Absenteeism Kills Productivity

Absenteeism is a productivity killer. No matter how good the person is when they are at work, their overall productivity can never reach 100%. Unfortunately, where we have a competent member of staff, we tend to excuse their lack of attendance.

Unplanned absences cause a lot of problems to the employer. Firstly, the person is absent. Secondly, someone has to pick up the work. Thirdly, the people that do turn up to work become resentful and their productivity is negatively affected. So unplanned absences create bad feeling in the workplace. There is a case for a baseline measurement of productivity which is the outcome of the number of days missed through unplanned absences as a percentage of total available days.

For example, if the average working year comprises forty-seven weeks and there are five working days per week, the total available days in the year would be 235. Let’s say that a member of staff has 25 days off on unplanned absences in a year. If we divide the 25 by the number of available days and multiply by 100, we have an absentee rate of 10.64%. That means that they have over 10.5 days away from work every hundred days. Given this sort of absentee rate, no matter how they perform when they are at work, they can never reach 100%. If we take the 10.64% away from 100, we are left with a figure of 89.36 which could be used as the baseline measurement of productivity. When you think of it, when a person is away on unplanned absence their productivity is zero. Would you employ someone who could only give you 90% of their time? After all, this is what you’re buying through wages. Attendance, skill plus the ability to use your equipment to make a profit.

I may be old-fashioned, but I think that anyone in the workplace who only gives you 90% of the available time should be given the message that their productivity is abysmal. Furthermore, they should give a clear undertaking that their attendance, productivity and performance will increase substantially to maintain their employment.

So, in summary, people with bad attendance records are of little value to your workforce, and on some occasions they can be a serious financial liability. All this discussion about productivity does not include what they actually achieve whilst they are at work. This is another completely different subject.

Anyone in business will benefit from increased productivity. The costs remain relatively static and output climbs. Working smarter means that a productivity improvement strategy can be easily implemented without anyone working harder.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_L_Mitchell

Peter L Mitchell - EzineArticles Expert Author

Online Appointment Scheduling – A Little Less Stress and More Convenience

In the very busy society that we live in today, one thing that just about everyone could use less of is stress. With the exception of about 5 people, just about every person I know would benefit from having a little less stress in their lives. Sure, there are plenty of things we can do in our personal lives to make it better; we could get more rest, eat better meals, spend more time with the people we love the most, but in business one of the easiest things we can do to help alleviate some stress is make our jobs easier. You might think that task is easier said than done but with online appointment scheduling you can take some of the stress out of your job.

Not every business needs to be able to schedule appointments. For those businesses that do not need a service such as that, they can find ways to reduce stress like taking a break at a certain time no matter what is going on or asking for help when you need it. Even though these things might seem obvious, doing them really can make a difference in the overall stress level you might be feeling. Trying to find the time to reduce stress can be a stress in itself, don’t get bogged down with the mundane things you have to do.

On the other hand, if your business is one that could benefit from the use of online appointment scheduling, that would be a great way to help reduce a little of your stress each day. With the use of scheduling software you can help get rid of some of the stress of having to write down information and then trying not to lose it. And let’s face it, not everyone is organized. You may have a great assistant that you really like because they are a good person but they have trouble misplacing things or forget about scheduled appointments. With the use of online appointment scheduling, everything they need to know about your appointments is at their fingertips and it can even send you and your clients email reminders so you won’t forget about them.

Why not do everything you can to make your day a little less stressful? Whether you need to schedule appointments or not, there are plenty of easy things we can do everyday to make our lives a little easier and more enjoyable as a result. Whether you just need to be sure and take your well deserved break or if you can use online appointment scheduling do it.

Kate Stevens works with Appointment-Plus, industry leaders in online appointment scheduling. They have helped millions of people with securely schedule appointments with their wonderfully easy to use and effective software. If your business could benefit from great appointment scheduling software, Appointment-Plus is the way to go. For more information please visit http://www.appointment-plus.com or call  1-480-483-1199 .

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kate_Stevens

Increasing Personal Productivity

When it comes to achieving your goals, one of the best things you can do is to increase your personal productivity. People who get more done in a day aren’t exactly smarter than everyone else, they just know what to focus their limited amount of time on and cut down on things that waste their time. These people are simply just more efficient. When you become more efficient, you will produce more and that in turn will allow you to achieve more.

There are lots of ways to improve personal productivity like having a list, prioritizing it, and checking the tasks off as you complete them. Here are some other things you can try as well.

Schedule a set amount of time during the day to work on your most important task. Many times, the thing that we have to do most is the thing that we least want to do. In order to ensure that we get it done and not procrastinate on doing it will be to set a specific time where you will do nothing but that task. Typically, you want to set a time in the morning. After lunch, as you know, can be a tiring time to work on anything important.

When you are actually working on this task, you want to make sure you get rid of all disturbances. That means, put your cellphone on silent, let your phone calls go to voice mail, and inform everyone around you to not interrupt. By doing this, you will have a solid hour or 2 of focus time. This will allow you to finish what you need to do efficiently because you won’t get side tracked or lose focus. With other tasks that are of less importance and don’t require much concentration, you can tackle that while doing other small tasks at the same time.

Increasing productivity isn’t exactly rocket science but it does take a little bit of experimenting. Some things will just work better for you than others. For some, having this focus time won’t work since they need interaction and movement to get things done. What you want to do is measure your results in order to find out what’s working or not. You can do this by simply keeping time of how long it takes you to do certain tasks. When you find one way of doing it helps you get it done faster, stick with that strategy.

John writes for a website about increasing productivity. On there, you will find a lot of productivity tips to help you get more done.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_W._Thompson