The percentage of "workaholics" among IT professionals is incredibly high: they can discuss the solution of a problem for hours, sit at the computer for days, go on vacation for years, moving from project to project. However, this asceticism for some reason may not affect the efficiency of the IT department team in any way.
Increasing the efficiency of the work of personnel is a matter of concern for almost every head of the IT service - from a small company to an industrial giant. The personnel motivation system is often built by trial and error, and the number of errors is quite large. How to optimize motivational models? How to make people want to work in this particular organization, to work to achieve a business result?
In IT services, a situation often arises when people are well motivated to work on a project, understand the goals and objectives of the work, clearly see horizons, realize areas of responsibility and work with full dedication. In everyday work, the picture is often significantly different: people do not think about the ultimate goals of their work, do not feel an incentive to do it as well as possible. It turns out that the team goes through the sprint distances quickly and smoothly, but the achievements at the stayer distances look much more modest. Since managers are often unable to reverse the situation, the search for external factors of influence begins. Any explanations are used - from the general state of the Russian economy, which, like an ocean in a drop, is reflected in the organizational features of individual companies, to the specifics of the Russian mentality, which, of course, sometimes allows you to "go fast", but only due to the fact that before this is “harnessed” for a long time and slowly. However, no matter how reassuring and reliable the explanation may look, it does not solve the problem.
In order to understand the reason for this phenomenon, it is necessary to consider the real, and not the declared, organizational principles of the company in general and the IT department in particular.
Formula for success
They think about creating or improving a motivation system when it becomes necessary to increase the efficiency of employees, more rational use labor resources. Often, managers describe the problem something like this: “People work wonderfully, love their profession - to the point that they are ready to give the company and their personal time, according to own initiative working overtime. They are good professionals. But in general, the IT service does not work as efficiently as it could be, time and labor resources are used irrationally.” Often the feeling of inefficient use of labor resources arises on an intuitive level and is not supported by any indicators. Managers often see a way out of this situation by changing the system of staff motivation, which, as a rule, means an increase in salary.
“Improving the performance of a company or its division is not limited to the creation of motivational schemes. The effectiveness of people's work depends not only on motivation, so it is necessary to consider it in combination with other significant factors of influence. The approach to creating an effective system of personnel work, which we practice, is quite often used in the West, but has not yet become widespread in Russia,” says Dmitry Voloshchuk, consultant in the “Personnel Performance Management” direction of Ecopsy Consulting.
Within this approach, efficiency is considered as a derivative of three elements:
Efficiency = competence / organizational barriers x motivation,
where competence is professional knowledge and skills (and in the case of an employee in a leadership position, also managerial skills). Leadership qualities are an important component of the competence of IT service employees, since in a business environment, a significant part of which is organized according to the project principle, most specialists from time to time take a managerial position - project manager, head of the project office, etc .;
motivation - a system of material and non-material incentives, based on the values and orientations of people;
organizational barriers are attitudes and features of the organizational structure that prevent people from working with full dedication for the benefit of the company. These can be inorganic work rules, standards that make it difficult for employees to work, gaps in the organizational structure, lack of regulations and procedures - for example, procedures for responding to problem situations, and so on.
Based on the formula, it is possible to consider the activities of employees in three dimensions - professionalism, motivation and corporate environment. “In order to understand the degree of efficiency of the unit, you need to look at what point in this three-dimensional coordinate system it is located: how great is the competence and motivation, and what are the organizational barriers. Only after that it is possible to draw a conclusion about what steps need to be taken to improve efficiency,” says Dmitry Voloshchuk.
The level of professionalism of IT professionals can be measured using professional tests or based on the assessment of the line manager. The situation is more complicated with their managerial skills and competencies - often IT specialists do not undergo any training in managerial skills and implement their managerial functions based on their own ideas about them. Moreover, the situation is widespread when the best IT specialist becomes the head of the IT service, regardless of whether he has the makings and skills of a leader or not.
Organizational barriers in different companies are very individual. Endless mandatory memos that need to be written for any reason, complicated procedures for coordinating actions, outdated corporate standards, and much more can hold back the development of an organization. “It is difficult for people to look at their activities from the outside and take steps to optimize them - there are so many current operational priorities and there is absolutely no time for a critical review. As a result, the importance of organizational barriers is often underestimated. Meanwhile, experience shows that simple steps to improve business processes can free up 20-30% of employees' useful time, says Dmitry Voloshchuk. “In addition, if a person is engaged in ‘monkey labor’, it demotivates him.”
Theory and practice
Roman Zhuravlev: “The practices of managing IT services in companies do not form any system.” Like any other process in the IT management system, personnel management should have clearly defined goals that are clearly related to the goals of the IT department, which, in turn, are agreed with company goals and priorities. To achieve these goals, tasks, main activities, procedures should be defined. Responsibility for the implementation of both individual procedures and the process as a whole should be distributed. The necessary resources must be allocated, the availability of the necessary competencies must be ensured. It is desirable to identify and learn how to evaluate measurable indicators of the effectiveness of the personnel management process. It is important that the activities of personnel management include the phases of planning, execution, evaluation and improvement.
“As a rule, the practices of managing IT services in companies do not form any system,” says Roman Zhuravlev, director of the IT training department at IT Expert. - Processes, if identified, interact inefficiently. The goals of the IT service are not defined or are not related to the goals of the company. The main activities in the field of personnel management are carried out, according to him, something like this:
* planning: quantitative - within the limits of the staff expansion quota, as a rule, annually. Quota calculation is not based on anything. In the field of education - within budgets - on the one hand, vague ideas about the prospects for infrastructure development - on the other.
* recruitment: sources are not systematized. The activity of the corresponding department at the company level does not give results when it comes to IT staff. Professionally-oriented selection is conducted haphazardly. Selected on the basis of an expert assessment of the heads of IT departments, employees are sent "to the staff" for registration and formal checks.
* training: in full accordance with the planning, that is, randomly. (A detailed calendar plan can be not only drawn up, but also observed. However, the question “Why are these people and these programs in it?” Belongs to the category of rhetorical questions.)
* motivation: employees involved in projects are financially motivated to complete the project on time. Employees involved in operating activities are motivated to retain as part of a corporate-wide motivation program (salary, bonuses, “social package”). The CIO gets involved in this on special occasions, such as a key employee's attempt to leave the company.
The practices described are not at all similar to the recommendations outlined in modern models IT management, such as COBIT, MOF, which determine the need for effective personnel management, including planning, selection, training, development, motivation, rotation and dismissal. The reasons for this discrepancy, according to Roman Zhuravlev, are:
* low level of maturity of management processes in most Russian companies;
* uncertainty of the status and goals of the IT service in the company;
* insufficient training of heads of IT services in the field of management;
* lack of adapted methods of personnel management, taking into account the specifics of IT services.
“Under such conditions, in most cases there is no practical need to ‘optimize motivational models’. They will remain models,” says Roman Zhuravlev.
“The most important thing is to build a motivation system for a particular person into common system goal-setting of the company (or division, if we are talking about IT service), - says Elena Sharova, Deputy Director of the Department of Corporate Management Systems at IBS. - Each individual employee must understand his role in the overall “working mechanism” and see his contribution to the overall success. And the motivation scheme should be directly related to the achievement of the business goals of the unit and the company as a whole.
In the process of setting the general strategic goals of the company, they are decomposed to the level of individual performers. Each employee must, on the one hand, have a list of clear goals and objective criteria for achieving them, and on the other hand, see how his work contributes to the overall success. All this creates the most important psychological effect - a sense of belonging to a great cause. Without it, it is almost impossible to interest an employee.
It is very important that the rules of the game are initially set, not only in terms of motivation, but also the organization of work in general. It is necessary to clearly fix what are the areas of responsibility of employees, how we work, how we communicate, how and who will control the work, how we will punish. The rules of work (and the rules of motivation in particular) should not be a "black box" - they should be transparent and understandable. The less subjectivity, the better.”
sources of inspiration
Elena Sharova: “Each individual employee must understand his role in the overall “working mechanism.” In order to build an effective management and motivation system for the IT service, Roman Zhuravlev emphasizes, it is important:
* clearly formulate the goals of the activity - the IT service as a whole, its individual divisions, individual performers. Coordinate high-level goals with the company's management, bring them to the attention of employees;
* make reinforcements dependent only on the explicit results of IT activities. Rewards for other people's success do not stimulate you to work better. Bonuses and other incentives based on company performance may contribute to the loyalty of IT employees, but not to improve the quality of work;
* determine the intermediate points for evaluating activities - semantic or temporal. The year-end bonus encourages better work in December. The results of interim assessments should be prompt and visible. The first quarter good performance bonus paid in September is seen as a late payment;
* make the system of management and motivation adequate to the complexity of the organization, ensuring simplicity, fairness and accuracy of assessments. Take into account the features different ways activity management. Use data from automation systems for IT management activities (records of work performed, reports, protocols, etc.);
* remember that IT employees are different. A user support operator, a programmer and a network engineer have different personality traits, prefer different objects of activity, organize their work in different ways ... And an effective management and motivation system should take these differences into account;
* Provide opportunities for professional growth. For IT professionals, it is usually a priority for a career. The possibility of training ensures the relevance of the professional level, the maintenance and improvement of qualifications;
* Try to establish effective communication with the HR department. Often he does not help the CIO because neither one nor the other party understands what the general tasks, and not because these problems have no solutions.
Bread, knowledge, spiritual atmosphere!
“If we compare the entire motivation system with an iceberg, then salaries, bonuses and other material benefits are what lies on the surface, what is visible and relatively easy to compare,” says Nadezhda Shalashilina, HR director of the Lanit group of companies. “But non-material motivation is the very underwater part of the iceberg, which is much larger and deeper, and you can’t immediately see it, although it makes up most of the block.”
However, so far for most people the main motivating factor is material motivation. But this factor, according to Elena Sharova, needs to be subtly and competently worked on: “Financial compensation is not just a purchase of a person’s qualifications, it should motivate him to achieve specific goals and stimulate him to grow. The often occurring “ritual” salary increase annually by a certain percentage does not in any way motivate to achieve success. Employees perceive it as a fact and do not see the connection between the increase in wages and the growth of their qualifications. And more capable employees are not motivated for rapid professional growth, because they do not see how their earnings depend on the quality of work. Thus, an objective assessment (in monetary terms) of the employee's abilities should be formed taking into account the employee's contribution to the achievement of project goals (if we are talking about project management) and the opportunities for his professional growth.
One of the effective mechanisms of material motivation is the certification of personnel. During the certification process, the employee agrees on goals for the year related to professional and career growth. In the certification form, not only his duties are recorded, but a development plan - in which new role you need to try yourself, what skills and competencies you need to develop in order to step on new level. Work goals for the year lay the foundation for the development of certain skills. The growth of qualifications, the development of skills and competencies is followed by a change in compensation.
The second tool for building motivational schemes is motivation by goals. “Goals must be clear, and clear indicators of their achievement must be set so that there are no discrepancies,” emphasizes Elena Sharova. - The principle is that a better result guarantees a greater reward. There is always a bonus fund. It is only necessary to give meaning to bonuses, which in different companies are traditionally issued annually, quarterly or monthly, you need to tie them to the achievement of specific goals. This mechanism should not be a “black box”, but should be clear and objective.”
“Given the indisputable importance of the monetary factor, in my opinion, non-material motivation is the most reliable way to retain highly qualified specialists, especially in the face of a shortage of personnel and a rapid increase in wages,” says Nadezhda Shalashilina. “And all because it is non-material motivation that gives people common values and goals, passion for their work, opportunities for development and self-realization, recognition and real pleasure from work.”
In the IT industry, by all accounts, the main factor of non-material motivation is professional and career. Therefore, it is necessary to plan how the employee will grow both professionally and career-wise, for the perspective of two or three years, says Elena Sharova. “This is where the performance appraisal tool comes into play again,” she continues. - It is during the appraisal (if it is an operating, and not a formal procedure in the company) that the goals of the employee's personal growth are developed and they are coordinated with the general goals of the company.
To ensure consistency between the strategic goals of the company and the goals of individual employees, IBS has adopted a “top-down” appraisal approach - first the management, and then down the job ladder. Thanks to this, the general goals of the top level are decomposed into the specific goals of each employee. In accordance with the work goals, the employee is set development goals - what needs to be learned, what to master. Moreover, in order to show the employee development opportunities, we always set somewhat more ambitious goals in the certification than are required by qualification. This stimulates and motivates him to develop, gives confidence that he has many prospects and has the opportunity to constantly learn new things.”
Among other important factors of non-material motivation, one can note the importance of the leader's personality. “Obviously, the leader and the atmosphere he creates in the team mean a lot - the mission of the company is transmitted through the leader, he must inflame hearts. But still, the organizational structure, especially if we are talking about industrial scale, should not be based on the personality of the leader, but, first of all, on a certain culture, regulations, rules of interaction and development plans,” Elena Sharova believes.
According to a survey conducted by Ecopsy Consulting on the topic “What keeps talented employees in the company in the first place?” 91%) turned out to be the personality of the immediate supervisor. The high level of income did not rise above the third step (16.42%). “People remain people. The material component is important, but the conditions are more important - professional and personal. No one is ready to work with people who are unpleasant for themselves and pour water from empty to empty, - sums up Dmitry Voloshchuk. - The topic of non-material motivation by Russian companies is still poorly mastered, largely due to the fact that the potential of material motivation has not been used up. The competition for specialists is largely due to this resource. But since we are already in a situation where candidates form the market, and the demand for them is much higher than the supply, the issue of non-material motivation will be acute in the coming years. When wages reach the ceiling, other resources will be sought. And then the Russian market will follow the Western path: most likely, it will be a motivation that is costly for the company, but is given to employees in the form of intangible benefits: a social package, opportunities free education and recreation, paying for a number of family needs - life insurance, paying for children's education, etc. These practices are well developed in the West and will soon be actively introduced in Russian companies.
How to make the secret clear
The development of a motivation system for each company is individual, it depends on many internal and external factors. “When creating a motivation system, it is necessary, first of all, to find out the internal attitudes of people and how their own goals are related to the goals of the company,” emphasizes Dmitry Voloshchuk, consultant at Ecopsy Consulting. - At the moment when a system of motivation for operational activities is being developed, it is very important to understand, on the one hand, what the company expects from employees and what it is ready to motivate them for, and on the other hand, what people expect from the company.
If the system motivates for one thing, and people expect another from the company, then the motivation system will not work because it is not suitable for these specific people. And vice versa - motivational schemes should be adequate to the company's expectations from the staff. If the company expects teamwork from the division, but the motivation system is aimed at encouraging the manifestation of individual qualities, not considering how a person is involved in collective work and works for overall result, a cohesive team will not work out.
The internal attitudes of people are a difficult area to identify. They are made up of social, group and individual preferences, goals and traditions. But, despite all the variety of internal motives, some character traits inherent in IT professionals can be distinguished.
Life from project to project
Nadezhda Shalashilina: “Non-material motivation is the underwater part of the iceberg.” When selecting employees, managers sympathize with like-minded people. As a result, over time, the team is made up of people with the same way of thinking. As well as obvious benefits, this approach has some disadvantages.
Today, the leaders of companies and their divisions in the vast majority of cases are people aimed at constant professional and career growth, and the IT sector, as already noted, is distinguished by the fact that professional growth has priority. Each next step of professional growth, as a rule, correlates with participation in any project. Accordingly, many IT professionals have developed design thinking. Becoming leaders, they select employees with similar business qualities. If the work of the IT department in such a situation is organized according to the project principle, it will be very effective, especially in a dynamically developing company. But if the current operational activities of employees are not marked with clear time periods and clearly described goals, people on this “plain” quickly begin to lose their zest for life and soon set off in search of new Everests. “The daily activities of such employees can be organized in the form of mini-projects, with clear goals and a clear system for evaluating results,” says Dmitry Voloshchuk. “Motivation should be built in such a way that people see clear guidelines and realize what it will mean for them to achieve or not achieve their goals.”
Design thinking is fraught with another danger. People who are accustomed to project work, consider it necessary to get involved in the implementation as possible more projects, regardless of real possibility fulfill them. The main indicator of professional failure, they consider the rejection of the project. Therefore, the IT department can be involved in many simultaneously implemented internal projects aimed at automating various business processes or improving the systems created. At the same time, the total amount of work significantly exceeds the capabilities of available resources. Accordingly, dozens of projects can be in an unfinished state for years. “The essential difference between an internal IT department and an independent company implementing projects on the market is that the internal department does not evaluate its own profitability,” notes Dmitry Voloshchuk. - This is the situation in most IT departments large companies. Of course, the manager would have to filter the proposals of internal customers, based on the resources at his disposal. But, as a rule, he himself is characterized by project thinking, and he formed a team of like-minded people. The circle closes.
In such a situation, we propose to change the value orientation - the main thing is not the number of implemented, but the number of successful implemented projects. This automatically entails the creation of a filter of customer proposals - only those projects in which the functional units are really interested in work begin to be accepted. At the same time, obviously hopeless projects must be terminated so that resources are not wasted.”
Player Coach Syndrome
The problem of the "playing coach" is very typical for IT departments. IT staff are great professionals with a high level of knowledge and rich experience. They have gone from novice programmers and system administrators to high-level professionals, they know the subject area thoroughly and understand well what their subordinates at all levels are doing. However, their current work lies more in the field of management than in a specific subject area. The main function of these specialists is setting tasks and monitoring their implementation. But knowledge of the subject area and lack of managerial skills lead to the fact that they tend to analyze every problem that employees have too thoroughly or undertake to correct the shortcomings themselves. To any request for help or in the process of monitoring the execution of orders, they respond not as managers, but as engineers. “This is a very common problem in IT,” notes Dmitry Voloshchuk. - The unit works inefficiently, because employees of a higher official and qualification level spend their time and effort on solving the problems of their subordinates. They love their job very much and are unable to refuse interesting tasks in the subject area, because managerial tasks do not fascinate them so much. In such a situation, it is very important to build a system of priorities in the motivational scheme. If employees are motivated for a business result, they will solve the problem as a whole, without going into small details.”
Public over private
Dmitry Voloshchuk: “Motivation should be built in such a way that people see clear guidelines.” Another common mistake in creating a motivation system is when the system motivates people only to individual work and all indicators reflect the personal effectiveness of each employee. In such a situation, employees lack a sense of team, collective mutual assistance and support for comfortable work. In addition, in a team where everyone feels like a "star", there is no team effect. Having messed up, people unconsciously tend to lobby for the priorities of their site, which slows down the common cause. There is not enough synergy effect from the work of the team.
“It is necessary to create indicators of the unit's collective work,” advises Dmitry Voloshchuk, “and back up the achievement of these indicators with a bonus system. Prizes in this case will be split: part is issued on the basis of general indicators, and part - on the basis of individual ones. There is nothing revolutionary in this method of motivation - this is how, for example, the bonus system was organized at industrial enterprises back in Soviet times. But it almost never occurs to CIOs to apply this experience to the work of their subordinate department. Perhaps, at first glance, the idea of comparing the labor of a man producing material values, with the labor of a person who creates intellectual values, looks absurd. But if you take a closer look, there is much in common in the process of organizing their work and goals. It is only necessary to build a motivation system in strict accordance with the expectations of employees.”
CIO note
Like any field of activity, the field information technologies goes through various stages life cycle. First in new area creators come, but over time, technologies are worked out and a wide layer of artisans appears. A clear procedure appears, a set of algorithms and templates designed to solve problems. This is necessary and inevitable. Since the IT industry is quite young, creativity in it has turned into a craft relatively recently. Therefore, today, a situation is typical when an IT specialist who has reached the highest professional level loses interest in the subject area, which no longer gives him the opportunity to solve problems of ever higher complexity. The sacramental question arises: what to do? “There are two ways out: either push professional priorities into the background and enjoy life, or look for new applications in professional activity,” says Dmitry Voloshchuk. - If the first option is unacceptable, then for the CIO the solution to the problem may be in changing the role, in entering the managerial activity. Moreover, the IT environment is arranged in such a way that a person can reach a very high career level while remaining an expert.
Today, companies have a serious need to improve the efficiency of IT services, to increase their manageability. IT services have big budgets, big prospects, big risks with illiterate management. The situation has come to a critical point when it is necessary to reach a qualitatively new level of IT service management. Companies have already begun to allow IT managers to take part in business management, in strategic planning. Accordingly, not just specialists will be in demand, but specialists with the makings and knowledge of a manager. Those who are able to combine both of these roles - an expert and a manager - are already becoming competitive and interesting to the market."
A whole section "effective work" has been introduced. I wrote, for example, about how and then, and more recently, how to force yourself to .
However, these articles, although they are most directly related to productive work, nevertheless consider particular issues. Therefore, today we will have a solid article that talks about the most important, fundamental principles of efficiency. I have long wanted to write it in order to collect all my experience in this area and, as it were, tie a knot in memory.
1. First of all, you need to take care of the very possibility of effective work in terms of the capabilities of the body. More specifically, this means:
- the correct mode of work and rest (work breaks, switching to other things, relaxation). Do not work continuously for more than an hour. It is best to deal with fatigue before it occurs. Work for an hour - rest for ten minutes. By the way, mental work generally becomes about a third less effective if a person works for two hours without a break.
— healthy sleep and daily routine. It's simple: sleep at least 8 hours (for most people), the alternation of activities during the day.
- a sufficient number of movements, sports, fitness every day (if the work is sedentary). It is also clear: health benefits, and rest, and improved blood supply to the brain.
2. Mode and intensity of work. My experience shows that the best results are obtained by working in a "smooth", calm mode. No need to twitch and force yourself to comply with Stakhanov's norms. You shouldn't relax either. The mood should be ... working =)) That is, the matter must be approached in a businesslike manner, without haste and without slipping.
3., concentration on the work that you are doing at the moment. In general, this is a problem for many - they got down to business, and then one thing distracts, another, a third ... If a person works at a computer connected to the Internet, it’s generally a disaster - it pulls mail to check ten times an hour, get out into ICQ, read the latest news ... As a result, an abyss of time is wasted and the desired mood is lost. Distractions - fight!
4. Emotional mood. Everything is more interesting here: it is ambiguous and, most likely, individually for each person. For example, I work best in high spirits with a bit of the spirit of competition with myself - but can I do it better and faster? It was said above that the mood should be even, but even in terms of intensity of work, and not emotions. Approaching work coldly or negatively is perhaps unwise.
But excessive emotions are also harmful. It will be ideal if you observe yourself in what mood works best, fix it in your memory and train to call it whenever you take on work. It's complicated. But effective.
5. A conscious approach to business (I don’t like the word “motivation” - I last years too much is screwed up). You must imagine why and why you are doing this or that and why it is important to you. The reason here may even be "to get rid of it". Quite sufficient reason to encourage effective work (that is, work when you do everything quickly enough and with a minimum of resources - time and effort).
6. Optimization of individual details in the work. It is always better to sharpen the saw first, and only then start sawing: master effective techniques work, and only then actually work.
I remember an anecdote (it is not clear why about students):
“What is the difference between a student and a monkey? But if you need to get a banana from a tree, the monkey will first shake it - if the banana does not fall, then he will think and think and go to look for a stick. And the student will think, think and say - what is there to think, you need to shake!
Take a cue from the monkey!
7. Time management optimization. I already wrote about how to save time on trifles:.
Today we will talk about improving work efficiency, labor, and consider a few important rules that will tell us how to improve efficiency. Today, increasing the efficiency of labor, the use of working time is a very important issue not only for employers, but also for people working for themselves: entrepreneurs, freelancers, etc., as well as for employees whose earnings directly depend on the result, there are a lot of those too.
Therefore, I will consider some effective methods for increasing personal labor efficiency, that is, I will tell you how to increase work efficiency, and, consequently, personal income.
Methods for improving personal labor efficiency.
1. Don't recycle! There is an opinion that in order to earn a lot, you need to work hard, work hard. However, it is not entirely correct: it would be more correct to say not “a lot”, but “effectively”. And when a person works too much, as much as his body cannot withstand, the efficiency of his work, on the contrary, falls. Therefore, if you are thinking about improving your work efficiency, you should never strive to work hard - such work will not bring you anything good.
Let's analyze how a typical office employee works with an 8-hour and irregular working day and a 5-6 day working week. He has practically no personal time, he never gets enough sleep, he is always tired, on Monday he comes to work already with thoughts about Friday, which “warm” him all week. He knows that it is not customary in the organization to leave work on time - it is imperative to stay at least an hour so that the boss sees that he is “working”. Such an employee will never be able to work effectively. He will try in every possible way to stretch his working day as much as possible, he will be constantly distracted: drinking coffee (after all, he does not get enough sleep), doing personal business (after all, he has no other time for them), smoking (from overexertion), spending time on social networks (but be at work so that the boss sees his efforts), etc.
And imagine an employee who would have the opportunity to leave work at any time, as soon as he completes the list of his duties. It will work many times more efficiently than the first! And the same work, which the first one stretches for 8-9-10 hours, will be able to complete in a maximum of 4-6 hours in order to get the opportunity to attend to their personal affairs faster. This is effective work.
In the working process, a person must definitely allocate time for himself to rest, otherwise labor efficiency will decrease: the more a person gets tired, the less efficiently he works. But, of course, this rest should be reasonable and disciplined - it helps a lot in this regard.
We need to strive to work not a lot, but efficiently, which are fundamentally different things.
2. Learn to say "no". The next important rule that directly affects the increase in work efficiency is the ability to refuse unnecessary things that do not benefit what you are working on, and focus exclusively on the main thing.
The work should be guided by, which says that 20% of efforts bring 80% of the result, and 80% of efforts bring only 20% of the result. If you objectively analyze your work, and indeed any other activity of yours, you will see that this law really works, the way it is. Therefore, if you learn to single out exactly these 20 most effective percent of your work and focus on them, your work efficiency will simply increase significantly.
Psychologically, this is quite difficult: to refuse, for example, when a colleague asks you to help with his work, because he “does not have time”. But it is precisely this quality that is one of the important differences between a successful person.
Successful people are distinguished by the fact that they know how to refuse, to say “no”. And not only to others, but even to yourself. If you do not learn how to do this, it will be very difficult for you to increase your personal work efficiency, since a lot of time will always be taken up by unnecessary and useless things.
3. Delegate authority. It often happens that a person gives himself an attitude: to do everything himself, because "no one will do it better than me." Even if this is true, not all work must be done perfectly (more on this in next rule). Some are easy enough to make.
If you “grab everything” yourself, the overall work efficiency will always be low, because a person will waste his irreplaceable time even on all sorts of little things that, in fact, someone else could do without focusing on the main task. To increase the efficiency of work, it is possible and even necessary, if necessary, to delegate your powers (both at work and in personal plan) to other people.
By the way, you can ask for help not only from your subordinates, but also from your leaders, as more experienced people who can help to fulfill necessary work more effective.
Nobody can do everything equally well. Therefore, when thinking about how to increase work efficiency, you need to focus on your main task, and delegate the rest of the work, if possible, to others.
4. Don't strive for perfection! There is a saying: “the perfect is the enemy of the good”, and it is absolutely true. When a person strives to do his job perfectly, by 110%, he spends much more time on it than would be enough to complete this work, say, by 90-95%, which would also be quite enough. A person striving for perfection (perfectionist), pays attention to every little thing, every detail, waits perfect time to do the job, redoes the job several times if it does not suit him at least a little.
Let's take a simple example. Suppose the boss asked to draw up a certain report, for example, to calculate the percentage of the company's implementation of the monthly plan. The perfectionist worker prepares the data, already enters it for sending by e-mail. And when checking, he comes up with the idea that one of the indicators could be calculated somewhat more accurately: the overall result will not change much from this, but it will be more correct. And he re-collects the necessary data, recalculates the entire report. Then he thinks that in this form the report somehow “does not look”, and decides to arrange it in the form of a table in excel. Creates a table, enters all the data, fills in the formulas. Then he decides to color the table, highlight different colors and fonts to make it more beautiful, etc. That is, he spends many times more time on this work, although the boss, in fact, does not need all this - he needs only one final figure, that's all!
Striving for perfection is what always gets in the way of improving work efficiency. Therefore, try to do your job efficiently, but not perfectly - so your work will be much more efficient.
5. Automate processes. If you have some kind of permanent routine work, try to automate its execution as much as possible. Even if you have to spend a certain amount of time or even money on this one-time, as a result you will save much more and will be able to increase your personal efficiency.
Now, if the report that I considered in the previous example would have to be done daily / weekly / monthly, then, on the contrary, it would make sense to create a convenient table with formulas once, which would automatically calculate the required indicator. As a result, this would allow each time to use less time to write a report, devoting it to other, more significant tasks.
In our age of computer technology, all routine work must be entrusted to robotic computers, leaving a person only with what the computer cannot handle, where living thinking is required. Automation of processes will lead to a significant increase in labor efficiency.
6. Don't "reinvent the wheel". Often people spend a huge amount of time, effort, and sometimes money to come to what has already been known for so long. What kind of labor efficiency can we talk about in this case?
Especially often this problem can be observed in people who want to develop their business idea for years, losing time and potential income, instead of using some already known, and most importantly, proven option.
To increase the efficiency of labor, you need to use the experience of those who have already gone through a similar path, avoiding their mistakes. It is not necessary to be an expert in any field yourself - you can rely on the opinions of those who are already experts, and this will be much more effective.
If a person works with data that later turns out to be unreliable, he will simply do unnecessary, superfluous work, the results of which cannot be used in any way.
Let's take this example: a person wants to open a store, and does not know what documents need to be collected for this. He uses a search engine and ends up on some site where someone posted a list of such documents. A novice entrepreneur collects everything that is indicated in this list, and when he comes to the registration authorities, it turns out that half of the documents are superfluous, and many documents are missing. You have to do all the work again, but if he immediately studied the current legislative framework or at least received competent advice in the same bodies, it would have worked more effectively.
If you care about increasing labor efficiency, accept only accurate data for work, without wasting your time on working through dubious information.
By using these methods to improve your personal work efficiency, you will be able to significantly increase the efficiency of your work, which means you will achieve better results and, as a result, better earnings.
That's all. Stay on, and learn how to effectively use your work, time and personal finances. See you soon!
Let's look at demotivators that reduce the effectiveness of staff. What to avoid when working with colleagues, as well as when communicating with employees. This question is about leadership. It is necessary to properly motivate employees, to be loyal, then the return and work efficiency will reach a higher level.
In the material, we will consider in detail the very concept of demotivation, and also learn about its methods and moral demotivating factors.
Every director must know that the foundation for the successful development of any company is the high return of its employees.
The basis of productivity and effective work is the right motivation, its tools that are used in practice. Each director must understand what actions to take in relation to his subordinates so that they work with desire and go to work with pleasure.
Non-objective punishment reduces work efficiency
Also, the concept is called material demotivation. Sometimes management sees that their lower-ranking colleagues evade their direct duties and want to whip them up in some way.
To do this, they "cut off" the salary of the staff. (Since you citizens are lazy and work without enthusiasm, I decide to pay you less).
But it is worth noting that decision wrong. Because hardly anyone will perform feats for such a low fee. If an employee has worked poorly before, then the measures taken will not be an incentive for him. In such a situation, management is removed from office and a more competent and objective person is found who is able to properly motivate subordinates.
Disrespect and constant "sawing" discourages the desire to fulfill their duties in any person. If you never praise the working staff, but inspire them that they are stupid, mediocrity, like zero specialists, then it is difficult to expect full returns from them.
There is another way that negatively affects the attitude of colleagues (see), it is latent. These are employees, the so-called saboteurs, gray cardinals. In teams there are such colleagues who treat their duties irresponsibly, they constantly chat on their mobile phones, sit in social networks. Such an attitude has a detrimental effect on the service of the entire working staff, because many follow a bad example, imitate.
Let's discuss the most common ways of material and moral leverage on colleagues:
Financial factors
- Lack of bonuses, incentives, bonuses for the good work of employees.
- Employee expenses are not reimbursed. For example, mobile connection, travel, etc.
Moral factors that reduce employee performance
- The interest of employees in the development of new projects and ideas is not encouraged.
- Any initiative from the staff is rejected.
- There is no clear system of tasks for each position (see).
- Regular processing, overtime loads.
- Too difficult tasks are set for employees.
- Mistreatment of colleagues.
- Ignoring the rules of business etiquette.
- Failure to fulfill promises, lack of career growth.
- Strong pressure from the manager, frequent nit-picking, installation of controlling tools. For example, it can be installed beacons on phones, minute-by-minute reporting on the work done.
Expert opinion: What reduces the efficiency of employees?
Olga Nilova
Lead Recruitment Consultant Kelly Services CIS
Many factors can influence the performance of staff. I would break them down into two parts: personal circumstances and external factors.
Personal circumstances affecting the quality of work
Among personal moments, it is worth noting the motivation of employees to perform work, as well as the knowledge and skills necessary to perform certain functions.
An employee is unlikely to be effective if he absolutely does not like what he does. This may be due not only, for example, to the initially wrong choice of profession, but also to the fact that the employee has “burned out”, he needs a new challenge. An employee exhausted by monotonous work is definitely not ready for productive work. Just like an employee who does not have the necessary experience and competencies to perform the work assigned to him, will definitely show low results.
External factors affecting employee productivity
External circumstances include unfavorable working conditions, lack of resources, too much work and poor team relationships.
Imagine that you are working in an office with poor ventilation, in which case the lack of oxygen can not only reduce productivity, but also negatively affect the health of employees. Or you are distracted by the endless squabbles and conflicts of your colleagues: this will not only spoil the nervous system, but also take away precious working time.
What demotivating factors do leaders use without knowing it?
In recent years, the issues of staff motivation have been one of the first points in terms of personnel management. In an effort to achieve efficiency, managers develop various systems motivation for their employees. But are these methods always effective?
For example, the systems of fines still used in many companies: there is an opinion that this increases the motivation, for example, of sales managers. Such an employee may try to work better, but how long he will work in this company is a big question. Or constant criticism and instructions: the manager thinks that this will be beneficial and the employee will correct his work, but in fact, this method can achieve complete demotivation.
It is very easy to demotivate an employee. It is enough to give him what he really does not need. For example, to transfer him from an executive to a managerial position. Out of courtesy, the employee will agree to a promotion, but will feel out of place. As you know, not all people strive for career growth.
Poor communication can also have a negative impact on motivation: it happens that the manager does not clearly set tasks and, as a result, the employee does not understand what is required of him, often the employee is given unrealistic deadlines for completing tasks. All this subsequently also leads to burnout and demotivation of the staff.
Now you are familiar with the factors that can Negative influence for efficient work of the staff. As a result, the delay in the development of the company, poor performance. Try to draw the right conclusions, you should not make these mistakes when managing colleagues. Be honest, respectful and patient with workers. Show employees that you appreciate them and the services they provide, thank them for their work. Then your organization will become strong, powerful, will flourish before our eyes.
Analysis of the activities of state and commercial organization The RF identified a similar problem, one of the main reasons, which turned out to be the presence in everyday work of inefficient actions that force organizations to bear significant and mostly hidden costs, and company efficiency, is an integrative indicator; it consists of the tasks and effectiveness of individual processes that are solved in everyday life, so what are they based on.
1 The reason for the low efficiency of the company. Lack or absence of professional specialists who have experience in building organizational structures. This is mainly due to the lack of practical courses, as well as education in the field of management. People who have management skills and practical experience are sorely lacking. Considering that the coordination of activities and organizational work, are the main functions in management, this factor is critical.
The diagram of each organization can be shown on a three-level model:
The top level represents the owner;
The middle level looks like management;
The bottom is ordinary staff.
The goals and needs of each level are different from each other. The main task of management in this structure is to organize work, where the upper and lower levels are in balance.
2 The reason for the low efficiency of the company, lies in the lack of a specific understanding among the owners of what exactly they want to receive as a result of the organization's activities. Not every company has a certain idea about the product of its activities. It is for this reason that the goals of the organization are completely missing or incorrectly formulated, which makes it impossible to control and manage the company.
3 The reason for the low efficiency of the company- this is the lack of a planning system, which leads to low efficiency of the company as a whole. Basically, at every level of the company there are a number of plans that may not correlate with each other, and also differ from the goals of the organization. This makes it difficult to prepare reports and does not allow for a quick assessment of actions and tasks that are consistent with the goals of the enterprise. Planning is the most main function manager, which is designed to provide the desired result in a timely manner.
4 The reason due to which, often there is a low efficiency in organizations, it is the lack of a system for managing and motivating employees. In many companies, employees do not know what they are being paid for. The staff does not notice the connection between the goals of the organization and their own earnings.
5 The reason for the low efficiency of the company. Lack of tools for quick control and efficiency of the actions performed. This problem is relevant for any employee, as well as the organization as a whole. As a rule, this is clearly expressed in public institutions, where the concept of efficiency is not always present, but this situation is often found in private organizations. Do not forget that performance evaluation and control are the most important functions of a manager.
6 The reason for the low efficiency of the company. Lack of professional standards in companies. This problem is currently relevant for organizations that regularly perform standard procedures and processes. In the absence of corporate standards, the employee who takes part in the sequence of actions does not always make the necessary contribution to the course of the organization. In the event of an employee leaving the company who was involved in the implementation this process, there are risks that can paralyze the work of the entire organization.
7 The reason for the low efficiency of the company. The lack of an adaptation system for new employees, as well as loyalty programs for employees, which reduces the efficiency of the company. When there is no personnel management function, given task falls on the management of the organization. Each leader must have an idea of the unit that is faithful to him. But keeping and tracking all the information is not always possible. As a result, each employee is left to himself, and there is no one to manage his loyalty.
8 The reason for the low efficiency of the company. Misunderstanding of the purpose of marketing functions in the work of the organization:
Inefficient organizational structure of marketing, in which there are no clearly defined functions of the enterprise.
Absence information materials about the enterprise;
Ignorance of the market share that the company occupies.
Lack of tools for managing internal and external information flows.
Lack of target groups.
Lack of understanding of the brand and its role in the company.
All reasons for the low efficiency of the company, can be grouped into 2 directions - this is a practical problem in management and problem situation in marketing practice, however, every company needs the correct construction of these two components.
