Is failing to manage your people impacting your productivity?

"Not only does effective people management positively impact productivity and business performance, but it also positively impacts your staff’s job satisfaction."

Joan Henshaw shows ways to improve people management and get better business results.

United Kingdom

How often do we stand back and think about the value of applying effective people management practices – especially the value to the business?

Take a look at this piece of research

Proudfoot Consulting, an international consulting firm, produced their 2007 UK Productivity Survey showing that 33.3 per cent of the time spent in work is unproductive. Taking into account their estimate that the optimum ‘labour utilisation’ time is considered to be 85 per cent, this means that UK businesses are wasting just over 18 per cent of working hours.

Here’s what Proudfoot Consulting say about the reason for this wastage:

‘Whatever business you’re in, pay particular attention to the calibre and capabilities of those who directly supervise frontline workers. Poor supervision of worker has always been a prominent reason for wasted working time . . . . and in the last two years has risen to become the dominant factor.’

That’s just short of a day a week, then, lost to poor supervision. Not good practice in any circumstance but in the current economic climate, potentially disastrous.

I should point out that this report is based on research of large businesses with turnover in excess of £100m. Clearly, managing staff in a small enterprise can be very different. For example, there’s less likelihood of a long ‘chain of command’ as, in effect, small enterprise owners often take the role of directly supervising their frontline workers. And it’s clearly less easy for staff members in a small enterprise to be unproductive, at least intentionally.

However, it’s worth all businesses, whatever the size, periodically taking a critical look at how they manage their staff.

Some practical questions

Here are a few questions you can use to assess your people management practices, based on my model of effective people management.

1. Are your staff crystal clear on what’s expected of them? Have you described and agreed what good performance looks like for their job? Are these agreed descriptions written as performance standards or objectives?

2. Do you monitor your staff’s actual performance against the standards or objectives on an ongoing basis? Are your staff involved in monitoring their own performance?

3. Do you and your staff review together their performance on a regular basis? (Every three months is standard good practice.) Do you give them objective, evidence- based feedback? Do you agree on areas of outstanding performance and how these can be built upon? Do you identify and agree any areas of improvement?

4. Do you discuss your staff’s job satisfaction with them so that you can, together, develop ways to maintain or enhance their satisfaction?

Do you now feel like having a lie down?

I know this all sounds like an awful lot of work and it certainly does take some time-commitment to manage your staff effectively. However research does demonstrate again and again that not only does effective people management positively impact productivity and business performance but it also positively impacts your staff’s job satisfaction.

A win for the business, a win for your staff and not nearly as hard as it sounds with the right tools and techniques.

About the author

Joan Henshaw has 15 years experience working with business owners and managers, helping them to develop practical people management strategies that improve performance and staff satisfaction.

You can read more of her work at Ladder Consulting (page opens in a new window)

© 2009 Copyright Joan Henshaw All rights reserved

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