Productivity Knowledge Base: Signs You Need to Improve Your Productivity

How do you know you need to improve your productivity? With all of your other concerns, you can't devote all of your time to this one aspect of your business. So, how do you know whether you must increase your efforts?

The good news is inadequate productivity improvement efforts will result in some outward signs. The bad news is these signs don't show up until some damage is done and it takes time for your efforts to turn things around. That said, below are some signs to be looking for.

Note that our productivity seminars will show you how to fix every one of these conditions.If you have any 3 of these conditions, you need a productivity seminar with us now!

Productivity Red Flag	Severity	Cost to fix
Estimates frequently less than costs	High	Med
Good talent is hard to retain	High	Med
You frequently slip deadlines	High	Med
Customers complain about quality	High	Med
Your callback rate exceeds 10%	High	Low
Your crews complain about poor working drawings	High	Low
You frequently take performance penalties	Med	Med
Scrap rates seem high	Med	Med
Competition seems to "steal" your jobs	Med	Med
You make concessions on price to get repeat work	Med	Low
You underbid on purpose, counting on scope changes for profit	Med	Low
Your training budget is low	Med	Med
Tool loss and/or breakage is high	Med	Med
Employee bickering isn't rare	Med	Low
Your work doesn't always pass inspection	Med	Low
There's always an excuse for the same problems	Med	Low
You cut your budgets for training, marketing, or back office	Med	Low
Your callback rate exceeds 5%	Med	Med
Your callback rate exceeds 2%	Low	High
The differences in time used for a task vary widely among your workers	Low	Low
The differences in time used for a task vary widely among your workers of similar experience and training levels	Med	Low
Your project managers keep talking about "the good old days" when it was easier to make money on a job	Low	Med