Dr. Stevie Dawn is a productivity superstar and we were lucky enough to have her as our guest on HR Insiders! We’re wrapping up our series covering the three common problems Stevie highlights that eat away at productivity in the workplace. Read on to hear from Stevie in her own words.
Problem #3:
We forget about the profits.
As business owners, I think we understand that we have to be focused on profit. What is selling? How are we bringing money in the door? That’s what running a business is all about. But oftentimes, on a departmental or individual level, people don’t really think about the profit of a company. It may seem that their role doesn’t directly relate to dollars, or it may just not be top of mind.
However, I challenge company leaders to say, “If you’re doing work for this company, you should be conscious of your work and how it leads to profits.” For individuals, I want them to think about how they’re showing their employer how the work they do every day leads to profits and impacts the bottom line.
For example, from an HR perspective, we talk about culture and retention. If we lose an employee it can cost quite a bit to replace them. Furthering a healthy culture and improving retention helps the bottom line.
When we look at our calendar and how we’re spending our time, are we spending time towards that effort, or are we spending time on things that aren’t actually driving profits? All of us are in the business of helping our organization reach its goals. How much of your work this week is helping your business grow?
Every person has a role to play in their organization. When you think about what your role is (not only how people define it, but what it is really) how much of your time every day is spent towards driving profits? For example, if you look at your day and see, “Wow, I spent three hours on email.” Is that something that was pushing towards a larger goal? Or would it be better to figure out how to do email in one hour and spend two hours creating a culture series that you know is going to engage employees and impact your bottom line?
Everything we’re doing needs to be reviewed and assessed to see if it’s still productive for the company because work cultures change. There are shifts in ideas. It could be training programs or re-looking at benefits each year.
You’ll see sharks in my branding and one of the things we know about sharks is that they course-correct constantly. They don’t make huge turns. They don’t make U-turns. They make little tiny adjustments to get where they’re going because it’s efficient. The big turns expend too much energy. We need to mimic this behavior in how we assess our processes and our time.
Sometimes we wait for years to do a big overhaul rather than making small tweaks along the way. A big overhaul usually means you’re kicking somebody out or you’re losing a lot of momentum. When you do small tweaks, you’re keeping everyone engaged and optimizing your efficiency.
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If you want to get in touch with Stevie, you can send her an email at [email protected] or find out more about her at www.alwaysbetheshark.com. If you’d like to hear the full conversation with Stevie on HR Insider, you can find the episode here.