What’s every companies priority besides turnover? Productivity and efficiency, otherwise known as working harder vs working smarter.

Everyone loves a success story, but what is the recipe for success? Here’s the truth, no one knows. We can, however, give you the inside scoop on where you should be investing your energy and resources to answer the golden question in every hustler’s mind, “is productivity or efficiency more important?”

Efficiency and productivity are on the top of virtually every employer’s priority list. 

In the business world, the words productivity and efficiency are usually placed together as if they’re synonymous, and even though they seem one and the same, technically, they’re not.

Reoccurring success all comes down to keeping track of all your efforts. Measuring the success of focusing on productivity vs efficiency will allow you to see where you should be investing time and energy specific to your business needs. As stated in Outsourcery’s blog post, 6 Rules For Building a Successful Business “How will you know how close you are to your goals if you don’t keep track of performance?”

If you’re looking for a specific answer as to which is more important, allow us to confuse you more with explaining the equal significance of both.

Efficiency

An efficient company is capable of delivering desired returns with little or no waste of resources. When it comes to providing a product or service, encouraging efficiency should be a no-brainer.

What does it mean to be efficient?

• Efficiency applies to finishing a task while wasting as little time and energy as possible.
• It is the act of achieving the best possible result per unit of time.
• Efficiency allows you to do more with less effort.
• Efficiency offers built-in quality control that reflects profit-generating productivity.

Even if your staff is producing cyborg levels of work, if the work is not done efficiently and contains errors, this fast turnaround time would ultimately be for nothing.

So, is efficiency more essential than productivity? To be efficient means staying focused – creating a healthy working flow that includes breaks for you to feel refreshed and zone in solely on the task at hand. But where does that leave all other tasks that need to be completed? Cue productivity.

Productivity

If you’re a business looking for growth, centring on productivity will allow you to get more done and will most likely increase your sales in the process.

What does it mean to be productive?

•  Being productive is one’s capacity to produce an excess amount of work within given deadlines.
• It is the output achieved per unit of time.
• Productivity focuses on finishing as many tasks as possible within the shortest timeframe.
• A productive company focuses on doing more with its current resources.

Finding ways to do more while carrying out tasks one after the other might seem impressive but being human, if you don’t have a moment to gather your thoughts, chances are a slip up is on the horizon. Not to mention a clouded mind is also a breeding ground for procrastination.

Yes, keeping productivity levels maximized is important, but it’s often more wasteful in the event that your efforts need to be fixed.

You’ll spend more time and resources trying to do damage control on a hurried product or service likely to leave a lasting negative impression that could take years to shake off than you would on investing the time and effort into doing things right the first time.

Is productivity or efficiency more important?

If you’re asking the question, “Is productivity or efficiency more important?” allow us to simplify things. While signing 100 legal documents in half an hour, using as little effort possible might seem astonishingly efficient, the likelihood of clients receiving documents riddled with errors is not, neither is the potential backlash that will follow your company’s reputation around. This, money-makers of the world, is why productivity and efficiency should always be in balance. Sure, efficiency might seem like it has the upper hand here in terms of importance, but spending too much time on one task based on the fear of what-ifs will leave very little room for streamlining business practice.

For business owners struggling to be more productive and looking for assistance with time management or with general business admin, hiring a virtual assistant, like those at Outsourcery will allow you to outsource repetitive tasks freeing up your time so you can optimize business practice making the business as a whole more efficient, is as good as it sounds.

In summary,

• Productivity describes the output of work, while efficiency highlights the quality of work.
• When considering “Is productivity or efficiency more important?” the answer is both. 
• Both factors are essential for increasing the success of an organization.
• Measuring your success comes down to recording how much time and resources were invested in achieving your goals.
• Productivity involves getting the right assignments done, while efficiency means doing the assignments right.
• Productivity is quantity, efficiency is quality, and just like most things in life, a balance of these is prime.

What are the ingredients to the perfect productivity vs efficiency combo? Balancing your resources and time. Once you have this smoothed over, you’ll be able to prioritize goals and focus energy where it’s really needed. For business owners struggling to be more productive and looking for assistance with time management or with general business admin, hiring a virtual assistant, like those at Outsourcery to tackle your repetitive tasks will free up your time so you can optimize business practice making the business as a whole more efficient. 

In truth, both productivity and efficiency are important, but in most cases, productivity without efficiency tends to result in a bare minimum quality product or service – and to save you the rollercoaster to a failed business, what’s the point?

Focusing on efficiency to ensure things are done optimally the first time around while investing in productivity will help you maximize time, resources, and ultimately profits.