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Tag: Employee productivity

  • Why Clear Expectations Are the Key to Employee Productivity and Morale

    Adi Klevit, an Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) member in Portland, Oregon, is the co-founder of Business Success Consulting Group, which helps leaders create and document custom processes and tailor-made management systems that ensure consistency. We asked Klevit how clear procedures and expectations in the workplace can drive productivity, confidence, and team morale.

    When roles aren’t clear, employees end up duplicating efforts, stepping on each other’s toes, or delivering work that misses the mark. The result? Frustration, resentment, and eventually, talented people walking out the door, not because they lack ability, but because they lack clarity. 

    Why clarity matters 

    I’ve seen this play out countless times, and the research backs it up. According to Effectory’s HR Analytics, employees who have clarity about their role are 53 percent more efficient and 27 percent more effective than those without it. That’s a 25 percent performance boost. Other studies show the same pattern. Role ambiguity is strongly linked to higher turnover intentions and lower job satisfaction. 

    Here’s the kicker: Many fast-growing companies avoid putting structure in place because they’re afraid it will slow them down. However, clarity isn’t red tape. It’s what allows you to grow at speed without chaos. 

    A real-world example 

    At a financial services firm we worked with, one client services team member stood out. She was diligent, smart, and genuinely wanted to excel. She completed a task for a client, sent it off, and thought she nailed it. However, when her adviser reviewed it, he was disappointed. The problem wasn’t her effort. It was that expectations weren’t defined or documented anywhere. She felt like she had failed, even though she had done her best with the information she had. 

    Her motivation took a hit, and eventually she began looking for another job. The firm lost a great employee not because of performance, but because she was never given clarity on what “good” looked like. The truth is she didn’t fail—the system did. 

    On the flip side, I’ve also seen clarity turn things around. One client in professional services decided to start small by documenting their client onboarding process. Within weeks, they cut mistakes in half, sped up turnaround times, and gave their employees more confidence. That single process win energized the team and created momentum to tackle other areas. 

    What actually works  

    The solution isn’t complicated, and it doesn’t have to bog your company down. Start small, keep it lean, and build as you grow. Here are five practices I’ve seen transform both productivity and morale: 

    • Map one process flow. Don’t boil the ocean. Start with a high-impact workflow, such as onboarding or invoicing. Even a whiteboard sketch can show everyone where they fit and prevent gaps. 
    • Define ownership at each step. Be crystal clear about who owns what, who contributes, and who needs to be informed. This avoids duplication and finger-pointing. 
    • Set success metrics. Don’t just say “do the report.” Spell out what a successful report looks like so employees know when they’ve nailed it. 
    • Connect the dots. Help employees see not just their tasks but how their work impacts others. That perspective builds collaboration and trust. 
    • Keep it current. Businesses evolve. Review and adjust your processes so clarity today doesn’t turn into confusion tomorrow. 

    These steps can be rolled out quickly by your managers and department heads, but only if leadership champions them. 

    The leadership mindset shift 

    Clarity is the foundation of productivity and scale, and it starts at the top. As CEO, your role isn’t to write out every process. Instead, it’s to set the tone. You model respect for clarity by following the systems yourself, and you make sure your leadership team sees procedures as empowerment tools, not bureaucracy. 

    Think of it this way: While your managers own the details of process mapping, you own creating a culture where clarity is valued and followed. Your company reaps the benefits of faster scaling, smoother onboarding, and a team that doesn’t need to be micromanaged. I’ve seen leaders lose top performers simply because they didn’t live by their own systems. If you want your team to respect the process, then you have to lead by example. 

    Clarity brings freedom 

    Clarity isn’t bureaucracy. It’s the structure that frees people to do their best work. When employees know what’s expected, they don’t just perform better; they feel valued, motivated, and engaged. For fast-growing companies, clarity is what makes scale possible. Without it, growth creates chaos. With it, growth creates freedom. 

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    Entrepreneurs’ Organization

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  • Social Security Official Shreds Lauren Boebert Over What She Finds ‘Unacceptable’

    Social Security Official Shreds Lauren Boebert Over What She Finds ‘Unacceptable’

    Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) flopped in her attempt to scold a Social Security Administration official over employee productivity on Wednesday.

    Boebert told Oren “Hank” McKnelly, an executive counselor for the SSA, that the agency was allowing “delinquent employees to sit on their sofas at home” instead of “actually getting to work and doing their jobs” as she took aim at telework policies during a House Oversight Committee hearing.

    “This is absolutely unacceptable,” said Boebert, who is known for her bizarre behavior in – and outside of – Washington.

    McKnelly, who was testifying before the committee, swiftly checked Boebert and broke down how SSA employees’ performances are monitored as they work from the office or at home.

    “So real time understanding of what actions are being processed at any particular given time,” noted McKnelly, who added that employees are required to be “accessible” during work hours to supervisors, clients and colleagues.

    Boebert pressed further on employee productivity before McKnelly shut the Republican down.

    “Then why is the backlogs for Social Security applicants increased from 41,000 to 107,000?” asked Boebert.

    “Because we’ve been historically underfunded for a number of years now,” McKnelly replied.

    “I don’t think you’re underfunded. You’re funded at the Nancy Pelosi levels, at the democrat levels. We just continued that same funding,” said Boebert, adding that it’s at “pandemic-level spending.”

    “So I’d say we’d have an increase of over eight million beneficiaries over the last 10 years. At the same time, we experienced our lowest work staffing levels at the end of FY 22. That’s a math problem,” he replied.

    “I mean, that is a problem. If you have those workloads increasing and you don’t have the staff to take care of those workloads, you’re going to have the backlogs that you’re talking about, representative.”

    Related…

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  • 78% of Employers Are Using Remote Work Tools to Spy on You

    78% of Employers Are Using Remote Work Tools to Spy on You

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    78% of employers use software to spy on employees. But the research — and common sense — shows that this tempting practice does far more harm than good. And 83% of employers acknowledge that it’s ethically questionable. When you spy on your people, you trade trust, culture and morale for sketchy data and productivity theater.

    Work-from-home and hybrid models are here to stay. Companies everywhere are investing millions in digital employee experience (DEX), which reduces IT friction and makes employees happier and more productive. Separately, the same remote and hybrid shift has encouraged companies to deploy so-called productivity surveillance technologies. These have the opposite effect and even punish those who allegedly waste company time.

    DEX and productivity surveillance are very different. DEX helps employees and their companies, while surveillance harms both. What’s more, data from productivity surveillance is, ironically, a terrible measure of productivity. Many companies have good justifications for specific, security and compliance monitoring practices. But we shouldn’t let productivity surveillance hide in the shadow of necessary measures that prevent disasters like data breaches.

    What’s productivity surveillance, and what does it measure?

    Leaders are worried about productivity. 85% blame hybrid work for obscuring whether employees are being productive, even though 87% of employees report they’re more productive working from home.

    Productivity surveillance includes things like taking screenshots throughout the day, logging keystrokes and clicks, analyzing message frequency and length and tracking website usage. All in order to measure, safeguard and (managers hope) increase worker productivity.

    Companies implement productivity surveillance to police how employees are spending their time. But, the proxy measures they use are extremely problematic. Screenshots, keyloggers, mouse trackers and message frequency logs don’t capture the important work that takes place away from company devices. Social workers, for example, have been penalized for visiting clients. Companies have docked pay for routine bathroom breaks. And none of these intrusions measure true productivity, like outcomes, work quality or goal attainment.

    This technology is doing real harm to people who don’t deserve it. And for what?

    Related: Can Employee Monitoring Be Done Ethically?

    The not-so-hidden harm and unbearable cost of surveillance

    Productivity surveillance damages the relationship between workers and companies and makes employees more likely to lie, cheat, steal, pretend to work and quit.

    43% of remote workers feel employee surveillance violates their trust; 59% feel anxiety; 26% feel resentment, and 28% feel underappreciated when subjected to such technologies. Tracked employees are nearly two times more likely to fake work and they spend over an hour extra online every day on average just to be seen by colleagues and managers.

    The authors of two 2021 studies discovered many paradoxical effects of employee surveillance. Monitored workers are “substantially more likely” to engage in myriad negative behaviors, including damaging and stealing workplace property, taking unapproved breaks, disregarding instructions and cheating, working at a purposefully slow pace and blaming others for their actions.

    During the pandemic, people took stock of their priorities. Millions have quit jobs because of poor working conditions and bad work-life balance and productivity surveillance decays both. Nearly 60% of tech workers said they would reject a job offer if they were surveilled by audio or video to enforce productivity. Roughly half would leave a job if their employers used audio and/or video surveillance, facial recognition, keystroke tracking or screenshots.

    Related: Your Boss is Watching You. Here’s Why Monitoring Workers Can Be …

    DEX vs. productivity surveillance

    DEX, on the other hand, is a category of technology and strategies to empower — not punish — workers. DEX tools find and fix IT issues before they cause delays and frustration, and track employee sentiment about IT experiences to continuously improve them behind the scenes.

    DEX is distinct from productivity surveillance because it scrutinizes things, not people: device performance, network speed, application crashes and the like. Companies use this data to enhance the technology experience for workers, not to evaluate productivity or punish them. This is precisely what employees want: 90% say their company’s digital experience has room for improvement, 82% say the delayed resolution of IT issues slows employees down and 68% say DEX has a high or critical level of influence on revenue.

    Related: How to Effectively Measure and Track Employee Productivity

    The contrast couldn’t be clearer. DEX makes workers more productive, makes the workday more enjoyable and makes companies more money. Policing productivity with surveillance makes your employees feel demoralized, untrusted and eager to find a better job. For leaders, it’s time to take a hard look at your so-called productivity surveillance technologies, practices and data. It’s also a moment for introspection. Let’s end this misguided trend before it goes any further.

    Mark Banfield

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