivity?
Generally speaking a new employee takes some time to be fully productive.
This time depends on the employee, the process, the working relationships and a host of other factors.
Employee engagement and continuous improvement are not abilities new employees immediately have.
Read more about Your Path To High Competitive Advantage here
What long-term strategies should we adopt to improve productivity, engagement, retention, and profitability?
Create a working relationship that is caring.
Drive employee engagement and support continuous improvement.
Celebrate success but not with bonuses.
Increase salaries at pay review time because you value the person and what they will achieve in the next year.
Read about your Path To High Competitive Advantage here
How should we align our business goals with productivity, engagement, and retention strategies?
Once you have the right working relationships, employees are engaged and continuous improvement is everybody’s job, they need a challenge.
You can already do the difficult so grab an impossible opportunity when you can.
Remember ‘together you can’.
How can we involve employees in decision-making to boost engagement and productivity?
Your employees are closer to the action and the Customers than the management and executives.
The question is upside down.
How can you involve the management and executives in decisions is the right question.
Don’t stop driving down improvements and decisions until you need to answer how to involve the management and executives.
What resources do we need to implement these strategies effectively?
A modest fee for the consulting work, some senior people’s time to talk to employees and a carefully defined, but very broad, definition of what can be changed.
Most demanding is the trust of the executive team needed to allow that to grow.
Motivation Matters can help with that.
How will we measure the success of our strategies in these areas?
Most telling is a rising Gross Margin.
Cashflow is steadily better.
Everybody knows your name and wants to tell you about the most recent improvement in which they were involved.
The people buzz with excitement.
People want to work for you.
People are proud to work for you.