Manage your time better by following the examples in this guide.

1. A Practical Framework for
Increasing Productivity
teachworks.
THE
EDUCATOR’S
GUIDE TO
PRODUCTIVITY

2. If you’re like most education business owners, you likely find that
there’s never enough time in the day to finish everything that you want
to get done. While we haven’t discovered a way to increase the time
available in a day, we have developed a productivity framework that
will allow you to get more done in the same amount of time.
This guide will provide you with a practical framework for increasing
the productivity of your education business. You will learn how
to measure productivity, how to classify specific activities in your
business and how to apply five productivity principles in your business
to increase productivity immediately.
Let’s get started!
I N T R O D U C T I O N
teachworks.

3. C H A P T E R
O N E
1

4. E D U C AT O R ’ S G U I D E T O P R O D U C T I V I T Y
P A G E 4
Productivity is important because it’s one of the main drivers of
profitability and growth in your education business. All businesses are
constrained by limited resources such as time, capital, and talent --
productivity allows you to achieve more from these limited resources.
Some of the benefits of productivity include:
Deliver Better Value to Customers
By becoming more productive and efficient, it’s possible to deliver
better value to your customers. You can afford to charge a lower price
for a specific level of service and still make more profit than a less
productive competitor.
Less Demands on Your Time
As a business owner or manager, you can reduce the demands on
your own time by increasing your productivity and the productivity
of your employees. This can lower your level of stress, allow you to
focus your attention on the most important drivers of your business,
and provide you with more free time.
Why does productivity
matter?

5. teachworks.
P A G E 5
Higher Profitability
Increasing productivity is one of the most effective methods for
increasing the profitability of your business. By implementing the
productivity principles from this guide, you can make your business
more efficient and more profitable.
Durability
The more productive your business, the more likely you’ll be able
to weather a downturn. It doesn’t take much for a business with
low productivity and profitability to become unprofitable when the
economy slows, whereas a highly productive business can continue to
be profitable even when things slow down.
Higher Value When Selling
If you plan on selling your business at some point in the future, the
more productive your business, the higher the price you’ll be able to
sell it for. Many of the principles that are applied to make a business
productive also make a business more attractive to buyers.
Franchising
If you have any plans to grow your business as a franchise, you’ll
find that many of the principles in this guide are necessary for a
successful franchise business. One of the key factors that franchise
buyers consider when evaluating a franchise opportunity is return
on investment. As you make your business more productive – you
increase your return on investment and make your business more
attractive to potential franchisees.

6. C H A P T E R
T W O
2

7. teachworks.
P A G E 7
So what exactly is productivity? Productivity is a ratio that describes
the relationship between inputs and outputs. This ratio that measures
how much of an output you can produce from an input.
For example, in an education business the primary input is labor.
Other potential inputs can include investments in software, learning
materials, buildings, etc. The primary output of an education company
is education which can be measured in hours, lessons or revenue.
Given these inputs and outputs you can begin measuring productivity
by relating them to each other. For example, the following measures
of productivity could be used in your education business:
- Revenue per teacher or employee
- Lessons per teacher
- Hours per teacher
The productivity ratios above measure an output relative to an input to
indicate your productivity. These ratios can be effective methods for
tracking productivity; however, they don’t necessarily give you the full
picture of how the employee’s productivity relates to your company’s
profitability.
Defining Productivity

8. E D U C AT O R ’ S G U I D E T O P R O D U C T I V I T Y
P A G E 8
For example, a teacher may have a high lesson count, but if the
fees for their lessons are lower than other teachers’ lessons then
they may be producing less revenue. So, the teacher may appear
more productive than others using a basic lesson count measure of
productivity, but in reality they aren’t generating more profit for your
business.
The solution to this problem is to measure inputs and outputs in dollar
terms. Looking at the “Lessons per Teacher” ratio as an example –
you may have several services that you charge at different rates.
By converting the lessons into the fees generated by the lesson you
can account for the extra value of lessons with higher fees. This
allows you to compare teachers with different mixes of lessons. You
may also want to account for the teacher’s compensation rate so that
you can account for teachers that may have higher wages.

9. C H A P T E R
T H R E E
3

10. E D U C AT O R ’ S G U I D E T O P R O D U C T I V I T Y
P A G E 1 0
The first step in making your business more productive is to
understand how to evaluate each of your business activities. Every
activity that is performed in your business such as accounting,
teaching, advertising, etc. can be evaluated in terms of it’s
productivity by relating its cost and benefit.
Since productivity measures outputs relative to inputs, and since a
dollar value can be assigned to outputs and inputs, every activity in
your business can be classified into one of the following categories:
1. Value-Producing
The value of the benefits are greater than the cost.
2. Value-Neutral
The value of the benefits and costs are the same.
3. Value-Destroying
The value of the benefits are less than the cost.
Classifying & Valuing
Activities

11. teachworks.
P A G E 1 1
Value producing activities are the only activities that actually move
your business forward. Value-neutral activities don’t help your
business, but they do take time away from value-producing activities.
Finally, value-destroying activities actually hurt your business.
To increase productivity you need to eliminate the value-neutral
and value-destroying activities and you need to prioritize the value-
producing activities, so that the activities that produce the most value
for your business are completed first.
Estimating the Value of an Activity
The cost of an activity is usually relatively easy to calculate since
it requires an output of cash such as wages paid to employees or
money paid for software or rent. However, assigning a value to a
benefit produced by an activity can be more difficult.
Some questions that can help you identify the value of an activity are
the following:
1. Does this activity increase revenues?
2. Does this activity decrease expenses?
3. Is this activity required to maintain existing business?
If you don’t answer yes to at least one of these questions, the activity
doesn’t produce any value. However, if you answered yes, you’re
closer to quantifying the approximate value produced by the activity.

12. C H A P T E R
F O U R
4

13. teachworks.
P A G E 1 3
Now that you understand what productivity is, how it’s measured and
how to classify and estimate the value of your business activities,
you’re ready to learn the five productivity principles that you can apply
to your business to make it more productive.
The following five principles can be applied to each of your business
activities. Not all principles will apply to each business activity, but
you will be able to apply at least one principle to each activity that has
room for more productivity.
The Productivity
Principles

14. E D U C AT O R ’ S G U I D E T O P R O D U C T I V I T Y
P A G E 1 4
As you evaluate your business activities using the value criteria (ie.
value-creating, value-neutral, and value-destroying), you may be
surprised by the amount of activities that don’t create any value for
your business. Often these activities are busy-work, activities that you
do when procrastinating, or actvities that have become habits without
an honest evaluation of the value they create.
It’s important that you honestly evaluate your activities based on their
ability to create value. Any activity that doesn’t create value or is
unlikely be produce value by implementing one of the five principles
should be eliminated.
Eliminating activities that don’t add value, immediately frees up time
that can be spent on activities that do add value.
If you find that an activity is on the margin of being value-producing,
you can set it aside and apply the other productivity principles to
determine if you can make it more productive – and if you can’t make
it more productive you can eliminate it.
Principle 1:
Elimination

15. teachworks.
P A G E 1 5
Simplification is the process of reducing the complexity of a task.
Businesses often don’t notice the hidden costs of complexity, since it
can slowly build up over the years. However, it has a real cost that
makes your business less competitive.
Complexity is often added as companies add more options to
services, pricing and billing methods – usually in an attempt to win
clients or increase revenue. It’s also added when companies add
rules to processes that make them more complicated.
The direct costs of complexity is the extra time it takes to complete
tasks that are complex and the additional time required to train
employees to complete the task.
The indirect costs include the time and money lost from errors that
result from the greater complexity. As the complexity of a task
increases, the likelihood of making an error also increases.
Simplification eliminates or reduces complexity and allows tasks to be
completed quicker, it makes them easier to learn by new employees
and helps avoid errors.
Principle 2:
Simplification

16. E D U C AT O R ’ S G U I D E T O P R O D U C T I V I T Y
P A G E 1 6
Simplification can be accomplished in a number of ways depending
on the activity, but often this involves eliminating unnecessary steps,
reducing requirements, reducing options and variables.
Some specific techniques include:
- Reduce options
- Establish standard methods for pricing and billing and don’t make
exceptions
- Remove unnecessary steps from processes
- Remove layers of communication
- Try to reduce the number of different software programs for different
tasks

17. teachworks.
P A G E 1 7
Automation is when you use software to complete tasks or parts
of tasks that would otherwise need to be completed manually by
a person. Not only does automation reduce labor costs, it’s also
typically much faster and it can reduce errors.
Automating business activities requires the use of software designed
to perform the activities that you want to automate. This does cost
money, but the labor and time-savings more than make up for the
cost. Fortunately, software has become much more affordable for
small businesses in recent years, allowing small companies to have
access to many of the advantages that were previously available to
only large businesses with big budgets. A lot of software today is also
billed monthly instead of requiring a large upfront payment.
As you review your business activities, look for processes that can
be automated. Typically if a task is repetitious and doesn’t require
much thought, then it can be automated. Common tasks that can be
easily automated are invoicing, lesson reminders, invoice reminders,
payment processing, marketing emails, and more.
Principle 3:
Automation

18. E D U C AT O R ’ S G U I D E T O P R O D U C T I V I T Y
P A G E 1 8
As a business owner or manager one of the most useful principles
for increasing productivity is delegation. You can recall that a value-
producing activity is one where the value of the benefits exceed the
costs – by delegating activities to a person whose time costs less,
or who is able to complete the task better, you can change a value-
neutral or value-destroying activity into a value-producing activity.
The easiest method to begin determining which activities should be
delegated is to assign a cost to your own time. How much would you
need to pay an outside manager to perform your role? Use this to
determine the cost of your time.
Next, you need to calculate how much time you spend on activities
and calculate the cost relative to the benefit. You’ll likely find that
there are several activities that don’t create much value when you
perform them or may even destroy value. These are the prime
activities for delegation. By delegating them to an employee who is
paid at a lower wage, you can make these value-destroying activities
into value-producing activities.
Principle 4:
Delegation

19. teachworks.
P A G E 1 9
In addition to low-value activities, you’ll also find that you should be
delegating activities that require specialized skills. Typically this will
mean outsourcing to professionals that specialize in the activity. This
may include accounting, legal work, website management, design,
etc. These professionals are able to produce a better result in less
time than you would be able to.
If you have a large education company with several managers, they
can apply the same principle to determine which activities they should
be delegating.

20. E D U C AT O R ’ S G U I D E T O P R O D U C T I V I T Y
P A G E 2 0
Standardization is the process of developing and implementing
standard methods for specific activities in your business. For
example, an education business may have a standard price list that
is used to determine the prices for all services offered to customers.
Without standards the business would need set a custom price
separately for each customer, resulting in more complex billing.
One of the first steps of standardization is codifying or documenting
the standards. To accomplish this, you need record the specific
process or steps required to complete an activity.
The documentation process allows you to establish a benchmark from
which new improvements can be made. For example, if you identify
problems with the current method or find ways to improve it, you
can update the standard to ensure the better method is used going
forward.
Documenting and standardizing certain processes also allows you
to reduce the time spent on completing tasks such as training new
employees, enrolling new clients, etc.
Principle 5:
Standardization

21. teachworks.
P A G E 2 1
Standardizing your systems allows you to then replicate the same
system in new locations with the same results. This ensures a
consistent customer experience and business performance in different
locations. This is extremely important for businesses that have
multiple locations or franchisees.

22. C H A P T E R
F I V E
5

23. teachworks.
P A G E 2 3
Once you’ve evaluated your business activities, applied the five
productivity principles and eliminated value-neutral and value-
destroying activities it’s important that you benchmark your
performance.
This can be done by estabilishing productivity measures and
then monitoring the productivity of different business activities
on an ongoing basis. Not only does this help you maintain the
improvements that you’ve made, it also provides you with a method to
evaluate new methods and activities to determine whether they have
a positive or negative impact on productivity.
Maintaining productivity requires continuous attention. All new
activities should be evaluated using the value criteria and the five
productivity principles to ensure that you’re getting the most out of
your time.
Maintaining &
Improving Productivity

24. We hope that you’ll find the techniques and principles in this guide will
be valuable to your education company. Remember that productivity
is an ongoing process that requires constant attention. If you make
these prodcutivity principles a part of your business culture, we are
confident that your business will be more productive and efficient.
C O N C L U S I O N
teachworks.
A B O U T T E A C H W O R K S
Teachworks is a business management system designed to help
education companies become more productive and operate more
efficiently by using many of the principles described in this guide.
Benefits include:
Efficient Scheduling
Flexible Billing
Automated Communication
Reports & Analytics
Integrations & Add-Ons
Learn more and sign up for a free trial at:
www.teachworks.com