Can the Work Productivity Formula Strengthen Your Recruiting, is That Possible?

Over the past few years, the Human Resource (HR) sector has evolved into an essential part of every business development and decision. Consequently, businesses are increasingly understanding the importance and need for a well-functioning, coherent team. That meticulously pursues the company's objectives and lives the company's principles.

In theory, this venture is certainly easy to understand, but as in many areas of management: easy to learn, hard to master. A peculiarity of today's labor market makes this theory much harder. We are currently moving in an employee market. This means that companies are posting more vacancies than there are candidates who could fill these positions. This gives the employee the choice, and companies have to prove themselves daily as good and qualified employers.

Therefore, it is vital for companies to know when new employees are genuinely needed. There are numerous reasons to search for new employees. Whether it's resignations, the establishment or takeover of subsidiaries, restructuring etc. These 'subjective' criteria are essential features in any case, on which it is sensible to think about new hires.

What is the Work Productivity Formula?

Another way to find out whether a company should hire new employees is the work productivity formula. This seemingly very simple formula contains the potential to create many decisions' foundations that can lead to vital decisions. The formula is as follows:

Work potential = output / work input

Here, the users compare how much of a certain end product they receive in a fixed timeframe or through a certain amount of work. So: how much do I produce in time X? Sounds simple? It actually is. However, very few think this way. Understandably.

The Human Resources sector is highly emotional, and decisions are made emotionally. This sometimes leads to employments that the company does not need at all. This can lead to high financial losses, unnecessary terminations, and damage to a good reputation as an employer. This is because sometimes the problem is not the number of employees but internal structural errors or unfavorable use of different people within the company. On the other hand, it can also be that the company performs well according to statistical objectives, but this goes unnoticed in the daily hustle and bustle. A look at the numbers there can help.

Work productivity formula as a universal remedy

In many respects, mathematics is a large problem solver, especially in economics. Here, percentage changes in productivity can answer many questions. In recruitment, this formula can only serve us as aid, as there is no uniform answer to all the questions a company may have regarding HR. It is merely calculated how great the productivity is within a certain timeframe or through a certain amount of work. It displays the current status, and it can be compared whether there is an increase in productivity or if the result has changed negatively.

However, a problem can also be seen here. With which parameters does the company calculate? The output of a manufacturing company can be recorded numerically, as can the time spent on it. Whether the end product is satisfactory or not in the end is a subjective answer. It is up to the company's management to answer this question.

What the formula cannot do is to provide information on the meaningfulness of new hires beyond this result. Circumstances such as expansion, takeover of a competitor, or other conditions are not taken into account and are therefore also ignored in the formula. However, this does not make these criteria any less important.

Proper use of the work productivity formula

As a responsible person, to be able to use the work productivity formula correctly, you have to understand in which contexts it makes sense to apply this formula. For this, I have brought two different examples.

Example 1

Company 1 is a steadily growing media company based in Düsseldorf's Media Harbor. In the last few years, increasing sales and profits have always been expected. Now, due to the order situation, another office must be opened. This office is to be stationed in Barcelona in order to better deal with the ever-increasing number of Spanish and French customers. For this, experts from the Spanish and southern French area are also sought.

Would a work productivity formula in this example now be necessary to make the right decision? No. Why not? First of all, the company knows from the data of the last periods that sales and profits are increasing. Thus, it is clear that the company is operating productively. Furthermore, in this case, it is about expansion. Expansions are not taken into account in this formula.

Example 2

The medium-sized company 2 is a well-known manufacturer of nuts in the local area. The company currently has 150 employees and has generated consistently equal profits for around 10 years. The company is doing well; no economically induced layoffs had to be made for years. Now the management is considering recruiting additional employees, especially apprentices.

Would the use of such a formula be appropriate now? Yes. Why? The company does not strive for expansion or other activities that are not included in the APF. Furthermore, the company generates profits, which in recent years have never drastically changed and have always hit the forecasts. With such a formula, it can be seen whether the capacities for new employees, apprentices in this case, are available.

Finding the important data

The two examples I brought are, of course, very rough specimens. In practice, such scenarios are, of course, much more complex and require far more concrete metrics. Such metrics are sector-specific and should also be applied as such. The following shows you 5 softwares that you, as the responsible person, can use to make efficient and accurate decisions in the HR environment.

Cross-sector software

There are many software solutions that can be well received in most sectors. These software solutions usually help analyze current projects and structures before, during, and after implementation.

• Notion:Notion is my declared favorite program in every respect, and I can't stop talking about its advantages. Notion offers users the opportunity to write down thoughts in just about any format, to share, to change. Regardless of the amount of data or size, regardless of the format (at least, regarding the common formats) and regardless of the style. You can use Notion as an individual or as a team. There are probably few people who cannot benefit from this software.
• Asana:I used Asana for a while to structure and analyze upcoming projects clearly and simply. The platform provides users with the opportunity to quickly and easily create and analyze new projects and tasks. The visual representation is simple, minimalist, and surely a reasonable option for many companies and teams. Unfortunately, this tool only serves to document tasks. How the tasks are completed in the end, Asana does not show. But other tools can help with that.

Industry-specific tools

E-Commerce

• Salesforce CRM:Especially in (E-)Commerce it is necessary to find out which processes work well and which need an update. The Salesforce CRM system is one of the prominent representatives of CRM systems. Clearly and detailed in construction and structure, it offers users the ability to quickly and easily retrieve all relevant data.
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  Want to know more about Salesforce's services? All tools and helpful articles on the products can be found on our Salesforce company overview page.

Webanalytics

• Adobe Analytics:In the SEO and SEA area, most decisions are based on the performance of few pages or areas. To accurately and reasonably track the success of pages and subpages is important. Adobe Analytics helps the user to do exactly that. Simply structured, but not simple in function. All necessary data is graphically well structured so that even inexperienced employees can understand the information.

Marketing

• Hootsuite:Hootsuite is a social media management tool that helps users schedule and analyze content. The success of individual posts or the entire page is easy to read here. It saves users a lot of time and hassle, as Hootsuite covers almost all social media platforms.

Choosing the software - my criteria

In my daily work, I myself use some of the software listed, such as Hootsuite or Notion. Here I can report to you from personal experiences. To give you a sensible answer to the question of which software solutions could be of interest to you, I use the search function and rating function of OMR Reviews. You will also find all the tools you can find above. Here, users rate tools from their own experience and thus offer the opportunity to find the right tool for their situation. The tools mentioned above were unanimously praised by the users, and therefore I also recommend them to you.

5 tips for increasing productivity

After you have now integrated the appropriate software into your daily work routine, it is time to analyze and optimize your own processes. Because before you can start advertising new positions, you should first get the maximum out of your employees' abilities. For this, I have 5 quick tips for you:

1. Invest in further training

Employees who continuously develop offer the company not only a reliable workforce in the long term but also a source of innovations. Experts work faster and more efficiently, which affects general productivity.

2. Automate your processes

Automate all the processes that can be automated. There is a large number of software solutions that can help. This creates capacities for further development and is also a reliable tool to always have monotonous tasks done.

3. Improve your time management

Inefficiency often finds its source in poor time management. Make sure you know how long you need for a task exactly. Use tools like Asana for this. This knowledge helps you to turn the right screws.

4. Ensure satisfied and healthy employees

A happy and healthy team always performs best. They contribute, foster innovations, and are always focused. With simple means, such as flexible working hours, remote work, and fitness offers, you certainly do something good for your team, and this takes away potential worries.

5. Work in a team

One tip that can be applied immediately is the following. Listen to the experts on your team. They know precisely what the weak points of your company are and how they could be solved. If you, as a leader, work together with the experts, you work with twice the volume of innovation potential.

Conclusion

To make sensible and accurate recruitment decisions, several criteria are needed. On the one hand, the current state of the company is relevant, and the planned, future development is also important. In addition, the current performance is important. This can be determined by a simple formula like the work productivity formula or by analysis tools like the ones mentioned above.

However, these numbers and values are worthless if they do not serve a direct goal: answering the question if the company is currently achieving the company goals, and if not, why not? These numbers can now tell if an employee is unfit for an available position or not. The figures can determine if the company is achieving the economic objectives or not. But they won't be able to show if it is right now sensible to hire new employees or not. This decision is highly individual and depends on far more parameters than statistics.