SUPERCHARGE PRODUCTIVITY WITH ROLE CLARITY

By Bruce Yelland, Moshie

In business, labour is your biggest cost. It’s also the most common cause of waste and inefficiency, as a result of low or lost productivity. If this applies to your business, this article could save you many thousands of dollars.

In short, having simple, clearly detailed job descriptions can significantly increase the productivity and accountability of your team

From working with businesses, large and small, across Eastern Australia, I’m convinced the vast majority of employers provide poor direction to their employees. Consistently employees express frustration to me, explaining they are unclear about what’s expected of them in their job.

A lack of role clarity and expectations also makes it incredibly difficult to hold employees accountable.

I find job descriptions are often full of vague, motherhood type statements, resulting in team members being “busy, but not productive” or lacking confidence to really engage in their role. And yet the employees want to be productive and effective in their roles.

If this applies to your business, don’t take offence. My comments aren’t meant to judge or offend. In fact, they’re intended to inspire change, as there are simple steps you can take to boost the productivity and effectiveness of your team

As a point of illustration, our business is currently working with roughly fifty different business, across horticulture, engineering, transport and business services. All significantly impacted by a lack of role clarity.

The enormous impact of role clarity

To highlight the importance of role clarity I’d like to give you an example of a horticultural business we work with in Victoria. This nurseryman has been running his business very successfully for approximately 12 years.

On the day I visited he was extremely busy; taking calls, picking stock, loading trucks, directing staff and managing his business. This was a typical day and he believed he was very productive.

After walking him through the Role Clarity Process, he came to realise he lacked a defined job role. Much of his time was spent on lower payoff activities, resulting in many high payoff activities not being completed. At the time, if you spoke to his team, they would happily tell you he often made their jobs more difficult by getting in their way or confusing day to day operations.

Simple but effective action

We simply defined his role, the role expectations and deliverables, and his priority areas of focus. And off he went!

Four months later, I asked him what impact the process had achieved. He believed he was three to five times more effective. That’s a whopping 300 – 500 per cent increase in his productivity! As a business leader, you can imagine the impact that had on himself, his team and his business.

Other benefits included working shorter hours and being able to step out more regularly without impacting operations. Personally, he felt he had a better work/life balance, with more time for his family. Professionally he was leading his team and business far more effectively. His team also flourished from role clarity, process clarity and the freedom to do their jobs.

Would you be happy with that outcome? It does take time, money and effort, but the pay back is enormous.

Simplicity rather than complexity

When working to achieve role clarity, the aim is to simplify in order to clarify. Now, that may seem a slight contradiction, but please let me explain.

We help clients to capture job roles in the simplest, but most comprehensive way possible. In all cases, the aim is to distil the job description information down to its most simplest form, quite often in dot point form, on an A4 page.

By detailing this information so simply, it forces us to capture it in a clear, concise and comprehensive manner. Eliminating the temptation for grey, fluffy and unclear sentences. Providing the employee with a simple but effective outline of their role, responsibilities and expectations.

In addition, it enables greater alignment and understanding between the leader and team member.

Busyness, does not equal productivity

It has been our experience that employees with poorly defined role and responsibilities, will typically try to keep busy. But, busy does not necessarily equal productive.

In most businesses, we estimate employees to be half as effective as they could be if they had clearly defined roles, responsibilities and expectations. Low levels of productivity will cost you many thousands of dollars each year! Can you imagine being able to achieve higher levels of production, with the same labour costs, or alternatively, producing the same as you do today, with reduced labour?

These are both very appealing scenarios for all business owners.

Three critical components

For your employees to be productive in their role, they need three critical components:

» A simple, clearly defined job role

» Defined role deliverables, performance expectations and accountabilities for each area of the role

» Defined key objectives, or key points of focus, that are reviewed and updated every three to six months.

It is also important to note, having clearly defined roles, responsibilities and expectations for your team, allows for more effective communication, easier coaching and development, easier performance management and less confusion in the workplace.

Simplicity is key

As stated above, simplifying information forces you to be specific in what you expect. Using ten words to capture a task is much more challenging than using hundreds of words. But it greatly increases clarity and ease of understanding.

In a time when we have more information than ever, I find the effectiveness of communication can be compromised. Taking time to convey clear direction for yourself and your team will eliminate much of the confusion and noise, allowing a clear space for productivity and wellbeing to thrive.

More information

Bruce Yelland, Moshie – Enterprise coaching and Development

If you would like further information about the substantial benefits of role clarity, please contact Bruce Yelland on m: 0412 241 801 or e: bruce@moshie.biz.