Corporate Climate and Productivity Assessment

Corporate climate is a complex concept that can be split into psychological and organizational subtypes. The former is about how an employee perceives the work; the latter emerges whenever a group of such employees share a similar perception, forming a community that can affect the individuals.

Creating the right atmosphere is the key to high performance, corporate unity, free flow of ideas, communication efficiency, and friendly ambiance. Similar to a prosperous country, the right corporate culture cannot be established overnight. Moreover, there is no universal solution on how to build up the right ambiance, making the perseverance of it even more important.

Too much freedom can facilitate moral hazards like money siphoning, information stealing, absence at work, insubordination, and overall inefficiency. Clamping down on the employees is not a solution as well, because other problems like fear of punishment, future uncertainty, lack of appreciation, burnouts, and cost of surveillance arise. How to strike the balance between getting things done and maintaining a strong community?

How to assess productivity

Any kind of assessment cannot be done without sacrificing some resources and/ or time. Assessing is significant for understanding the current situation and processes to improve. It becomes paramount when the aspirations of an employer and the employees are misaligned, which is the Principal-Agent problem in a nutshell.

The most basic way to estimate the performance of something or someone is the ratio of output to input:

For example, Adam works 40 hours and generates $4,000 worth of revenue, while Eve makes $3,200 per 30 hours.

• Adam: $4,000 / 40 = $100/hour
• Eve: $3,200 / 30 = $106.(6)/hour

Don’t like to do manual calculations? Try out time trackers that provide various reports, auto screenshots, absence calendar, deadlines control, and more. Time trackers are the first step towards liberty limitation. Hawthorne’s effect is probably the most famous example of altering performance when under the watchful eye. While simple and monotonous work may benefit from increased control, the creative specialists may feel constrained, which can harm their creativity.

Social networks can be addictive, so monitoring them can be beneficial to the discipline. The problem is that monitoring requires a few specialists that are to be on the payroll. Instead of dedicating their time and resources to generate more profit, these specialists will prevent the staff from slacking off. Occasionally, this can go overboard, and people will start to wonder why they keep on working for the watchful “Big Brother”.

Closed circuit television (CCTV) is another step towards increased control. It’s installation in an office is filled with controversies: greater transparency and security puts pressure on employees’ sense of privacy and alienates them from the management team. It’s a clash between safety and liberty, which is resolved only after figuring out your line of work and setting the priorities right.

Both time trackers and CCTV can be applied to remote work too. After all, the webcam on your laptop can serve as a surveillance tool, e.g., Andrey TRON and his media buying team imitated the office atmosphere by keeping their cams on all the working hours. This way, you can assure blitz communication and are able to quickly determine if the person you are willing to talk to is present.

With the help of modern technologies, it is possible not only to determine the physical presence from far away. Polygraph is another questionable tool to estimate one’s honesty. Roman Ostrovskiy encourages using the lie detector for certain situations:

• Prior to employing to a position with access to money or sensitive data
• Whenever the authorized employee act suspiciously
• After firing the employee (can be stated in the contract beforehand)

This does not mean that you should force these practices. Every employee must have the freedom to choose whether or not to be tested. And every employer must have the final say in deciding whether to keep or fire an employee.

Less intrusive ways for assessment

Assessment methods can be less questionable. Encourage the senior staff members to assess the performance of every employee individually. This is applicable only to the tightest crews, where everybody has a distinct responsibility. Moreover, feedback delivery is an art that has to be taught. Every critique has to be exact, to the point, and justified. It has to be free from personal biases and suggest the ways for improvement. Compare: I don’t like the result vs. Last time you performed better, probably your new creative converts worse, A/B testing?

The daily check-in method is a possible solution, when you need to fight off the procrastination among the staff. Daily reports on what’s been done and remains to be done can facilitate weekly and monthly goal-setting. However, it can create the impression of you trying to micromanage everything. Use it sparingly and let the employees set their goals and deadlines, so they feel comfortable at work.

At the end of the day, what matters is the result, which can be expressed in revenue generated or milestones completed. Using this approach, you can set the goals and deadlines without messing with the ways how the employees will meet them.

However, if we are talking about services where customer experience matters, you can estimate not only the output, but customer feedback as well. Multiply the output by the number of stars from feedback and sum up the score to figure out the top performers. Sometimes the less is better.

Conclusion

Any environment is a complex phenomenon that cannot be improved overnight. That is why it is important not to damage it with spontaneous decisions. You can estimate anything you want, but the deeper you go, the less resources you have to actually work with.

There is a plethora of assessment techniques out there. Your goal is to pick the one that works best for you, or even make one up. Remember, there is nothing wrong with an employee not meeting your expectations. What is wrong is if you do nothing about it. This does not mean firing them, because there are other alternatives, such as improving their skills, lowering their expectations, or discussing the distractions.

And if you are an employee, remember that the workplace should be pleasant for everyone, including your coworkers. Strive for greatness and improvement and let your colleagues do the same. There is nothing to be gained by beating yourself up and making fun of others for their failures. Respect yourself and remain respectful.