The workforce is made up of employees, or company staff. Regardless of the size of the workforce, the productivity of a company depends on the skills of the employees and above all on their mutual collaboration. Developing a workforce that contributes to the success of the company is a common challenge that many administrators, business managers and department heads face. This article will show you how to improve the efficiency of a workforce.
Steps
Step 1. Identify your goals
To empower a workforce that meets the needs of your business, it is first necessary to identify the objectives to be achieved. For example, if you aspire to surpass last year's sales, then your focus should be on hiring skilled salespeople and staff who will support them, and who will take care of after-sales support, in order to build customer loyalty. clients.
Step 2. Consider the extent of the planned tasks
Your workforce must be sufficiently qualified to understand business dynamics in all facets. Therefore, when assessing the degree of efficiency of your workforce in relation to the company's objectives, you must take into account:
- The skills of the employees. Evaluate their wealth of experience and their skills. Identify your strengths and weaknesses. It may be necessary to provide training courses, have them assisted by support staff, or hire other employees.
- Timing. Developing a workforce takes time. Taking into consideration the immediate and future needs of the company, evaluate whether you have the time available to train new employees, or if you need to focus on advancing existing ones to revisited roles.
- Company philosophy. A company philosophy that promotes autonomy, personal growth and the increase of skills and that welcomes changes offers greater stimuli for the development of an efficient workforce.
Step 3. Organize your workforce in a way that encourages teamwork
Departments and employees must be interconnected if they are to achieve a common goal.
- Ask about the validity of the outdated company policy and procedures. If the workforce is not efficient those policies and procedures would need updating. Identify barriers to productivity caused by poor business practices.
- Report the strengths of the employees. Consider whether you can review employment roles in such a way as to make the most of those strengths and encourage employees to use the business management methods that best suit their skills.
- Involve employees of all levels, in the organization and in the decision-making process. Ask for their input and consider it.
Step 4. Provide additional training
Seminars, meetings, group exercises, mentoring and training programs via the web represent different strategies to contribute to the enhancement of knowledge and skills of employees. Remember that learning requires repetition of the information to be retained, so make sure you provide training consistently and frequently.
Step 5. Empower employees
After working hard to improve the efficiency of the workforce, identifying your goals, reviewing the roles and responsibilities of employees, restructuring the company organization and providing the right training, it is now your team's turn to work to achieve maximum productivity. Make it clear to your employees that you expect them to give their best at work, and that you will carry out regular assessments to measure the efficiency of the new workforce model and make the necessary changes.
Step 6. Evaluate productivity regularly
Establish a method for measuring employee performance in order to correct the score on staff organization, training, resources or the project itself. Remember that the development of a workforce is not a single event, it is part of a process.
Step 7. Use the reinforcement strategy
It encourages the reiteration of productive behaviors and the avoidance of counterproductive behaviors by adopting the principle of reinforcement in 4 types: positive, negative, punishment and extinction.
- Positive reinforcement is the reward for positive behavior: praise, promotion, public recognition, an economic incentive.
- In the process known as negative reinforcement, employees tend to perform actions that allow them to avoid unpleasant consequences.
- Punishment is to envision a negative consequence in response to unwanted behavior.
- The extinction of a behavior implies the threat of dismissal due to counterproductive behavior.
