Increasing productivity in your recruitment agency
If you’re managing recruitment teams or running an agency, productivity will be a familiar friend of yours. According to the Office National Statistics, labour productivity ‘as measured by output per hour’ has grown in the services industry, however, the UK productivity estimate has ‘fallen by 0.4%’ in 2017 and remains ‘noticeably below the long-term trend…suggesting that the productivity puzzle remains unsolved.’
How we increase productivity and create high performing teams dictates our agencies ability to grow, scale and achieve marginal gains for greater success. Below are some methods of increasing productivity across your agency.
1. Collaborative working
When teams are working effectively together, cross pollinating on projects and communicating consistently, productivity rates quickly rise. This might be due to peer reviews or the support network of a team environment, but if you find your productivity dipping, get your people working together. This might even include paring up employees in a buddy system, or with people working on similar job roles or clients in order to support and mentor one another. The accountability of working with other people also helps to motivate and increase performance.
2. Decrease meetings
An overload of meetings can often impinge on the performance of your people, so take a look at how many meetings are taking place within the week. Pulling people off jobs, calls, meetings and work to carry out meetings that have always happened isn’t an effective use of their time. Many of these could be re-arranged into more concise meets, or even emails.
3. Use technology
The job of technology is that it’s made our life easier and given us back time, so ensure you’re using the right systems throughout your recruitment agency to give your recruiters and non-billing employees more support. Using software that automates processes, increases collaboration and improves efficiencies can increase productivity significantly and give your recruiters more time with candidates and clients.
4. Keep talking
Typically, when productivity per head begins to drop, so too does the communication and conversation in the office. Keeping people informed about what’s going on with the wider company mission, as well as what each team, department and the different consultants are doing can increase performance. Giving people the opportunity to share their projects, job roles or current challenges adds a level of accountability and ownership to individual tasks. It also gives others the opportunity to offer help or mentorship, and sometimes, it’s as simple as talking a problem out with colleagues. Never underestimate the power of a cuppa and a chat.
5. Set mile markers
Productivity can also dip when consultants are overwhelmed and unsure of what they need to do. Clear goals and objectives, sometimes as far as the next week can be a great way to keep workers focused on the next step. Running a marathon can seem impossible when you’re thinking about the whole twenty-six miles, but just thinking about the next mile is a doable task. Break things down for your employees and keep them working towards attainable targets to keep motivation high.
Increasing productivity per head across your recruitment agency isn’t always an easy task, and often there’s a fine art to it, one that is impacted by factors outside of your control, however, with the right systems in place and a culture of open communication, you can witness your productivity rates begin to rise.
