BY GETACHEW MINAS
Introduction: If there is any challenge that is common to everyone, it is the improvement of personal productivity. As Leon Ho indicated, nothing stimulates the “happiness” of people like performing the right things in time. Employees become happier when they perform productively.
They do not want to stay in the work place idle for reasons they are not accountable.
For a firm to be productive and profitable, all inputs required for performing a job should be in the right place at the right time. Generally speaking these inputs are labor, raw materials and capital, which are coordinated by managers/entrepreneurs. Thus, growth in productivity requires the coordination of all the factors of production.
Enhancement of productivity calls for having clarity on the elements that constitute it for a specific enterprise. It constitutes the following components: personal productivity and workplace productivity; evaluation of productivity; and improvement of productivity.
As Leon Ho showed, personal productivity means different things to different individuals. Some might define personal productivity as accomplishing ones goals without failing, and completing them.
“Personal productivity” can be thought of as completing a set of tasks that moves a person in the direction of his life-time purpose without causing him to sacrifice other aspects of his life.
Personal productivity may be improved by identifying key objectives and what actionable steps a person needs to take to fulfill them. In all of this, it is important to remember that personal productivity is different from workplace productivity.
One of the reasons is that workplace productivity deals with the level of efficiency in accomplishing corporate goals and providing goods and solutions for customers. For instance, productivity in the workplace could incorporate the speed at which one respond to the need of a customer.
If the customer is satisfied with the services provided by the worker in a firm, then the company becomes very popular. Its popularity wins a large number of customers that enjoy its services and products. This helps the firm improve productivity to serve a wider market.
Penny Zenker identified four essential components of productivity, which are “purpose, language, focus, and physiology.” When a person is on a “purpose” that goes beyond what is in it for him, he feels higher sense productivity.
“Language” is the second crucial component for improving productivity. It is how a person expresses himself in describing the world around him. Any time he utilizes “negative” words during self-talk, he is conditioning himself to produce negative situations.
Productivity can be improved by paying attention to the language a person uses. That way, he can change his words consciously and then talk himself into becoming more productive. Therefore, one should try to change his language to improve his output.
Focus is the third factor for improving productivity. “Focus” is the art of directing the energy of a person towards his objectives of life. It is an instrument of eliminating every form of distraction and achieving goals. Focus helps in concentrating on ways and means of achieving a goal. Focus also requires attention to the details of performing activities in a sequential manner.
Achieving an activity is a condition for performing the next one in line. A fourth element for improving productivity is physiological in its nature. A person needs a healthy body to be productive. Person’s “physiological” standing influences his level of productivity.
For instance, what a person eats affects what he can achieve productively. If he continuously neglects the habit of eating healthy food, he will continually undermine his performance and efficiency.
Evaluating productivity: Evaluating productivity helps in keeping track whether a person is performing in the right manner in completing the goal of his task. There are five proven methods of evaluating the productivity of a person.
The first is “reviewing” the completed tasks of a person. It helps in assessing the productivity of a person by examining his completed work. He can accurately look at his activities in the past week. He finds out what he has accomplished during the week. He evaluates each task, in terms of time and output, identifying the tasks he failed to achieve. He checks times of distraction, engagement and efficiency. The
essence of this assessment is to enable an employee find a solution that can assist him in completing his objectives on time.
The second method of evaluating productivity is tracking the time in the work place. “Tracking” the time of a worker is highly crucial to determine his productivity level. He has only a limited time during a working day. How he spends each working hour is what differentiates him from the rest of the workers.
While some workers are managing their time productively, others retire early without accomplishing anything significant during the day. The latter ones could not live their life like that. They have to track their time to derive an accurate evaluation of accomplishments and performance in their workplace.
The third method is to be accountable for the performance of a worker. Each and every worker should collaborate with an “accountability partner” to monitor his progress. Jones Loflin also recommends that a worker should ask himself some reflective questions immediately after the daily work is over.
He should ask himself if he has accomplished any of his short-term goals. He should also realize what item of work takes his time and what accomplishment relieves him of stress the next time. Last but not least is the ability of the worker to identify the cause of his “failure” to perform a job.
While a worker does not have to ask all these questions each day, he may ask them at intervals throughout the week. He can also practice writing a “diary” about his daily experience.
The fourth method is allocating a time-frame for the goals a worker may be able to achieve with high performance. Establishing a timeline is one of the requirements for creating achievable goals. A worker may determine if he has accomplished his objectives when he has a “time-frame” as a point of reference.
He may provide himself a timeline to implement his tasks when he assigns deadlines for all his indicators of performance. In this manner, the worker may detect when he is not meeting his deadlines and quickly get back on track. A fifth way of improving productivity is a complete “weekly review.” The best time for the worker to audit his accomplishment is the weekend and “not” the end of the year.
He has to create time each week to evaluate his objectives and track his outcomes. He may find out which stage he is in, and determines how he can squeeze his schedules and routines to better achieve his goals.
The Ethiopian Herald December 11/2020
