There are many words in English that have similar meanings that most of the times, people get confused in their application. In this article, we will discuss two words effectiveness and efficiency.
The meaning of both words is “having an effect”, but from a business point of view, they have different applications. The meaning of efficiency is to do any task in the best way possible and the meaning of effectiveness is no get desired results irrespective of the method to do it. Efficiency, as well as effectiveness, are used as metrics to measure the performance of employees in the organization.
In this article, you will learn about both efficiency and effectiveness and the key differences between both of them.
Table of Contents
What is Effectiveness?
The meaning of effectiveness is the amount of work done to produce the desired outcome. Therefore, we can say that effectiveness is the degree of closeness between the pre-decided goal and achieved a result to study the usefulness of the whole entity. Effectiveness is an extroverted look. Therefore, it reveals the relationship between the business organization and business’s macro environment.
It concentrates on to gain a competitive position in the market place. Effectiveness only focuses on the end result and does not bother with the method or approach used to gain that output. Unlike the efficiency method opted to perform a task is not necessarily required to be best. However, the outcome should be the best close to the best.
How to improve the effectiveness of employees in an organization?
The effectiveness of employees can be improved by taking the initiative to review the performance of employees thoroughly and discussing the weakness of employees through constructive criticism and providing solutions to them so that they can improve. Managers should explain the importance of effectiveness to employees and how it is affecting the overall performance of the whole organization.
In addition to this, employers should adopt a clever recruiting method to hire high-performing employees. this can be done by interviewing candidates, using references, and conducting skill test to recruit employees whose skills are better suited for the organization.
What is Efficiency?
The meaning of efficiency is to produce results using the best approach. That means maximum output is gained against the given input with least effort, waste of time, energy, money, and raw material. The efficiency of a machine or an individual can be gauged quantitatively by establishing and obtaining the input-output ratios of all resources used such as energy, funds, labor, material etc.
Efficiency can be gauged by comparing the expected output with the actual output produced with fixed input. Efficiency is the ability to do every sub-task in a well-mannered way so that standard output can be obtained. Therefore, efficiency is process-oriented rather than result-oriented. Efficiency is about making the best use of available resources to reduce the overall expenditure of the organization and to gain maximum output using limited resources.
How to improve the efficiency of employees in an organization?
Most of the employees in an organization are inefficient because of two reasons. One is that they don’t know how to become efficient and second is what vital tools should be used to perform any task efficiently. The best way to enhance the efficiency of employees is to conduct regular meetings of manager and employees and sort out methods to increase the efficiency of the tasks performed and taking the opinions of employees as well as experts to improve resources at the workplace to enhance efficiency.
For example, a lack of email system reduces the communication between employees and manager which effects the efficiency of employees.
Difference Between Effectiveness and Efficiency
| Effectiveness | Efficiency |
|---|---|
| Effectiveness is the ability to complete a task as desired. | Efficiency is completing a task with the best possible way. |
| Effectiveness means doing the right things. | Efficiency means doing things in the right order. |
| Effectiveness emphases on achieving the desired objective. | Efficiency emphases on getting maximum output with minimum efforts and time. |
| An effective person will produce high-quality work. | An efficient person will produce intelligent and quick work. |
| An effective person will focus on producing results and doesn’t bother about resources. | An efficient person will focus on producing work with least efforts, resources, and time. |
| Bothers about whether a work is done or not. | Bothers about how work is done. |
| Effectiveness does not follow a particular process and it is not time-oriented. | Efficiency follows the best process in minimum time-period. |
| Only end result matters. | The whole process of doing work matters. |
| Least economic sense. | Higher economic sense. |
| Long run perspective.it is used to achieve long-term profits and sustainable growth. | Short run perspective. Mainly used to achieve short-term goals. |
| Effectiveness is result oriented. | Efficiency is yield-oriented. |
| It is an extroverted approach as it is measured between two or more organizations. | It is an introverted approach as it measures time, cost, and resources within an organization. |
| Effective means a high degree of success. | Efficiency means low expenses, almost zero waste, and no unnecessary efforts. |
| Usefulness of something. | “How” something is done. |
| Effectiveness is the first priority of any organization. | Efficiency is the second priority of any organization after effectiveness. |
| It does not bother about the input-output ratio. | It bothers about the input-output ratio. |
| Being effective means it is not necessary to be on the right track. | Being efficient means, it is necessary to be on the right track. |
| Effectiveness is strategy oriented. | Efficiency is operations oriented. |
| Ascertainment of strategy formulation. | Ascertainment of strategy implementation. |
In the end, we can say that both effectiveness and efficiency are important for an organization. But in our point of view effectiveness should be prioritized than efficiency. The reason behind this is that if we prioritize efficiency over effectiveness there are high chances that most employees will fail to even start the work process in looking for the best-suited method and work will reach nowhere.
Therefore, the best approach should be to learn the whole doing and repeat. It is as simple as that no one can write down a cooking recipe until it is not tried and experimented.it is impossible to know about each and everything about something beforehand.
There are very few employees who can run simulations to do work in their mind which is 100% applicable in real life. Therefore, for the rest of the employee’s effectiveness is better gauging tool to measure performance.
