Impact of drops in productivity and low employee retention.

 

No one said HR would be easy, did they? Certainly, if you work within human resources, you’ll know that every day throws up a new challenge – something you’re yet to deal with but which takes up an inordinate amount of your time.

As a result, deadlines are missed, and that ever-growing to-do list keeps well, growing. There is always something else screaming for your attention, making each day feel like a constant battle against productivity.

While there’ll always be strange, unusual issues that crop up, there are many common workplace problems that every person operating within a human resources department will have experienced. And if you haven’t yet, you should prepare yourself for that eventuality. If you know what they are, you’ll quickly create an HR utility belt that will always be your savior.

 

What is Productivity?

Productivity either happens, or it doesn’t – it’s that simple. Unfortunately, the stuff that keeps us from being productive isn’t always that obvious. It can creep up unawares and, before you know it, set the business back further than you’d think possible. This is a common workplace issue that needs to be dealt with quickly.

How to deal with a productivity drop:

 

Staff within the organization may be suffering from low productivity levels but be entirely unaware of it. That’s why the first step in rectifying this is to identify where it is taking place. Understand which departments are suffering from poor output and then trace the source to a particular employee or group of employees.

Once low productivity points are identified, HR professionals can go about rectifying them. A simple ‘time and motion’ study can be carried out to review how tasks are performed and who is in charge of their completion. Inefficiencies will quickly become apparent during this process, as will any lingering personnel issues. 

Sometimes a productivity issue will have nothing to do with the business and everything to do with what an employee is going through in their personal life. Where this is the case, the HR department needs to find a way to support that employee and help get them back on track.

Often, increased motivation or additional training may be the only thing required to boost productivity, but a proper study will also reveal areas in which investment or further recruitment is needed.

 

What is employee retention?

There is nothing worse than spending months, training an employee only to watch them leave without so much as a backwards glance. It’s a budget killer and puts the organization right back at square one.

In these situations, the HR team usually have some serious questions to answer, such as: 

·        Why did an employee leave? 

·        Why were they allowed to leave? 

·        How are we going to prevent it from happening again?

There’s no escaping the fact that it is the HR team’s job to protect the employee base. It is, after all, the company’s most valuable asset that should be capable of driving high levels of productivity and retaining an ever increasing roster of skills.

 

How to deal with low employee retention:

 

Remuneration, incentives and culture are the three things you need to focus on to improve employee retention. Wages should be fair, consistent, and in line with market expectations; incentives should be inventive. Finally, the culture should foster a genuine love of the company.

The more wanted an employee feels, the more likely they are to build an emotional connection with the business, and such feelings proliferate quickly.

 

Reference:

https://www.naturalhr.com/2017/02/10/guide-common-workplace-hr-issues-deal/