Smartwork’s approach focuses on creating, optimizing, and scaling practices that make work more effective. We call this high-impact effort Value Production.
By recognizing and rewarding Value Production, organizations pave the way for greater innovation, faster progress, enhanced workforce satisfaction and a bigger bottom line.
The Four Types of Working Effort
A workforce’s time and effort can be categorized in four ways: Production, Non-Production, Value Production and Non-Value Production.
Production is the time spent during work focusing on the clearly outlined tasks that produce a desired output.
Take salespeople, for example. Salespeople rely on their knowledge of products or services, market trends, customer preferences, and sales techniques to effectively sell and promote offerings to customers. They use their expertise and understanding of the market to generate leads, build relationships and close sales.
Production, in this case, is any effort specifically and clearly defined as generating sales. Indeed, successful salespeople are often referred to as “high producers”.
Examples of production work may be calls made, sales closed and business being generated.
Non-Production is the time and effort spent that doesn’t directly contribute to the production of a desired output.
For the salesperson, this may be labeled as “administrative work” or “busy work” that doesn’t contribute to the production of an actual sale — things such as logging of work done, invoicing and checking emails. Every knowledge worker will always have some time dedicated to Non-Production.
It’s worthwhile to note that Non-Production work has been greatly reduced due to recent technological advancements. Administrative tasks which may have taken hours in the past can be accomplished in seconds with the use of computers and other technologies.
Value Production is the effort and time spent toward the creation, optimization or scaling of practices, workflows or strategies which make production work more effective.
Value Production is defined by meeting the following criteria:
Will this matter a year from now?
Does this make my output more easily achieved or more impactful?
In the example of a salesperson, Value Production may be the refinement of a sales pitch or an experiment on cold calling strategies.
NOTE:
If the value you are creating is capable of being scaled, it becomes the most important effort that you can focus on.
Non-Value Production is the big bucket of everything else that you do during work — the time spent with co-workers at the water cooler, eating lunch or reading headlines as you decompress. There will always be Non-Value Production; only robots will ever be fully engaged all day, every day.
You shouldn’t necessarily wish for Non-Value Production to be completely eliminated from your workforce. Non-Value Production is where the community and culture is developed in your teams. Non-Value Production, which doubles for community building, should be encouraged and even focused on in some instances.
It’s when Non-Value Production dominates the workday that it becomes detrimental. Employees who are burned out or checked out will focus too much time on Non-Value Production, leading to underperformance. There is a big difference between the Non-Value Production of a community engager who is planning an event and the employee who watches videos until the first email comes in and they actually have to work.
What This Looks Like at Work
The vast majority of companies are composed of average workers.
Their time will be spent doing things which increase production, but will be drawn toward Non-Production work due to factors like infrastructure and processes. Value Production work will still occur in some cases because of the innate desire to make things better (or at least easier), and Non-Value Production will naturally happen because employees are human.
Hard workers can be very valuable assets, but tend to be prone to burn out and don’t necessarily make strong leaders if hard work is their only ability.
Under-performers hopefully are the minority in any organization. Their time is spent doing things that both don’t produce results and are of little value to the organization.
Unlike the Average Worker, Hard Worker and Under-Performer — whose days are dominated by Production effort or Non-Production efforts — Smartworkers push their efforts as far into Value Production as possible while still producing. You’ll never be able to live completely in the Value Production bucket, and we wouldn’t want you to — a business still needs to produce. However, every second spent toward Value Production allows for better and more production in the future.
Hardworkers vs. Smartworkers
It’s important to note that hard workers and Smartworkers are not opposed to each other.
Most hard workers are the best Smartworkers in waiting — they just are in environments where the rewards are in place for hard work and not Smartwork.
The minute that Smartwork is rewarded effectively in an organization, hard workers put that dedication and focus toward making things better. And that's where the magic happens.
While this is generally a good rule of thumb, you’ll find that there will always be a subsection of hard workers who love the grind. They may be damn good producers, too, but they simply aren’t wired to think critically about how they are working and how things could work differently.
You will always have a mix of employees — and that’s a good thing. But remember, you also hold the keys on how to motivate those employees toward the work you want them to be doing.
How Value Production Works in a Smartwork Organization
Investing in Smartwork's approach to Value Production means investing in what really matters — with its return yielding you greater impact, faster progress and further success.
It’s accomplished through:
Focus on High-Impact Initiatives: Smartwork helps organizations identify the top 20% of initiatives, processes, or strategies that generate 80% of their desired outcomes. By concentrating efforts and resources on these high-impact areas, organizations can achieve better results with greater efficiency.
Talent Optimization: Smartwork assists organizations in identifying the most valuable employees or candidates who contribute significantly to the company's success. We then craft talent management strategies, such as personalized development plans or retention efforts for these key individuals.
Process Efficiency: Smartwork analyzes an organization's workflows and processes to pinpoint inefficiencies or bottlenecks. By optimizing the critical 20% of processes causing 80% of delays or errors, organizations can streamline their operations and enhance productivity.
Strategic Planning: When developing or refining an organization's strategy, Smartwork helps prioritize the critical few objectives or initiatives that will drive the majority of desired outcomes. This ensures that the strategic plan is focused and actionable.
Ask yourself: is your organization incentivizing hard work or Smartwork?