Effectiveness at Workplace

 

Organisations spend a considerable amount of resources to recruit right candidates to fill the vacancies. The candidates go through a thorough and rigorous recruitment process and finally get selected. The talent management team provides further training to the new recruits to enhance the skills and competency level. A fortune is spent on acquiring the latest software, equipment and best of tools to do the job. After doing all this, we often hear discussions about inefficiency and ineffectiveness of employees. It could be large organisations, medium or small. The inefficiency or ineffectiveness can manifest itself even in a proprietary organisation. This can be seen or heard in the personal life of individuals as well. So what causes this ineffectiveness while performing a task?

There are three important factors that determine effectiveness at doing any work.

1. Ability to Work

2. Willingness to Work

3. Environment, Process, Facilities, Tools & Equipment

The right balance of all the three ultimately determines the level of effectiveness.

Ability to Work

The ability of a person to perform a task is defined by the knowledge and experience related to the task. I refer to ‘knowledge’ and not educational ‘qualification’ because knowledge can be acquired in many different ways, formal and informal. Barring for few fields such as medicine, research based studies, science & technology etc, today the business of knowledge creation and distribution is not limited to schools and universities alone. With ever increasing speed of the internet and emergence of artificial intelligence, a keen learner has several avenues open to acquire knowledge in a flexible way.

The experience comes from actually doing the job. In the technical field, it's not uncommon for people to work as interns or apprentices for some time to learn how to apply the knowledge acquired in an actual work environment. Spending time in an organisation is not experience. Experience involves gaining knowledge by direct participation in the work or by focussed observation of the work being performed by competent persons. Experience for some involves acquiring the skills of contextual application of available knowledge. 

In a formal organisation, in addition to an employee’s qualifications and experience, the ability to work is further enhanced by job specific training, documented policies, procedures, guidelines, work instructions, operational manuals etc. Whenever a new technology is acquired or a new system is implemented, relevant employees are provided necessary training. Good organisations encourage its employees to have membership of professional bodies relevant to their profession and upgrade their skills on a regular basis. Employee exchange programs with other leading organisations is also a common practice, whereby the identified employees spend a few months in other leading organisations to know the best practices implemented there.   

Willingness to Work

Where there’s a will, there’s a way they say. Willingness to work is another important factor and in a way, the most important factor for effectiveness at the workplace. Even if you hire the most knowledgeable person in the field, if he/she has no willingness to work, the outcome would be most disappointing. On the contrary, if there is a less qualified person with a lot of enthusiasm to work, he/she will find a way to do the work or get the work done, even if it means taking help of another knowledgeable person, if necessary.

Willingness to work itself is very complex. It depends on internal and external factors. The internal factors can be the mood of the person, the personality traits, self motivation level etc. The external factors include the work environment, motivation provided by the superiors or the organisation itself, fairness at the workplace, recognition and reward systems, employee relations etc. It is important for an organisation to ensure that a proper work environment is created to achieve willingness to work at every level.

Environment, Process, Facilities, Tools, and  Equipment

The environment, process, facilities, tools & equipment are enablers for achieving effectiveness at the workplace. The work environment must be clean, safe and conducive. A best cardiac surgeon cannot be effective if there’s no operation theatre and necessary equipment. The tools and equipment vary from job to job. For a design engineer, it could be the latest design software, powerful computer, and access to a relevant knowledge base in the form of a library. A musician performing in an orchestra can not only be ineffective, but bring down the whole orchestra with a faulty musical instrument. A painter needs canvas, paints and various brushes to bring to life the image he has in his mind. This is true for every profession.

The right process is an important aspect to achieve Operational Excellence. The ISO 9000 standards stress on the process approach for achieving quality. Standardised process leads to consistent outputs and outcomes. A standardised process involves proper sequence and time of doing the activities of a task by the right persons, at the right time, right place using right material and using right tools and equipment. For enhancing the Effectiveness at Workplace, a process must be documented. The article 'Documenting Policies & Procedures' provides further guidance on this topic. A process engineer or an industrial engineer knows the importance of establishing the right process and constantly improving it to achieve improved quality and efficiency. A painter knows that using red paint on a yellow layer is not the same as using yellow paint on a red layer. For guidelines refer to the article 'Developing Effective Process & Procedure' in this blog.

The facilities include suitable buildings, well maintained utilities, accessibility within the campus or the premises, convenient parking, road connectivity etc. The design and layout of the facilities and effective planned maintenance has a great effect on the productivity of the employees.

Organisations are constantly on the lookout for new processes, new machines, latest computer software, more efficient and precision tools etc. to improve the effectiveness of its employees and stay a step ahead of the competitors. The IT industry is the best example of technology obsolescence, where new technology is infused more frequently. Movie making, video editing, graphic design are few other tasks where people are always on the lookout for new tools to increase productivity and become effective in what they do. Automobile industry is another classic example where the use of robots made people more productive and improved quality.