You might have noticed that there are companies in the world far more productive than others. These include tech giants like Apple and Google. In fact, the statistics show that Google, Apple, Dell, and Netflix are, on average, 40% more productive than your average company. Why is this so? After all, they use the same tools that other companies use. So what is their secret sauce?
You might assume that they are more productive because they hire the most productive people. After all, if you hire the best then you’ll get the best performance, right? However, research by Bain & Company shows that only about 16% of the staff at these companies are top tier employees. By comparison, 15% of the average company’s staff are top tier, so that’s not enough of a difference to, well, make a difference. There are, however, some clear differences that account for most of the difference in productivity, and they are going to be the focus of our article today.
They Focus on Employee Happiness
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Employee attitude toward work is a huge factor in their productivity. In fact, the research tells us that, no matter what role an employee is in at a company, whether they’re a janitor at a school or a writer at a college essay writing service and best essay writing service just being happy about their work can make them at least 12% more productive. So what does it take to make an employee happy? There are actually quite a few things:
A flexible employer
A flexible employer is a kind that allows the employee to work in a way that is most productive for them. That means letting them work whenever and wherever is best for their productivity. When you give workers flexibility, they feel more appreciated and valued, especially with respect to their work-life balance. Moreover, having a reputation as a flexible employer expands your pool of potential candidates as non-traditional but talented candidates will be more interested in applying to work at your company.
Dell has an example of this: Their “Connected Workplace” initiative. They put their focus on boosting collaboration via improved technology, and employee satisfaction improved as a result. All employers use research paper writing service.
Fostering trust in the workplace
One major factor that can really bring down employee productivity is an organizational drag. This is related to bureaucracy, such as audits, setting spending limits, and time tracking employees. While these things can seem very significant, they can be overdone and slow the organization down as a process. You should seek to minimize them whenever and wherever you can.
A good example of the elimination of organizational drag is Netflix, which instead opts to trust its employees and gives them freedom, trusting they will act in the best interests of the company. How does Netflix do this? They don’t set limits on expenses. Employees can expense the company as much as they want, so long as they are doing what’s best for Netflix. And, in fact, that is Netflix’s policy: Act in the best interest of Netflix.
Whatever your personal beliefs, you have to believe that the vast majority of people do not join a company to steal from it. Employees join companies because they see them as a legitimate source of income; a way to put food on their tables. They will therefore think twice before they do something that could potentially jeopardize that opportunity.
Paying employees well
Not all companies pay a lot of money for their best employees, but nearly all the major tech companies do it because they know it’s important for productivity.
Amazon, for example, raised its minimum hourly pay to $15 in 2018 when the minimum wage prescribed by the federal government was $7.25. Microsoft, Facebook, and Google are also known for paying some of the highest salaries to their engineers.
While paying a higher salary will get you better candidates, that’s not the only reason large companies do it. Paying your existing employees higher salaries also motivates them to work harder. When they leave, you had better believe there will be lots of people waiting at the door to replace them, which means your recruiting costs are also reduced.
Investing In Your Employees
You need to make sure your employees are engaged, as that will drastically increase their productivity. An engaged employee has a sense that they are part of the family. They have something called “buy-in”, which is just another way of saying they feel strongly invested in the company.
Dell does well here as well. It offers training to its employees to help them learn and gain valuable experience. It also seeks to inspire its leaders to get its teams to do better. In fact, Dell conducted a study that showed that sales teams led by an inspiring leader did 6% better than teams that didn’t feel particularly inspired by their leaders.
The good news here is that inspiration isn’t something inborn. You can inspire your employees just by taking a genuine interest in their lives. Don’t just be a coach, but also a good leader, and employee empathy when dealing with your employees.
An Emphasis on Teamwork
While it’s great to have talented individuals, don’t expect them to do much if they don’t work well in teams. It is when success is shared that everyone in the organization feels engaged and part of the win. In such an environment, productivity is about advancing the organization as a whole, rather than one-upping each other at the workplace.