Change the Way You Think About Productivity Today

How productive are your employees, really? You want your investments in people and resources to yield results, but if those results aren’t visible, either because they don’t exist or because it’s so slow that it might as well not be there, then you have a real problem on your hands. Today, we’re discussing how you can use productivity to measure efficiency and how you can overcome the struggle of not being where you want to be.

The Fallacy of Effort = Progress

Effort does not always determine progress, no matter who you talk to, and this all boils down to the idea of entropy.

Entropy, in just about all of its contexts, has to do with randomness and disorder. In physics, for example, the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the universe is becoming increasingly disordered, and disorganized systems are always moving toward a state of equilibrium. Once these systems reach that state, any further movement is completely randomized.

Sound familiar? Your business might have reached its “equilibrium” point and you haven’t even noticed it.

Business Entropy in Action

Chances are you’ve seen certain business processes gain more and more steps, only for the value they provide to go out the window over time. Systems might develop independent of others, leading to further issues. Organization might work for some, but for others, it’s a total nightmare.

Here are some examples of high entropy in a business environment:

• Data siloing - Certain information is available to one department, but not others who still need that data to get their work done.
• Digital clutter - Too many unnecessary or repeat versions of files make finding the right ones incredibly difficult.
• Shadow IT - Your employees find their own unauthorized solutions to problems because the solutions provided don’t work for them.

How to Measure Business Productivity

The traditional way of looking at productivity is activity over time, but this fails to take into account the outcome of that activity.

Technology allows people to save time on tasks, which has resulted in a slightly different definition of work than what we’re used to seeing. Therefore, a new metric has emerged to determine productivity, and this one takes into account the work done by machines: return on investment, or ROI. How much return can you get on an investment of time, effort, and other resources?

If this number is higher, that means you’re more productive—in more ways than one, mind you.

We’ll Help You Build More Effective Systems

At Washington Works, we’re all about return on investment, which is why we aim to help businesses make the most of their technology.

For example, if you have half your team using Office 365 and the other using Google Workspace, we’d help you ensure consistency in how your team gets work done. Instead of copying information from one system to another, there would be one centralized system to minimize the risk of user error and the number of times data has to be multiplied across platforms. This is just one example of how the right technology used the right way makes a big difference across your organization.

Curious how to get started with bridging the gaps? You can start with these questions:

1. What one task do you do each week that feels like a waste of time?
2. What about your tech slows you down the most?
3. What information do you always have to chase down?

Learn more today by calling Washington Works at 301-571-5040.