In the workplace, attendance is also important – but it’s not a measure of effectiveness.

Whilst employees can show up every day to work it’s also possible for them to accomplish minimal productive work during that day.  Emails and meetings are two common activities that aren’t necessarily productive.  The difference between productivity and barely sustainable effort takes employee engagement.  The member of staff who’s fully engaged in their work is in agreement or alignment with the corporate goals and mission statement.  This person gets more than a paycheck every month, they also take home a greater sense of personal job satisfaction, perhaps not daily, but much more than once a month.

The UK Work Foundation discovered that the lower the job satisfaction level, the worse the productivity. Well no surprises there.  However when job satisfaction falls below 50%, productivity literally stagnates.  Research in 2002 found that the US and other countries competing with UK industries were 30% more productive than the typical UK worker.  And all the doom, gloom and continual talk of recession is hardly the obvious recipe for increasing happiness.  However that aside it’s possible to ride external factors by creating clear goals that inspire or at the very least motivate the team.