Improving Productivity in Organizations - Essay Example

Improving Productivity in Organizations College Improving Productivity in Organizations Improved productivity is the concern of any business despite its size. As a business and its operations grow, it becomes complex in management and operations. In some cases, the management may demand extra input from employees to meet the growing business demands, which in some cases may lead to demoralization among the employees and work teams. This may result from the tendency of management to add more rules and policies towards meeting the growing business opportunities. The result is minimized employee empowerment in the business as employees go the extra mile towards organizational goals and in accordance with new working strategies in the business. Moreover, increased management policies towards meeting growing business demands reduces employees’ sense of empowerment in the business as teams feel their input is not recognized, or are not empowered to utilize their skills towards meeting the respective job demands. In other words, when employees are less empowered, they tend to be demoralized. Such demoralization lowers their productivity at a time when such efforts are needed most. Therefore, organizations have to invest and employ methods that guarantee and promote employees’ empowerment towards ensuring improved productivity, the basic concept in wading through fierce market competitive forces across global markets. Considering that employees are central to any production activities in an organization, any attempts towards improving organizational productivity has to be based on understanding and meeting the concerns of the employees. In response, the employees would reciprocate such efforts by committing their skills and efforts towards meeting organizational goals, the baseline being improving organizational productivity and performance. Therefore, organizations that emphasize and invest more on empowering and meeting the needs of their respective employees have a higher possibility of improving productivity and performance compared to organizations that shun such investments. Employees will certainly offer their input in response to improvement of their basic needs and welfare in an organization. Investing in training and skills development among work teams is one of the best ways through which organizations may improve their productivity through improving employee performance. According to the International Labor Organization, ILO (2008) organizations that participate in developing and growing their value chain always do invest new knowledge and skills. In the current competitive market, employees need new skills, innovative ideas and problem-solving skills to ensure improved productivity and subsequent competitiveness in the market. Hence, organizations that do not invest in training and imparting new knowledge to their employees will lag behind in their productivity as they lack new impetus necessary to boost production. Through training, employees gain new skills and knowledge, which necessitates approaching problems differently or imparting new innovative ideas to build on existing methods of operations. Lack of new knowledge leads to boredom and lack of interest among employees; there lacks personal growth and development, a principle concept particularly in climbing the employment ladder (ILO, 2008). Such development is the major goal of any employee. In other words, organizations that do not invest in employee training demoralize their employees; employees develop a feeling that the organization does not invest towards their growth and development, which in turn lowers productivity as employees are not motivated to employ their skills towards organizational goals. Moreover, lack of employee development is a main precursor to increased employee turnover as employees are forced to leave their organizations in search of organizations that offer better growth and development incentives. Consequently, organizations that do not invest adequately in employee training and development would fail in improving their productivity and competitiveness in the market. Any organization that has to improve its productivity has to provide and ensure social protection of its entire staff. Employees will only offer the best to an organization when they have no worry regarding the various social issues affecting them. In other words, organizations have to institute measures that cater for or solve social issues in case of occurrence. Social protection schemes such as insurance covers for employees and staff against illness, job security, incentives that protect their families such as education covers for their children among others are some of the social protection measures that organizations may use to improve productivity (ILO, 2008). Employees will spend most of their time worried about the plight of their families, possible sacking or retirement, occurrence of any risk among other social issues that directly impact them and their families. Such worries hinder employees from devoting their maximum skills and ideas towards production activities, which in turn lowers productivity in an organization. To prevent such worries, organizations that seek to improve concentration of employees in production activities have an obligation to absorb such concerns by putting in place measures that take care of the social issues through offering insurance covers, job security and job development opportunities. In some cases, organizations offer added incentives, which may include looking after employees’ children, making employees concentrate on productivity without considering the safety of their children. Meeting employees social needs is a major motivating incentive in organizations. The strategy makes employees develop the perception that the company cares about them and their families, which is a sure way to increase productivity as employees reciprocate such goodwill with improved performance and hence improved productivity. Such employees would in some cases be willing to input more towards the organization’s development than what they are usually paid for as a sign of gratitude and goodwill to the organization. Understanding, recognizing and showing concern about employees needs, has a huge role in increasing productivity in an organization. Any employee in an organization has a basic need to be recognized and if possible rewarded for their efforts. Recognizing the input of an employee is paramount to acknowledging the importance of their contribution in an organization and the production process. The feeling that their work is recognized motivates employees to put more efforts driven by the need for recognition and rewards. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, recognition is a paramount need that leads to satisfaction among employees (ILO, 2008). Satisfied employees do perform better as they commit their resources towards the success of an organization, which acknowledges their input. On the contrary, an organization that does not recognize and reward employees’ contribution demotivates such employees. When an employee develops a feeling that his or her efforts do not count as no one acknowledges such efforts in the production process, he or she might be discouraged from investing more efforts in the production process. Consequently, discouraged employees are a precursor to reduced productivity in an organization. This withstanding, organizations have to invest in employees reward systems where hardworking employees are recognized and rewarded for their efforts while non-performers are reprimanded and encouraged to invest more towards the production process. A reward system motivates employees to compete in their respective positions, with non-performers forced to invest in their production process. As a result, healthy competition boosts productivity while encouraging non-performers to boost their efforts in a competitive process that recognizes the efforts of each and every employee. Companies that do not have such a rewarding system do not recognize the efforts of their respective employees. As a result, they fail to improve their productivity compared to those that have put in place such mechanisms. Bureaucracies and rules in the workplace are usually responsible for reduced productivity. When employees are to observe many rules, they are constrained in prisons where they spend time taking care not to fault rather than performing their delegated responsibilities. In other words, employees need to feel free and with enough space to carry out their obligations to their best abilities. Moreover, companies that make many rules which reduce the discretionary powers to managers usually fail to create the required atmosphere for effective operations. Employees need to feel motivated to work by a favorable atmosphere that offers them space to think and act instead of dealing with commands from the management. Moreover, bureaucracies that keep managers away from employees hamper production as time is wasted as commands move from the management through a series of supervisors to the final employee. Companies that create barriers between employees and managers do not reap the benefits of having a solid organizational structure that promotes interaction among the management and the employees. In other words, bureaucracies prevent sharing of ideas between managers and employees, which can only be possible where a closer contact exists between the two. Establishing a favorable working environment entails having friendly contacts between the employees and the management where ideas and skills are shared with employees enjoying free space to act devoid of many commands and threats from the management. Creating bureaucracies and command lines, as well as many rules in the workplace, therefore, is a hindrance to improved productivity. Encouraging the culture of taking risks and making errors is one of the surest ways to promote productivity in organizations. In other words, employees have to be empowered to use their intelligence, skills and knowledge to find solutions to any problems instead of micromanaging them towards strict lines of operation. Encouraging employees to use individualized approaches towards solving a problem fosters the culture of innovation in that, as employees struggle to come up with solutions, they might come across better and more effective methods of solving a problem, which the organization may utilize to improve productivity. Gifted employees are offered the opportunity to utilize their abilities without any restrictions, with errors acting as learning lessons towards improving how the organizations approach issues. Organizations that do not encourage taking risks are less motivating for most employees as they limit their potentials. As a result, employees have a tendency of moving to organizations that encourage a risk-taking culture, with these organizations acting as talent pools. Such multifaceted talents are ideal for improved productivity and organizations that promote the risk-taking culture, which facilitates innovation of better, cost effective and reliable approaches towards improving production. In summary, many organizations fail to improve their productivity by ignoring the needs of employees. Considering that employees are central to any production process, any improvement on the production process has to result from improved employees’ input. Consequently, employees needs such as training and development, job and social security and motivation and recognition are necessary and mandatory for an organization to improve its productivity. Besides, employees need recognition and rewarding especially for best performing employees, which encourages even non-performers to invest more efforts towards production activities. As such, it is only by observing and meeting these conditions that an organization can adequately improve its productivity. Reference International Labor Organization. (2008) Skills for Improved Productivity, Employment Growth and Development. Geneva, Switzerland: International Labor Organization Read More