- Efficiency is focused on process, while effectiveness is focused on outcomes.
- Planning your workweek’s outfits each Sunday night is an example of efficiency in daily life.
- Earmarking a portion of every paycheck for retirement savings is an example of effectiveness in daily life.
- Only scheduling client meetings on Wednesdays may make an office more efficient, but it’s not necessarily effective, as this can make scheduling more challenging for clients. Similarly, having the entire programming team focus on fixing a website bug can be an effective fix, but at the expense of efficiency.
Efficiency and effectiveness are two commonly confused words. They’re also two commonly heard words in professional settings, where clear communication is key to productivity and decision-making. Mixing these words up at work can lead to confusion, which can slow productivity and potentially cause your team to miss opportunities and deadlines.
Here’s an example of how mixing up efficiency versus effectiveness significantly changes a sentence:
In order to increase effectiveness, we are reducing our workforce by a third.
Effectiveness vs. efficiency
There are a few reasons why it’s easy to confuse efficiency versus effectiveness. They both start with e. They’re also both important metrics and goals in many professional settings. To make things even more confusing, they’re often used together because in many cases, efficiency drives effectiveness and vice versa.
Read on to learn the nuanced differences between these words and how to use both correctly in your writing.
Effectiveness
Effectiveness is the action of achieving the desired result or goal without regard for the resources used. In other words, effectiveness is simply the measure of how well an individual or team achieved their stated goal. Here are a few examples of effectiveness:
- To curb chronic lateness, a manager requires all team members to clock in upon arriving at work. This requirement’s effectiveness is measured by the number of employees arriving late after the requirement is instated.
- In an effort to increase sales, a shoe company launches an email marketing campaign. The company measures the campaign’s effectiveness by the number of online sales linked to the campaign.
If an action achieves the desired result, it is considered effective. If it doesn’t, it’s considered not effective. Effectiveness is the measure of how effective an action is. Effectiveness is a noun, and here it is in a sentence:
The new program’s effectiveness significantly boosted employee morale.
Read more about effective professional writing.
Efficiency
Efficiency is the practice of maximizing productivity with minimal wasted time or expense. It’s not simply cutting costs to expend as little as possible; it’s extracting as much value from resources as possible. Efficiency in the workplace can look like:
- Organizing and tracking tasks with project management software
- Outsourcing tasks to specialized service providers instead of completing them in-house
Efficiency is a noun. Here is an example of efficiency in a sentence:
The company found that automating their lead generation increased sales efficiency by 20 percent.
Key differences between effectiveness and efficiency
The key difference between efficiency and effectiveness is when they take place. Efficiency is the process through which a project is completed, and effectiveness is its outcome.
Generally, effectiveness is a long-term goal. Efficiency tends to be a short-term goal. However, they can be intertwined. Implementing efficient processes, for example, can make a company more effective.
How to measure effectiveness and efficiency
KPIs, or key performance indicators, are quantifiable performance measures. They are how organizations measure their effectiveness and efficiency.
KPIs for effectiveness might include:
- Customer satisfaction. When customer service and the buyer journey are effective, customers are satisfied with their experiences.
- Product quality. Opting for higher-quality components or an improved design improves a product’s overall quality, rendering the redesign effective.
Learn more in our post on the 10 Keys to Effective Business Writing.
KPIs for efficiency might include:
- Increased productivity. More efficient processes increase production capacity, thus increasing a manufacturer’s productivity.
- Reduced costs. Efficient systems consume fewer resources than inefficient ones, which lowers costs.
Why are effectiveness and efficiency important?
For leaders
Workplace leaders set the tone for their organizations’ cultures. When structuring workflows and writing policies, it’s important that leaders balance productivity with results, carefully avoiding prioritizing one over the other too much. An imbalanced workplace can lead to employee burnout, failure to meet goals, unrealistic standards, and lowered productivity.
For individual contributors
Time management is key to working efficiently. Tools like Grammarly can cut down your editing time by proofreading your writing and making helpful suggestions.
To work more effectively, adopt the SMART goals framework. SMART goals are objectives that are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
With this framework, you can quickly gauge your progress and the outcomes of your efforts. By doing this, you’re measuring your work’s effectiveness.
Which is more important: effectiveness or efficiency?
While efficiency drives effectiveness, and in many cases, effectiveness can drive efficiency, they aren’t inherently linked. Sometimes, striving for efficiency reduces a process or team’s effectiveness. This can leave leaders wondering which to prioritize.
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to whether it’s best to prioritize effectiveness or efficiency in management. Generally, it’s ideal to strive for both, balancing them as needed to meet objectives. For some goals, like finding the right candidate to fill a position or launching a new product, effectiveness is the priority because the goal is a quick result. For others, like reducing operational costs and streamlining product distribution, efficiency is generally more important because these aren’t one-off objectives but policies with long-term repercussions.
Balancing effectiveness versus efficiency in management largely depends on context and objectives. If you’re not sure whether effectiveness or efficiency should be the priority with an objective, consider how immediately you need results. Also, think about the resources you need, such as time, labor, and energy.
Efficiency without effectiveness
When leaders prioritize efficiency without prioritizing effectiveness, they can potentially miss their goals. A distribution system that relies on thrice-weekly deliveries, for example, could leave rush orders unfulfilled, lowering customer satisfaction.
Effectiveness without efficiency
It’s possible to be effective without efficiency, too. For example, if the goal is to get a new product to market as quickly as possible, a manufacturer may opt to use all available resources. This can lead to wasted resources and higher production costs.
Understanding efficiency vs. effectiveness
In just about any workplace, efficiency and effectiveness are goals to strive for. However, they are not the same thing. An efficient process minimizes resource waste, while an effective process achieves its goals. It’s possible, but not guaranteed, that a process will be both efficient and effective.
Effectiveness vs. efficiency FAQs
What is the difference between effectiveness and efficiency?
Effectiveness is the long-term goal of making an action more impactful. Efficiency is a short-term goal of reducing resource usage and extracting as much value from available resources as possible.
What is an example of efficiency and effectiveness?
An example of efficiency is having Grammarly proofread your writing to flag any grammatical mistakes and make suggestions to strengthen it. An example of effectiveness would be your readers taking a specific action after reading your persuasive essay.
What is the difference between efficacy and efficiency?
Efficacy is the ability to produce a desired result. Efficiency is the amount of resources used to produce a result.
Can you be efficient without being effective?
Yes, you can be efficient without being effective. Efficiency is not inherently effective.
What is the difference between effective and productive?
Being effective is a measure of the quality of work produced, whereas being productive is a measure of the quantity of work produced.
