6 Key Productivity Red Flags To Look Out For In The Workplace

The cost of poor productivity is extremely high, so you want to catch it before it infiltrates your workplace too much. Poor productivity in the workplace leads to losses in ROI, high employee turnover, and ultimately unhappy customers, all of which cost companies thousands of dollars. 

Luckily, with employee monitoring software and other employee tracking tools, you can catch these red flags quickly and stop them from getting worse!

Managing Productivity in the Modern Workplace

Managing productivity in the modern workspace is one of the biggest challenges in American businesses. Productivity managers, project managers, and team leaders all make continual adjustments to account for the rises and falls in productivity that is experienced due to external factors and internal factors. 

Now, productivity tracking software has become one of the most effective ways to do this. Not only does this software provide metrics for tracking productivity with each team member, but it increases the number of ways you can work with your employees, including by adding remote employees and hybrid work options, while still finding success. 

Managing productivity in the modern workplace isn’t just about metrics. It takes a fine-tooth comb, a dedication to improving your company for good, and knowledge about organizational best practices to do so, especially with more remote workers. 

Even still, failing at productivity levels still happens and can bring down ROI and workforce performance. This is why employee monitoring and knowledge of the following red flags will improve HR management practices and overall company performance.

6 Workplace Red Flags That Might Hinder Productivity

The following 6 productivity red flags will alert you to a potential problem, and also give you insight on how to resolve that productivity blunder.

1. Red Flag: High Voluntary Turnover Rate

A high turnover rate means that your employees are more willing to leave your company than stick with it. It takes a lot of work to find a new job, one that works for an employee’s needs, so when your employees leave, this is a bad sign. It also costs your company money as you have to train a new employee and, more often than not, companies regularly face dips in productivity due to losing that employee and training more. 

You can try to improve employee retention by catching employees before they quit by implementing an exit survey. This will give you constructive feedback on what your employees would like improved and potential gaps in your workplace awareness. 

It is likely that your employees will be seeking improvements in the job, such as more benefits, more flexibility, and remote work inspired by the Great Resignation. Scrutinize your workplace and human resources data to see how you can improve your workplace for them.

2. Red Flag: No Work-Life Balance

Your leadership team should check with your human resources department. If your human resource department is receiving a lot of complaints, this could be a clear indication of a company issue that is impacting productivity and your organizational health. 

Complaints about excessive workload, toxic behaviors, work-life balance, or even sexual harassment can be key metrics of your employee morale and company culture. You may have a toxic workplace and that is why people are leaving. 

On top of these, look for red flags in your productivity software such as employees not clocking in on time, more missed work, fewer hours worked, and delays on tasks or projects that indicate lower participation. These can all be indicators of no work-life balance, company burnout, and more.

3. Red Flag: Poor Employee Engagement and Satisfaction

Worker motivation is crucial when it comes to productivity. Sometimes your workers can be unmotivated for a personal reason; this is fine and occurrences should be few and far between. However, if it is excessive, then (no matter what the cause) this is impacting your productivity and bottom line. 

Try to look into your employee tracking software for these metrics as they will be crystal clear. Slower completion rates, fewer tasks or projects completed, and fewer hours of work all signal a lack of motivation and need to be addressed quickly. These might all be indicators of poor mental health, especially associated with your workplace. 

If the poor employee engagement is due to a toxic work environment or confusion around a job description, then you need to start seeking feedback from your employees to better assess the problem. 

4. Red Flag: Knowledge Gaps

Knowledge gaps refer to employees who are unaware or uneducated about a certain project, task, or process that they should be informed about. While some knowledge gaps are normal, especially with new hires, your employees should be learning as they go and not be continually confused or asking questions about how things work. 

If this is the case, then you can try to sit down and spend some time in employee training and education. However, other times, that employee needs to be let go as it is cutting into your company’s productivity and culture too much. Look for employees who are confused about projects and are taking too long to complete them. 

5. Red Flag: Low Employee Advocacy

Would your employees advocate your place of business as a good place to work? Your employee advocacy, much like your customer advocacy, is an important indicator of productivity. If you find that your business has a low net promoter score (NPS), this could be a sign that your productivity and company culture is on the fritz. 

You might be able to glean insight into this through online company reviews, like Glassdoor. Or you can ask questions of a potential job candidate. Toxic workplaces might permeate from outside of your company culture and impact your potential new hires. 

6. Red Flag: Lack of Communication and Direction

We all have to communicate with our team members to get on track with our projects. However, if your teams aren’t communicating properly or the direction of the project keeps switching, then this will majorly hinder your productivity. 

Be sure to set up some guidelines for how project management should go, normal steps for check-ins, and common language. Remember that new hires will struggle with communication and direction here, and you should be prepared to give a little more time for your company to adjust during major transitions. 

Implement SoftActivity to Track, Catch, and Mitigate Productivity Red Flags

Poor productivity comes in all shapes and sizes, but these six red flags are clear signs that your team lead needs to stop and reassess how the team is organized, operational best practices, and customer response management (and more). 

In essence, when you notice a red flag, stop and take a look to assess the next steps. These next steps could be a small or large shift to current practices. Doing so without an employee tracking software is next to impossible. 

Therefore, consider Softacitvity time tracking and management software so you can track employee behaviors, catch productivity red flags and mitigate these issues. 

With SoftActivity you can:

• Monitor attendance for indicators of poor employee engagement and lack of motivation
• Monitor completed tasks for knowledge gaps, lack of motivation, and poor work-life balance
• Monitor user behaviors through application and website monitoring to assess employee engagement and satisfaction
• Monitor company communication software to assess knowledge gaps and issues with communication and direction

Our comprehensive tracking software is a great solution for catching these red flags.

By SoftActivity Team.