Improving the productivity of creative services
What we do
How does an organisation know whether its people employed in creative positions have too much or not enough to do when it is so difficult to measure? Most managers would struggle to answer this question.
Measuring the productivity of employees involved in creative functions within an organisation is notoriously difficult, but it is an area that should be addressed by those serious about overall performance. It is also something welcomed by the creatives themselves. Expectation of performance in other areas is standard practice, and there is little difficulty in setting benchmarks.
At Town & Town we aim to quantify each piece of work undertaken by a creative employee in terms of cost and return for the organisation, measuring the results against agreed norms. This information allows us to test the effectiveness of the resource and make comparisons with competitors if that is what is required.
Here’s a situation you may find familiar…
Sian was concerned. She had been asked to come up with some kind of productivity measure for the new bonus scheme, but surely that was impossible. Creative ideas don’t turn up on cue – they can take a while to evolve. In any case, she was far too busy trying to get through her workload to devote time to the problem.
Finding a solution
Sian felt that she was just too busy and too close to the detail, so she called in outside help. It didn’t take long before patterns of work and practice emerged, and ten basic types of task were identified. With the information to hand, it wasn’t difficult to allocate time and material costs, and Sian began to see how she could measure the productivity of her team.
Resulting benefits
With the tasks the department was asked to undertake more clearly defined, it was easy for Sian to draw up realistic criteria for productivity. This gave her team an unexpected boost in morale, and they were able to come up with ideas to improve productivity themselves, especially as they could now see a clear path to achieving their bonus targets. A ‘win win’ situation.