• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
WittySparks Logo White

WittySparks

Ignite Your Thoughts

  • Topics
  • Reviews
  • Newsletter
WittySparks / Career and Employment / How to increase productivity in the modern office
How to increase productivity in office

How to increase productivity in the modern office

Career and Employment June 3, 2015 by Nishitha

The industrial revolution transformed manufacturing. We could suddenly make a lot more with fewer people. Measuring productivity was as simple as calculating the number of widgets made per hour, day, or month. Everyone was given targets and employees pushed themselves to meet them. Measuring performance was straightforward.

These crude numeric tools continue to be used, even though we have evolved from the industrial to the technological age. Today, service jobs and knowledge work dominate the workplace. Manufacturing is a smaller part of the equation and a lot of manufacturing doesn’t even use humans. In this day and age, you can’t measure productivity by output alone.

The workplace is evolving. Corporate wellbeing or focusing on the employee’s health and wellness is the new mantra. Happy and healthy employees mean lower absenteeism and turnover and thus ensure higher productivity. Keeping the work environment alcohol and drug-free is increasingly part of this wellness program.

Technology allows companies to routinely run cost-effective and voluntary testing programs. The employees willingly sign on as the benefits are there for all to see. Simple swab and swipe tests like the oral fluid lab test help detect substance ingestion up to 48 hours prior to the test.

Today, the quality of work is more important than sheer quantity. It’s not about the number of lines of code a programmer can write. Shorter code may solve the problem in a simpler and more efficient way.

Quantitative matrices can’t measure outputs like “citizen behavior” with behind-the-scenes work like recruiting, mentoring, and communicating across business verticals. These activities are critical in knowledge-based organizations.

Productivity challenges also arise in companies that are highly team-oriented. Typically, each team will have one or two top performers, who become the “go-to” members in these teams.

The team leader by sheer dint of human nature will load all the important, urgent work on these employees. This leads to burnout and the employees feel as if they are being punished for performing well, instead of being rewarded. Managing highly productive employees is just as important as improving the performance of those who lag.

Companies are going even further in the quest of raising productivity levels. Workspace design is a new way of looking at the workspace. Increasingly, workplaces are being designed to encourage people to move around, interact, and let creativity flow.

Staircases are placed in the center of the office to increase the chance of encounters. The office spaces are today designed around the intellectual and emotional intelligence of the employees. People running into each other creates the stimulus for conversations and thereby solutions to vexing problems.

Office spaces are designed to offer these nooks and crannies that encourage interaction. Workspaces are now mobile. There’s no fixed seating based on what you want to do, you choose your work environment. When you want to concentrate, you work from that secluded bench, and when you want to interact with your colleagues you move to the social hubs in the office.

Quantitative norms don’t tell the whole story across workplaces today. You have to combine the quantitative matrices with qualitative ones in order to see the big picture.

Image Source: Productivity Concept.

Related Topics

  • Career Growth: What It Is And Why It Matters
  • Everything you should know about Freelancing: A freelance guide
  • Book Review: WFH (Working From Home) by Harriet Minter
Previous Post: « 4 Awesome Digital Solutions for Small Business to Achieve Bigger Growth
Next Post: Celebrate summer with Lobster at the Spaghetti House! »
Profile picture for Nishitha

About Nishitha

Co-founder of WittySparks
WittySparks Staff

I am done with my Physiotherapy Graduation. And I always try to share Health and technology tips with people. Apart from Physiotherapy and being a tech savvy, I do explore more on Technology side and I keep sharing my findings with wider audience.

View all posts by Nishitha

Primary Sidebar

Search

Exclusive Coupons

  • Moqups coupon code: WITTYSPARKS for 20% or PARTNERS50 for 50% discount.
  • WPForms coupon code: WITTYSPARKS for 50% off.
  • Serpstat coupon code: wittysparks_discount for 30% off.
  • SEO Buddy coupon code: WITTYSPARKS for 25% off.
  • Morningscore coupon code: wittysparks for 30% off for 3 months.
  • FlexClip coupon code: WITTYSPARKS for 30% off.
  • Uplead coupon code: “witty” for 30-day free trial.
  • FastestVPN coupon codes: WITTYSPARKS15 or WITTYSPARKS10 or Get up to 93% OFF.
  • Outranking.io coupon code: WITTYSPARKS50 for 50% off.

For more such offers visit our exclusive offers for SEO, Bloggers, Marketers and for Business owners.

Featured Productivity Software

Notion logo
Notion

Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a large team, Notion Workspace can help you stay organized and get more done. Get started today and take your productivity to the next level.

Try Notion for FREE

Footer

Affiliate Disclosure

If you make a purchase from WittySparks links, we will receive a small commission. See our Affiliate Disclosure.

Sponsors

Partnered with FreePik to use the licensed images.

turn to dhgate for smartphone

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • RSS

Copyright © 2023 · Hosting sponsored by Rocket.net (Affiliate link)

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Like
  • Pinterest