11 ways to pump up productivity
By Jenny C. McCune • Bankrate.com

Small-business owners know that when times get tough, tougher business strategies are necessary. Many times, that means boosting a company's productivity level by eliminating inefficiencies.

Here are 11 propellants for productivity that will help your business produce more with less.

1. Take stock of how you and your workers are spending time. Mark Ellwood, president of Pace Productivity of Toronto invented a device called a TimeCorder that does just that. It's a series of stopwatches combined into one gizmo. Don't want to use a TimeCorder? Consider keeping a diary of your pursuits that documents how much time you are spending doing what.

2. Take a snapshot. Most small companies don't have the resources to spend inordinate amounts of time measuring productivity. Ellwood advises sitting down and prioritizing what variables to track. What matters most in your business? "Figure out what measures are of the biggest concern for your business," Ellwood says.

3. Figure out what's already working. Based on your research determine areas where your company is doing well and how that success can be ported over to other areas, Ellwood says.

4. Look for what's not working. Keep on doing what's working and then cut out what's not. For example, many small-business owners are enamored of the Internet. They spend a great deal of time and effort at building and maintaining Web sites. If you discover through your research that your Web site is a waste of time and effort, spend less time on it and more time on what pays, Ellwood says.

5. Ask your employees. Generally, workers will better know how to boost their own productivity than their boss will. It stands to reason that they understand their jobs better than you do and are more familiar with the day-to-day intricacies of how they get their jobs done. "Employees will engage in productivity procedures and improvement if you ask them and engage them," Ellwood says.

6. Engage with education. One way to get employees behind productivity efforts is to educate them. Teach them about the business, how it makes money and what drains on profitability. Educating employees on profit and loss will not only help them buy in to boosting productivity, but will help them figure out what will work, says Tony Dottino, president of Dottino Consulting in Hartsdale, N.Y.

7. Use technology to produce more with less effort. Investing in technology is one of the best-known ways to increase productivity, says Doug Jobling, program manager for the Rhode Island Small Business Development Center at Bryant College in Smithfield, R.I. For example, when copiers became equipped with collators, document collation no longer had to be done by hand. That freed up an employee to do other work, such as working in customer relations or direct sales, Jobling says. "By constantly improving the production system, making it more efficient, the manufacturer is able to produce the same number of manufactured product with less labor cost required, improving productivity by definition," Jobling says.

8. Train workers. After using technology, training workers is one of the most popular ways to boost productivity, Jobling says. In other words, a small business can make production more efficient or it can make its workers more efficient. The result -- more units produced at a lower cost -- is the same.

9. Procure raw materials at a cheaper price. If a small business can cut what it spends on suppliers, it can lower its manufacturing costs. By producing the same or more for less money, a company increases productivity, Jobling says.

10. Improve the productivity curve. Every company has a core group of standout employees, people who do a better job than anyone else. Find out who these workers are and what makes them better, says Niko Canner, co-founder and managing partner of Katzenbach Partners in New York City. The idea is to take the minority of people who excel and turn them into the majority. The hardest part of this exercise is that many natural performers can't explain why they can do things better or faster than their co-workers. "It's just second nature to them," Canner says. Employers then must spend the time to observe, interview and analyze these workers. Once you find what makes these people tick, move your slower performers up the productivity stream by teaching them what your high performers do.

11. Identify obstacles to productivity. Canner's review of a telemarketing organization found that the company's first-line supervisors were spending only 12 percent to 15 percent of their time coaching and working with their employees. The rest of the day was devoted to administrative tasks: performance evaluations, memos, compliance monitoring, etc. Once the telemarketing firm discovered this, it was a matter of adjusting goals and prioritizing so that supervisors spent the most time managing employees rather than doing paperwork.

Follow these tips, and your company will turbo-charge its productivity, whether it's a service business or a manufacturing concern.

Jenny C. McCune is a contributing editor based in Montana.

-- Posted: March 27, 2002