“Without the right data and insights, you cannot pursue operational excellence." - An interview with Gille Sebrechts

29 February 2024

5 minutes

Productivity is a well-known concept in the business world and is represented in a simplified formula as: output over input. But of course, to enter both data correctly, you must also know them precisely. ‘It’s a witticism, but it’s true: measuring is knowing,’ says Gille. ‘Without the right data and insights, you cannot pursue operational excellence.’

Read the entire interview here!

Download our whitepaper: To measure is to know

Accurately measuring and analysing work patterns provides insights essential for your strategic decision-making. And a culture of transparency and continuous optimisation contributes to your business results and market position. Read all about it in our latest Whitepaper.

Download whitepaper

‘Companies that digitalise experience an increase of up to 40% in their productivity,’ says Gille. ‘Provided you digitalise smartly, of course, and don’t tackle every process at once. Digitalisation requires adaptability from you and your employees.’

‘The digitisation process follows a set structure,’ Gille explains. ‘First, you map out and simplify your business processes. That also means you start eliminating what is unnecessary. Next, you start digitalising. What manual tasks can you automate, so that your employees have more time for more complex tasks? Thanks to digitalisation, you can have the same work carried out by fewer people, have the same number of people doing the same tasks and therefore remove work pressure, or you create opportunities for employees who want to take on additional responsibilities. In any case, the time freed up helps you work more efficiently.’

Graph More than 1 in 3 employees don't always keep up

Digitalisation creates room for optimisation. After first making all processes more efficient and then capturing them digitally, Gille says you can identify problem areas and come up with solutions. ‘The final step is to eliminate bottlenecks and evaluate the labour hours required after digitalisation. Can you further specialise your services and use your employees’ knowledge in a different way? Digitalisation therefore offers major opportunities for growth and innovation. But make sure you involve your employees sufficiently in the digital transition. Too much change can be overwhelming. By involving them, you make them part of the digital story and they will more quickly be willing to adjust their methods.’

‘This also applies to the AI systems that are so popular at the moment. Properly deployed AI and generative AI can remove some of the guesswork, speeding up the analysis of your business processes. But note that human control remains essential to verify that

‘If you look at productivity in its simplest form – output over input – it is crucial to clearly define both input and output. With Protime, you map the input in great detail. Our time registration system measures exactly how much time is spent on tasks within your company. By properly analysing that data – something Protime also assists with – you can make an accurate valuation of that input. That will enable you to work with this valuation: Protime makes it easy for business leaders to weigh up costs against benefits. You digitise your human capital, in a manner of speaking, so that you can make the best use of your employees.”

‘For example, we saw that one of our clients was able to reduce the number of night shifts because they discovered that the predetermined number was yielding less than expected. Another example where using Protime has proved valuable is in large production halls in which productivity is not always easy to measure. With Protime, our client got quick insight into the yield of a given number of working hours. If you then link Protime to your ERP package – an integration we support – you get a detailed overview of your productivity and can see where optimisation is possible.’

‘Businesses that want to measure productivity must first clearly define what they mean by productivity. Productivity is the result of several factors: your business ambitions, a well-thought-out strategy and the economic context. For example, it may be a conscious decision to allow your business to be less productive at certain times, such as during a period of high commodity or energy prices. But to influence productivity, you need to know precisely what that productivity means and how it is determined. Again, to measure is to know. By defining and mapping your own parameters for productivity, you can also start to measure productivity in sectors in which work is less quantifiable, such as the creative and service industries.’

‘There is no ready-made answer to that question. Productivity is too context-dependent. What I do advise for any company, however, is to always consider productivity as a clear fact. It must be the result of your analyses, decisions and vision. Productivity must never be a blind spot, because after all, it reflects what you invest in your organisation and what that investment delivers. The more clearly you see that, the more successful your business will be.’

Discover Protime in action

Protime offers up-to-date and automated solutions for all aspects of payroll, from time recording to leave management and scheduling. We would like to invite you to see our tools in action. Make an appointment and we will show you how our solutions can help your company. Together, we will look at the possibilities and demonstrate the efficiency of our software.

Boek een demo

“Without the right data and insights, you cannot pursue operational excellence." - An interview with Gille Sebrechts

Digitalise, optimise, excel

Room for innovation

How does Protime help increase the productivity at a company?

How do you measure productivity of less measurable work, such as knowledge jobs?

What to you is the ideal productivity for a business?

VIDEO: Become master of your time: the key to work-life balance

“Without the right data and insights, you cannot pursue operational excellence." - An interview with Gille Sebrechts