Fixing employee productivity in the industrial age, when most workers were handling machinery and it’s parts, was a tedious but doable process. The managers had to fix the people who were making mistakes or were inefficient through systematic management.

Today, in the age of software and i...

Human beings are complex creatures, and merely getting the best people together in a team does not make it successful or efficient. Optimization of a team requires it’s team members to work together by showing sensitivity and empathy towards everyone’s feelings and needs.

Leaders now have to demonstrate positive and virtuous practices like:

• Showing compassion and empathy
• Providing support
• Being like friends
• Focusing on meaningful work
• Forgiving mistakes
• Not to blame or accuse the employees
• Treating...

The basic productivity formula(productivity= output divided by input) worked well in the industrial age as the output and input were clearly defined and measurable.

Today’s leaders need innovative solutions to measure and improve productivity in a knowledge-based workplace, as the...

Apart from the performance measurement and appraisals, management now has to take care of employee satisfaction and building strong, bonded teams.

A single-minded focus on results and output isn’t the right strategy anymore and it is better to take the ‘happy workers’ approach.

Employees also have other concerns that hamper productivity and efficiency. It may be personal problems, a lack of will to work, or any other factor not in a manager's control.

The modern workforce enables employees to be the means of production themselves, using their knowledge, expertise...

• Ensure the team is working on the tasks that align with their core competency. Maximize the time for meaningful work, while minimizing other activities.
• Set up the measurement yardsticks in the team for the output that you would require, like shipping of the product on a set deadli...

In the new economy, knowledge workers have to manage themselves and have autonomy. They are no longer cogs in a wheel, but nodes in a neural network and their individual productivity is now more important than ever.

While assigning value to the output of knowledge workers, we cannot simply measure the output like before.

Coders and doctors cannot be measured by the hour, as their output is not uniform or consistent every hour.