The Future of Workforce Productivity - Training, Retention, Time and Attendance
By Jeff Swetland 

Productivity as a term has been widely used in the fields of human resources and operations, yet few corporate leaders can adequately identify what constitutes a productive workforce. If we only view productivity in terms of inputs and outputs, workforce productivity translates into a question of what is the smallest number of employees needed to produce the greatest amount of products. Such a view ignores the complex relationship between human capital management and traditional financial metrics.

The future of workforce productivity must incorporate the relationship between training, retention, and attendance.

In a perfect world, you would be able to hire employees who already have all the required skill sets and expertise needed to do their new job functions. However, even in a perfect world, training would be critical in order to keep your employees up to date with the latest technology and knowledgeable of your company policies, culture, and basic government regulations and insurance information. Additionally, training provides a way for your employees to feel like a part of the company and feel better about themselves as they learn new skills and techniques. Training is an expense, but its value is critical to the ultimate productivity of your workforce, and should therefore be viewed as a smart investment.

Of course the last thing you want after training is for your experienced talent to leave the company. Employee retention is more in your control than you think, as a Selection Forecast study reported approximately 52% of hiring managers felt employees left due to external factors, while only 10% of employees said external factors were the main reason they left. Instead, mistrust of managers and feelings of being treated unfairly and under appreciated are huge factors that result in decreased job satisfaction. Ways to improve job satisfaction include recognition and reward programs, manager training and accountability, and providing challenges based on the employees' skill set.

Another critical aspect of workforce productivity centers around time and attendance tracking. Management requires access to high-level reporting of their employees time and attendance records in order to make informed decisions and these reports should ideally be available in real-time. By accurately tracking time and attendance, companies can reduce their risk of lawsuits from improper time keeping and save money by ensuring all employees are paid correctly, considering the majority of payroll errors are usually not in favor of the company. Using an automated time and attendance system can immediately improve workforce productivity by providing employee self service functions to track vacation accruals and request time off, provide visibility to detailed reports in real-time, and greatly reduce the amount of time necessary to process payroll each pay period.

As we look to workforce productivity as a dominant driver of economic growth over the next 10 years, we must begin looking at productivity as much more than traditional financial metrics. Workforce productivity will improve as companies take into account the human factor and incorporate training and talent management, employee satisfaction and retention, and time and attendance into their model for growth and success.

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Legiant is a leading provider of web-based time and attendance and time accounting systems for payroll, attendance, productivity, leave and project tracking. Flexible productivity time tracking solutions help Legiant's enterprise customers maximize the profitability and productivity of their workforce. For more information, visit www.legiant.com.

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