When we talk about productivity in companies is often put the focus directly on the worker. And maybe it is a wrong approach, or, at least, incomplete. Because many of the problems the company to improve productivity have to do with the organization, task assignments, work systems to measure or its quality.

And it is also cultural. An employee may be nine to five without raising his eyes from the table engrossed in his task. Departure time comes collects and tomorrow. Another employee has come an hour earlier, has been rising steadily, he is the king of the halls and the coffee machine when it’s time to leave comes, still has worked that surely will not end until the boss leaves. Who is most valued in the company?

Some problems or deficiencies in the internal organization of the company

I will mention only some of the most common in many companies:

1. We have a schedule to meet customer, something I think is perfect, but this does not mean that in the hours where you know you will not get anyone, we have not prepared to perform tasks at this time. This is essential to measure customer flow in the valley of our business or company to organize other back office tasks to do in these hours.
2. The telecommuting is not implanted because it is a mess and organize work.Besides, who says they are working at home corresponding times? In this case, we have a problem. If a worker is able to do a task in half an hour and in the office doubles the time devoted to it, we are doing something very wrong. It is essential to adequately measure the time it takes us every task we have assigned.
3. The Internet is a source of And here we consider it in a broad aspect, both from the computer workstation and from the individual employee’s smartphone. The Internet is a tool that saves us much time, if used for personal entertainment, is that it is this position sizing well and the employee can perform more workload which is assigned.
4. The quality of work is not measured, where oversight is often not done properly, either internally or, if necessary, by an external company. This means that often miss time and tasks are done at the last moment, quickly and in any manner.
5. No priority is given to the tasks, simply it says what we have to do, but not organized the day. There is no point a quarterly meeting if short track tasks are performed and priority is given to the most important.
6. No effective workflows are implemented that allow the work of a department involves a complement to another with which it is related, not an extra burden. If the flows are well defined, greased and structured, each department does its work and saves time for the rest of the company.
7. The company does not have the right tools so often is working inefficiently, doing the same job several times, or pushing forward the same base take hours and hours. It is important to have a tool that saves us time, not give us more work than taketh away.
8. Employees and employers have different objectives to fulfill. It is in many companies incentives established as a form of motivation to achieve a goal. But sometimes different goals in employees and bosses so that each strip to their own interest and, in the end, none of them will prevail met.
9. The objectives are not achievable and incentives are not The motivation for employees to improve their productivity simply means we have to convince them to do something they do not really want to do. An extra effort on what they consider acceptable. If the incentives offered not seem achievable or are not attractive they shall not constitute an extra motivation.

Improving productivity is an effort that many companies do not want to take

The feeling I have left in many companies is to improve productivity is not a priority. There is already an established dynamic that is difficult to break and when they reach higher working loads, simply throw more hours, but work more efficiently, looking for a better organization, etc.