There’s no doubt that being productive is key to a successful business. But how can you be sure you’re really getting the most out of your employees? It can be tough to track exactly where the time goes, especially when there are always so many distractions pulling your workers in different directions.
That’s why learning how to calculate productivity can help your business identify areas for improvement. Let’s dig in.
Key Points
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Productivity is essential for any business—it’s a measure that identifies how much output an employee generates in a given amount of time. In fact, the more output workers generate, the higher the business’s profit. Keep in mind that the main purpose of a productive company is to get more work done in less time.
Other than internal distractions, external factors like the national economy, inflation, and competition can negatively affect your employee’s performance. Although you can’t control everything, measuring employee productivity per individual, team, or department can help your business understand which areas can be improved.
There are a number of different ways to calculate productivity, and the method you use will depend on your specific goals.
First, consider the productivity formula in all operations management is total input/total output.
Partial factor productivity (PFP) is defined as an increase in output caused by a rise in only one specific input factor. For example, if an employee generated $100 worth of output in a day and used $20 of resources, their partial factor productivity would be 5.
Because they only take into consideration one single input and data is easily accessible, businesses usually find this method the easiest to use.
While partial factor productivity focuses on a single input, the multifactor productivity formula is the ratio between total outputs and a set of inputs, including labor, materials, and other resources.
Although multifactor productivity is more difficult to calculate than PFP, it gives more comprehensive data.
The standard formula for multifactor productivity is: “Y+ A x Kα x Lβ.”
There are a number of different metrics that can be used as an equation for productivity. So, we’ve narrowed them down to the most popular ones.
This is used to calculate the average time a worker spends productively, including both active and passive time. It’s determined by dividing productive time by the number of workers.
This measure represents the ratio of productive time to total time. It’s determined by dividing the productive hours per day by the total hours per day.
The productive session indicates the average amount of time employees spend working without unnecessary interruptions, specifically in minutes.
How many productive hours per day can your team work on average? Is there a significant difference in productivity across your team? When looking at the daily productivity rate, you can compare it to the previous weeks to see if your employees’ performance is above or below average.
Calculating productivity in Excel is not as difficult as it may appear. Here are a few steps you should follow.
If you find that your employees are spending a lot of time on tasks that could be automated, then you should consider investing in technology that does that. Automation can free up your employees’ time and allow them to focus on more important tasks.
It’s not a secret that engaged employees are more productive. So, if you want to improve productivity, you should focus on employee engagement. You can provide them with training and development opportunities, offer competitive salaries and benefits, and create a positive work environment.
Each role in a company has different productivity requirements. For example, a salesperson may need to make a certain number of sales per week to be considered productive, while an accountant may need to complete a certain number of tasks per day.
So, it’s critical to define what’s expected from each role and individual in your company. This will help you set realistic expectations for your employees and measure their performance accurately.