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I'm exploring ways we can measure our employees' productivity. Does anyone have experience with productivity tracking or have you designed metrics for your business related to productivity?

Now that we're past our real busy time, I'm seeing  several of our employees wasting a lot of time, turning 10-15 minute tasks into 30-40 minute projects. We've suggested several other projects these employees can spend time doing that would provide more value to our business but they continue to drag out jobs unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance for any tips any of you can share.

I'd recommend being very careful with this. Tracking metrics can have unintended side effects (like if you track time from order to ship, people might develop a tendency to skip QC or other critical steps). The only one I set is that we should try to respond to any customer email/voicemail within an hour if at all possible. If I notice something is sitting in a design or production queue for a couple days, I'll ask about it, but I don't necessarily track strict metrics. My experience has been no one wants to get asked about anything (in this industry or any other job), so that's deterrent enough.

It hasn't really been an issue in my shop, but in other jobs I've worked I've found structured meetings/activities create time bounds to get people to focus. E.g. "I want to do a team happy hour on Thursday, but we can't do that until [insert annoying task here] is taken care of."

What are they doing that's stretching the activities out so long? If it's socializing, maybe add in break times and then ask them to focus during other time periods. If it's playing with their phones, ask them to put their phones down for certain stretches of time (5 min checks every hour or something).  Structuring time and setting goals I think  will work better than tracking metrics. If you have specific projects you want them to work on, set a date or time that you want it completed.

Also, personal opinion, maybe check in to see if they need a mental rest from the "real busy time." I don't know anyone who can be "on" 100% of the time, so maybe talk to them about who needs a break and how to work that into the schedule. I know we celebrate the down weeks almost as much as we celebrate the busy weeks...

I'm exploring ways we can measure our employees' productivity. Does anyone have experience with productivity tracking or have you designed metrics for your business related to productivity?

Now that we're past our real busy time, I'm seeing  several of our employees wasting a lot of time, turning 10-15 minute tasks into 30-40 minute projects. We've suggested several other projects these employees can spend time doing that would provide more value to our business but they continue to drag out jobs unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance for any tips any of you can share.

I'm exploring ways we can measure our employees' productivity. Does anyone have experience with productivity tracking or have you designed metrics for your business related to productivity?

Now that we're past our real busy time, I'm seeing  several of our employees wasting a lot of time, turning 10-15 minute tasks into 30-40 minute projects. We've suggested several other projects these employees can spend time doing that would provide more value to our business but they continue to drag out jobs unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance for any tips any of you can share.

I'll second @Shana Beach on having a careful and intentional selection of metrics. If there's too much emphasis on speed, quality & accuracy might suffer. If your folks are overly concerned with quality, the speed might tank. I think it's human nature--if we're given 30 minutes to do a task it'll take 30 minutes. If we're given 60 minutes to do the same task, it'll probably end up taking 60 minutes. If their performance is connected to incentives, I'd measure on a few criteria: 

• Speed / Quantity - an objective measure of how much work is getting done how fast
• Quality / Accuracy - can be tracked via a quality control process, warranty claims, customer feedback
• People Skills / Conduct - treating others with respect, showing up on time, limiting phone time

A couple thoughts:  

• Engage and reward your folks in process improvement efforts. Getting them thinking about areas of waste (materials, time) or friction points in the processes will likely identify improvements that will not only save time, but make their job easier/better. It shows them you care about their feedback as much as their performance. 
• Not certain about the cadence of your work day, but perhaps some more structure around when folks are doing which tasks might help--if they're just working off a project list and an 8-hour bucket of time, it's likely that some tasks that deserve more attention get shorted, and some that could be quick get stretched out. Likely another opportunity to engage them in creating a more explicit production schedule, of sorts. 

In any case, I think it's best practice to have their input on whatever guidelines / rules you'd like to implement, because having them involved will lead to better adoption. 

Good luck!

I'm exploring ways we can measure our employees' productivity. Does anyone have experience with productivity tracking or have you designed metrics for your business related to productivity?

Now that we're past our real busy time, I'm seeing  several of our employees wasting a lot of time, turning 10-15 minute tasks into 30-40 minute projects. We've suggested several other projects these employees can spend time doing that would provide more value to our business but they continue to drag out jobs unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance for any tips any of you can share.

I'm exploring ways we can measure our employees' productivity. Does anyone have experience with productivity tracking or have you designed metrics for your business related to productivity?

Now that we're past our real busy time, I'm seeing  several of our employees wasting a lot of time, turning 10-15 minute tasks into 30-40 minute projects. We've suggested several other projects these employees can spend time doing that would provide more value to our business but they continue to drag out jobs unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance for any tips any of you can share.

------------------------------
Judi Brown, Owner
Tacoma Trophy
4021 100th St SW #B, Lakewood WA 98499
253.302.5566
judi@tacomatrophy.com
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I'm exploring ways we can measure our employees' productivity. Does anyone have experience with productivity tracking or have you designed metrics for your business related to productivity?

Now that we're past our real busy time, I'm seeing  several of our employees wasting a lot of time, turning 10-15 minute tasks into 30-40 minute projects. We've suggested several other projects these employees can spend time doing that would provide more value to our business but they continue to drag out jobs unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance for any tips any of you can share.

I'm exploring ways we can measure our employees' productivity. Does anyone have experience with productivity tracking or have you designed metrics for your business related to productivity?

Now that we're past our real busy time, I'm seeing  several of our employees wasting a lot of time, turning 10-15 minute tasks into 30-40 minute projects. We've suggested several other projects these employees can spend time doing that would provide more value to our business but they continue to drag out jobs unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance for any tips any of you can share.

Judi,

This is an excellent discussion.  Along this line there are some benefits that can be gleaned from Lean Manufacturing.  I've been a long time fan of Paul Akers and what he has done with his company FastCap.  I use some of his company's products in my operation, so have experienced his service first hand.  Take the time when you can to watch these videos below.  I have no doubt it will improve the situation you are having with your employees, and will give you some tools to change their mindset where your issues will be a thing of the past.

I'm exploring ways we can measure our employees' productivity. Does anyone have experience with productivity tracking or have you designed metrics for your business related to productivity?

Now that we're past our real busy time, I'm seeing  several of our employees wasting a lot of time, turning 10-15 minute tasks into 30-40 minute projects. We've suggested several other projects these employees can spend time doing that would provide more value to our business but they continue to drag out jobs unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance for any tips any of you can share.

Judi,

This is an excellent discussion.  Along this line there are some benefits that can be gleaned from Lean Manufacturing.  I've been a long time fan of Paul Akers and what he has done with his company FastCap.  I use some of his company's products in my operation, so have experienced his service first hand.  Take the time when you can to watch these videos below.  I have no doubt it will improve the situation you are having with your employees, and will give you some tools to change their mindset where your issues will be a thing of the past.

I'm exploring ways we can measure our employees' productivity. Does anyone have experience with productivity tracking or have you designed metrics for your business related to productivity?

Now that we're past our real busy time, I'm seeing  several of our employees wasting a lot of time, turning 10-15 minute tasks into 30-40 minute projects. We've suggested several other projects these employees can spend time doing that would provide more value to our business but they continue to drag out jobs unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance for any tips any of you can share.

Judi,

This is an excellent discussion.  Along this line there are some benefits that can be gleaned from Lean Manufacturing.  I've been a long time fan of Paul Akers and what he has done with his company FastCap.  I use some of his company's products in my operation, so have experienced his service first hand.  Take the time when you can to watch these videos below.  I have no doubt it will improve the situation you are having with your employees, and will give you some tools to change their mindset where your issues will be a thing of the past.

I'm exploring ways we can measure our employees' productivity. Does anyone have experience with productivity tracking or have you designed metrics for your business related to productivity?

Now that we're past our real busy time, I'm seeing  several of our employees wasting a lot of time, turning 10-15 minute tasks into 30-40 minute projects. We've suggested several other projects these employees can spend time doing that would provide more value to our business but they continue to drag out jobs unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance for any tips any of you can share.