Find out the meaning of employee productivity, the formula used in its calculation and examples.
Employee productivity is the most assessed metric by organizations. It is the efficiency of employees or group of workers. It is measured by determining the output of employees over a given period. In addition, it is evaluated in relation to the output of other employees in the organization. Actually, you can find an employee productivity definition pdf, which means that there are diverse ways of looking at the concept.
How to evaluate employee productivity
In the manufacturing industries and others where workers handle quantifiable products, productivity is measured by evaluating the number of units, which an employee manages within a given time. For example, an employee who works at a toy manufacturing company may produce 20 toys in an hour whereas one that waits at a restaurant can serve 15 customers in every hour.
However, to measure efficiency and productivity effectively, it is important to develop a unit of service. This metric comes in handy when measuring employee productivity of repetitive services. For example, a housekeeper in a hotel may have carried out a number of activities during their shifts such as cleaning a number of rooms, organizing the rooms and other related duties. Other professional service jobs, may involve a wide range of output, making reasonable techniques of assessing productivity of the employees difficult.
To measure efficiency, you need to evaluate the time an employee uses to complete a single unit of service. For example, if an employee packs children toys, and they are able to pack 80 toys every hour against the company set target of 100 toys per hour, their efficiency is 80%. It means they are in a better position to improve their efficiency, and eventually their productivity. However, only the hours spent doing productive work should be factored in. This is especially in service jobs, where the employee is paid based on the number of hours worked.
Some organizations have established benchmarks and targets, to improve efficiency. For example, workers at a call center are given the time limit for each basic transaction. Then, they develop performance targets based on the benchmarks. To calculate the average amount of time an employee takes to complete a set of basic tasks, you can take an average of the time multiple tasks take. Nevertheless, you should not expect your employees to be 100% efficient. In conclusion, the importance of measuring the productivity of employees cannot be overemphasized. Depending on the nature of the tasks, you should measure the appropriate metric, and employ the necessary measures to improve output and efficiency.