To improve productivity, you first need to have a way of measuring, recording and communicating it “ and that's what productivity reporting is all about. The data that it provides can play a key role in improving work processes, project management, employee management, and other areas that affect productivity as a whole.
What many people don't realize however is that there are actually many different methods of productivity reporting. Some are far more popular and accurate than others however, and the four that you definitely need to know are:
Productivity output calculation
The easiest and most popular way to report productivity is with a simple output divided by input calculation. In other words the work output of an employee is divided by their input (normally in terms of work hours).
For example a call center employee's productivity may be measured based on the number of completed calls per hour.
Productivity profit calculation
Another way to gauge productivity is by focusing on profit instead. Typically this means taking the revenue generated by an employee and dividing it by the labor cost.
As you can imagine, this method of productivity reporting is easier to apply if your company is service-oriented. However it can also be used for products, as long as the right framework is used.
Task completion reports
One simple way to measure the productivity of individual employees is to count the number of tasks they complete. If necessary you can assign KPIs for tasks that vary significantly in length so that it is somewhat standardized.
Although this method of productivity reporting is extremely straightforward, it is also far from accurate. That is why it is normally only used in specific circumstances where you want to compare the productivity of employees who are all performing similar tasks or have similar KPIs.
Time tracking and monitoring software
Software like WE Controlio provides ways to track the time that employees spend on various tasks, and monitor all their activity “ including app usage, websites visited, communications, and more. That makes it arguably the most accurate method of employee productivity tracking as it'll be based on detailed information.
In fact, WE Controlio does calculate and report a productivity score of its own. That score, alongside all the other activity that it tracks, is organized into clear reports that you can use to fully view all the productivity details you need.
Productivity reporting can make a world of difference to any company due to the key role that it plays. With the information from productivity reports you'll be able to better analyze the performance of employees and track as well as compare productivity trends.
More importantly, productivity reports will give you hard data that you can use to determine whether or not the strategies that you use to improve productivity are effective. In the long run this will mean that you waste less time and money, and are able to fine tune your efforts to boost productivity early on.