How Much is it the Employer’s Responsibility to Ensure Employee Productivity?

When you hire a new employee, you make it clear what the job’s expectations are. You expect them to be productive, and you provide them with an environment that’s conducive to getting the job done. This leads us to ask a fundamental question about workplace productivity: How much responsibility do you have in aiding your employees’ productivity?

Finding an answer to this question assumes a couple of things: 1) The employee is trying their best at their job, and 2) The employer has made his or her expectations clear and they’re committed to doing whatever they can in order to help their staff do their job. With these two guidelines established, let’s explore this concept further by looking at common examples where employers are expected to assist the productivity of their staff.

• Job training: A worker can’t perform their job if they don’t know how to do it.
• Tools to do the job: Company-provided workstations are a classic example of this.
• A working environment that fosters productivity: This is why you have an office space and pay the utility bills.
• A paycheck: Providing your staff with the agreed upon compensation is a must.

When it comes down to it, these four items cover the basics regarding what an employer is expected to provide their workers, which leads us to our next question: Do you only want to give your staff the basic provisions for their jobs, or do you want to do everything within your power to help them be as productive as possible and crush your expectations?

It’s an important question to ask because an employee that’s motivated and equipped to do their job well can be one of your business’s greatest sources of revenue. How much you believe this will be seen by how much you support your staff. For example, if you're primarily concerned that your employees meet quotas, and they’re able to meet these quotas just fine using the provisions you provide them, then you may feel little-to-no obligation to provide them with additional support so they can do their jobs better.

On the other hand, if you make improving the productivity of your staff a personal responsibility and a high priority, then you’re going to go out of your way to provide your workers with the best tools for the job, create a work environment that brings out their strengths, and pay them well. Sounds like a lot of time, effort, and expense on your part? It is, which is why you have to strongly believe in the potential of your workers in order to follow through with adding extra responsibilities and expenses to your role as employer/supporter extraordinaire.

Taking on more responsibility to improve the productivity of your workers doesn’t have to necessarily be a huge burden. It can be as simple as listening to what motivates them and learning about what tools and technologies they prefer, and what changes they would like to see made to their work environment--all so they can be more productive.

After talking with your staff, you might discover that they would work better using their personal mobile devices (BYOD), instead of the bulky workstations you’ve provided them. Or, maybe they’ll inform you that the way your office is setup isn’t conducive to productivity. There might be too many distractions around the office, or maybe their introverted or extroverted personalities would be better utilized for productivity if they were able to work from home, or the office setting could be changed to an open office that’s more social.

Finding out these productivity preferences about your staff can only happen if you take time to communicate with them, and this will only occur if you feel like it’s your responsibility to do so.

If you’ve never asked your team what you can do for them to make them more productive, then you may be surprised to learn that their current tools and work environment may actually be hindering their productivity in a major way. Having conversations like this to better meet their needs will pay off in the long run by creating more revenue for your company.

As a bonus, this is a responsibility that you can outsource to Computerware. We can help maximize the productivity of your team by equipping them with the mobile technology they crave, set up your company with communication solutions so your employees can work from home, and remotely manage the security of your network and the maintenances of your workstations so your workers aren’t bogged down by having to troubleshoot their problem-prone computers.

Do you want to learn more ways to improve the productivity of your staff by taking advantage of the latest technologies? Give Computerware a call at (703) 821-8200.