Improving Productivity and Reducing Costs

Improving Productivity and Reducing Costs
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Improving Productivity and Reducing Costs
Increasing employee productivity is among the most strategic roles of the human resource department within any given business since the job entails establishing policies, procedures, and programs that assist in the government of people management. These same strategies are meant to improve the output per dollar spent on the labor costs as well as the revenue per employee. Some of the bonus programs are enacted to maintain the total compensation of employees in line with the changing market trends regardless of the values given to work warranting the reimbursements. The training tools used in the increase of employee productivity are also secured with the used of the lowest cost provider methods with a minimal consideration granted to the most efficient provider. Recruitments are further managed with the primary goals of minimising costs as opposed to enabling the business capacities. In a nutshell, the human resource department is mainly concerned with the execution of transactions that fit a given company as opposed to the delivery of solutions to improve productivity (Sullivan, 2011).
Consequently, the levels of productivity are influenced by some factors that the human resource department uses to determine the business productivity objectives. A high performing and innovative employee body is a focal point of the improving the productivity of a given company, and the recruiting departments will tend to hire those with exceptional capabilities as well as motivation.

This way, the retention and development of high performing employees are enabled through the management body.
Setting the directions and executing them is another factor that productivity highly relies on since the manager develop the plans and uses motivation strategies to improve the overall productivity levels of the employees. Considering productivity as a factor that is meant to enhance the financial performance of a company, it is highly independent from the reduction of costs as its strategies mainly entail direction and governance factors that have more to with improving and maintaining the individual performances of the employees in a company through delegation and own targets and team driven achievements. On the other hand, it is highly dependent on the reduction of costs since this creates a platform by which goals are set according to the number of labor costs and financial resources that a given company is ready to utilize.
Moreover, the reduction of costs is mutually exclusive to the increase in productivity amongst employees because it is quite difficult to control the number of salaries and wages which profoundly affects the productivity levels of the employees. The changes in the levels of compensation profoundly affect the levels of employee motivation which in turn reflect on their levels of performance. Therefore, the most crucial factor to consider in the reduction of costs is the formulation of a plan before the implementation of the cost reduction strategies. One cannot reduce labor costs without critical considerations of maintaining productivity.
Salaries and wages have an upward curve despite the markets and financial changes. In a case where the current employees are earning more than they ought to be paid for their tasks, the human resource department is supposed to delay on the payrolls or otherwise make token raises in a manner that the payrolls configure the current trends. Talking with the employees is a significant strategy to ensure that the employees are in expectancy of the lack of pay rises as well as suggesting the methods by which they can become more valuable to the company. Another way of reducing the cost within organizations is the reduction of employee turnover. Turnover brings about an excessive cost of the operations due to the wages and salaries of the employees who are engaged in the recruitment and training of the new employees. An enormous wastage of resources and fraud occurs at this point mainly because they view this time with the company as temporary. Therefore, maintenance of a stable employee core is a sure method of reducing cost and at the same time maintaining the productivity of the current employees. Another method of reducing cost would be through the conversion of fixed salaries and wages into commissions as well as fees. As opposed to the termination of employees their salaries can be converted to an expense that is paid in the event of an accompanying revenue (Lewis, 2018).
The reduction of costs and improvement of productivity has been viewed to work out in several companies in the United States. A practical company example, the US Airways knew as American Airlines, hires cross-trained employees in particular departments. Cross-trained employees can perform a variety of operations within the company which then enables the company to make various changes without incurring extra costs and layoffs. At the same time, the delivery of products and services is still maintained as further improvement is catered thus higher productivity. This way the company has been able to achieve flexibility as well as a reduced level of points of failure that would have otherwise occurred if a given task is only handled by a single person. Specialised employees also tend to hinder the ability to share workloads which can easily be solved by hiring cross-trained employees thus improving the general productivity of the company (Granier, 2017).
References
Granier, B. (2017). Management Competencies Cross-training: A Case Study. Sans.edu. Retrieved 11 January 2018, from https://www.sans.edu/cyber-research/management-laboratory/article/granier-mgt421Lewis, M. (2018). How to Reduce Labor Costs in Your Business. Moneycrashers.com. Retrieved 11 January 2018, from https://www.moneycrashers.com/reduce-labor-costs-business/Sullivan, J. (2011). Increasing Employee Productivity: The Strategic Role That HR Essentially Ignores. ERE Media. Retrieved 11 January 2018, from https://www.ere.net/increasing-employee-productivity-the-strategic-role-that-hr-essentially-ignores/