Workforce Productivity: a mouthful for businesses across the world.

With the global economy still adjusting to the long-term economic effects of the pandemic, businesses across the world are being faced with several common challenges. The main concern relates to maximising workforce productivity while getting employees to work from secure remote locations, as employees continue to demand Work-from-home and flexible working options.

Amidst this backdrop, a key hindrance to raising productivity is revealed by the findings of McKinsey research: the average employee spends 13 hours a week on routine tasks at work.¹

Why is employee productivity important?

Employees who spend over 10 hours of their work week on mundane tasks will not spend adequate time on actions which are strategically important. The overall time they spend on work will therefore not deliver meaningful results and productive outcomes.

Furthermore, productive work in businesses will help every economy to progress consistently amidst the post-COVID impact.

Almost 50% of people who have never worked from home, now plan to do so more often in the future, creating an opportunity for a 2.7% increase in productivity.²

Consequently, the global workforce currently faces the key challenges of raising remote employee productivity, upskilling the workforce and cutting down costs by automating mundane tasks.

A few ways to increase employee productivity in the workplace

Productivity tracking through the most used platforms: Most businesses are aware of the capabilities of Microsoft Teams as a communications platform, but haven’t yet discovered how it can be used as a collaboration platform to craft rich employee experiences. Many forward-thinking platform providers, such as MiHCM have created applications that work within Microsoft Teams, which help employees record their work activity while hosting meetings, events, and communications.

Productivity dashboards: These analytics are a true stage for all leaders and HR to calculate ways to raise productivity and even reward the most productive employees. The MiHCM HR platform offers a series of analytics to explore workforce productivity based on department, job category and even the time spent on different categories of work (meetings, learning, documentation etc).

Benefits of improving workforce productivity

Increased profits as a result of productivity: The optimum level of productivity maintained consistently will see the organisation grow in terms of profitability and competitiveness. A workforce which generates a greater output from their exerted efforts is the primary requirement in cutting down unnecessary cost and raising profits.

Profitable businesses are the life of an economy: Every business in every economy is weathering the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak. This indicates that every employee in any business should work towards being productive at work. A profitable and competitive business will support economic recovery, which will help provide long-term economic stability necessary for businesses to thrive.

We are at a juncture of time where every business, including home-based ventures, mid-sized businesses, large enterprises, and conglomerates should focus on instigating mechanisms and platforms to help employees automate or eliminate mundane tasks, and focus on strategic acts through which every employee will be able to raise their productivity and support their business and economy. The MiHCM Digital HR platform and MiA Assistant for Microsoft Teams are such platforms which help in the automation of mundane HR tasks and thereby help raise employee productivity.

Sources

1. McKinsey & Company, “The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies”, Published on 01.06.2012, Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/the-social-economy
2. Accenture, “How COVID-19 will permanently change consumer behavior”, Published April 2020, Available at: COVID-19: Fast-changing Consumer Behavior | Accenture