NewStats: 3,263,200 , 8,179,387 topics. Date: Thursday, 05 June 2025 at 03:44 AM a1q70

victorVIC1:

Effectiveness in the world of management simply means doing the right thing while efficiency means doing things right.An employee is said to be effective when he or she often carry out tasks that are in alignment with the organizational or departmental goals while an efficient staff is a staff that seeks to perform assigned duties with the lowest possible cost.Hence, while effectiveness involves the understanding and achievement of set goals and objectives, efficiency on the other hand is concerned with how well resources are utilized to carry out assigned roles and responsibilities. A good employee must be both efficient and effective as the both are not mutually exclusive.

V

Jokay07:
i will go for 'efficient' . Why? Because being an effective staff makes someone's capacity and capability concentrated in a section or department. A staff might be effective in strative work while he won't be effective in finance. An effective staff is not flexible in of transfer of work. But an efficient staff is capable of doing different works, he is not effective in the strative work alone but efficient enough to handle both strative and financial work. He is efficient enough to perform very well under any given work condition. This would be my reply if I am being asked in an interview. Just my opinion

The bad thing about Nigerian system is the effective and efficent worker end up with 50k as monthly salary despite the efficient guy being a jack of all trade.

[quote author=digitalsimboja post=30790910]Dearest colleagues, please herewith is a question I was asked in an interview that had me blabbing without arriving at any answer. Maybe u can help rectify d answer to it by injecting ur own view here. Thanks in advance as the question goes 'Differentiate between an effective and efficient staff; which one do u prefer to be in our firm'..i blanked really at dx [/quote
]

Both

effective and efficient work hand in hand

you can not be efficient if your not effective

so what did you do afterward when you regained yourself?

digitalsimboja:
Dearest colleagues, please herewith is a question I was asked in an interview that had me blabbing without arriving at any answer. Maybe u can help rectify d answer to it by injecting ur own view here. Thanks in advance as the question goes 'Differentiate between an effective and efficient staff; which one do u prefer to be in our firm'..i blanked really at dx..

well as a public graduate, I have come across this question in my undergraduate days, well I think I will prefer being an Effective staff, an Effective staff in d sense dat, am a CHANGE figure in the Organization I find my self, even when having a superior in my dept, am still an inovator, a change maker, my boss can't do without me, cos I always effect change, on the othehand, being efficient means getting things done as being prescribed by one's boss/superior, though the two has definite objective.

I've learnt something tonite.

I'll choose an efficient staff. The 2 mean almost the same thing but a slight difference which lies in resource and time mgt. An effective staff gets something done using all available resources and time BUT an efficient staff gets work done using minimal resources and time no matter how much of those he/she has.

Mgt classs...Present

Nature129:
I'll choose an efficient staff. The 2 mean almost the same thing but a slight difference which lies in resource and time mgt. An effective staff gets something done using all available resources and time BUT an efficient staff gets work done using minimal resources and time no matter how much of those he/she has.

Correct........ That is it.

No right or wrong answer, just pick one and explain to the interviewer why you think it is a more desirable quality. All they want to know is how you think or your reasoning ability.

lemme use a machine to illustrate: when a machine is effective, it gets a certain job done. When it is efficient, it get the job done, with less effort and power.

Similarly, an effective staff get's the job done, especially to the letter. An efficient staff, get done the job done with little efforts frm his superiors. That is little supervision, making the use of available resources.
May i add that he also add value to his job, something extra, something unique. A signature kind of.

....

both marry each other in organisational function but if am compelled to choose , I will prefer to be effecient which means performing or functioning in the best
possible manner with the least waste of
time and effort; while effectiveness is the capability of producing
a desired result.

Both questions go hand in hand. How effective can an efficient person be? Very effective and efficient!!!

Effectiveness has to do with how impactful a member of staff can be. It's a measure of a person's ability to meet a target.

Efficiency is a measure of how a member of staff utilises and manages resources(including time, man hours, finance) while trying to be effective.

Basically effectiveness asks if a person can meet a target. Efficiency asks how he does so.

A useful analogy is a comparison of 2 soldiers.

Soldier A is armed with a machine gun, while Soldier B is a skilled marksman.

Both are teaked with killing a target surrounded by armed bodyguards.

Soldier A goes in guns blazing, sprays all the bodyguards with his machine gune and kills his target with a grenade

Soldier B kills his target one time with a headshot taken from range with his sniper rifle.

Both soldiers were effective as they both achived the goal of killng their target

However only soldier B was efficient, as he achieved his target without wasting time, energy, money, or bullets.

Next time, tell them efficiency naturally leads to effectiveness. If you are efficient in the processes required to satisfy customers, you will satisfy customers and that satisfaction makes them do business with the company which makes you an effective employee to them.

The one that threw me off balance when I was asked was; who is the smartest person u know and y do u think that person is the smartest person'' I was thinking should I say ME or some really smart world figure like steve jobs, mark zukerberg etc

Efficient is better. Two are also good because at the end both lead to achievement of goals but advantage of efficient over effective is that efficient staff achieve its goals with minimal resources through optimum utilization of available resource.

You are right bro.

victorVIC1:

Effectiveness in the world of management simply means doing the right thing while efficiency means doing things right.An employee is said to be effective when he or she often carry out tasks that are in alignment with the organizational or departmental goals while an efficient staff is a staff that seeks to perform assigned duties with the lowest possible cost.Hence, while effectiveness involves the understanding and achievement of set goals and objectives, efficiency on the other hand is concerned with how well resources are utilized to carry out assigned roles and responsibilities. A good employee must be both efficient and effective as the both are not mutually exclusive.

Typing...

noted

digitalsimboja:
Dearest colleagues, please herewith is a question I was asked in an interview that had me blabbing without arriving at any answer. Maybe u can help rectify d answer to it by injecting ur own view here. Thanks in advance as the question goes 'Differentiate between an effective and efficient staff; which one do u prefer to be in our firm'..i blanked really at dx..

This is the simplest question I've come across in recent time. An efficient staff is one who is hard working. But his hard work may not necessarily transform to productivity and profit for his agency. An effective staff on the other hand is one who may not necessarily seem like he's over-working himself. But his little effort however transform into huge success.


Since the goal of every employer is to increase their productivity, I think the latter is better on their pay-roll.

Efficiency: Doing things right; Effectiveness: Doing the right thing.

Based on my background in management, efficiency and effectiveness are two different thing and a classic example of QUALITY vs QUANTITY. While efficiency is about minimising cost and increasing output (quantity), effectiveness is geared toward achieving the intended result (quality).

Being efficient does not necessarily mean
effective. A person can be very efficient at what
they are doing but still not get to where they
want to be because they aren't doing the right
things. That's where "effective" comes in.

"Effective" means "having the desired result".
Once the desired overall result is defined, the
tasks leading to the result can be isolated and
these tasks can then be completed EFFICIENTLY.


However, in the business world an employee must maintain a balance between efficiency and effectiveness.

That's my view....

Effective person gets the job done, set goals and targets re achieved.
Efficient person is a person who is very good at what he does but doesn't necessarily achieve set goals.
I would rather be effective than efficient.

An Effective staff always finds a way to gets things done, either with little or much resources - Time, Material etc. While an efficient staff get thing done with relatively little resources.

U remind me of a lecturer of mine dat teaches cipm.. a day we argued abt dat in d klass.

victorVIC1:

Effectiveness in the world of management simply means doing the right thing while efficiency means doing things right.An employee is said to be effective when he or she often carry out tasks that are in alignment with the organizational or departmental goals while an efficient staff is a staff that seeks to perform assigned duties with the lowest possible cost.Hence, while effectiveness involves the understanding and achievement of set goals and objectives, efficiency on the other hand is concerned with how well resources are utilized to carry out assigned roles and responsibilities. A good employee must be both efficient and effective as the both are not mutually exclusive.

Off- topic

@Seun we need a favorite button pls

Nihilist:
Effectiveness has to do with how impactful a member of staff can be. It's a measure of a person's ability to meet a target.

Efficiency is a measure of how a member of staff utilises and manages resources(including time, man hours, finance) while trying to be effective.

Basically effectiveness asks if a person can meet a target. Efficiency asks how he does so.

A useful analogy is a comparison of 2 soldiers.

Soldier A is armed with a machine gun, while Soldier B is a skilled marksman.

Both are teaked with killing a target surrounded by armed bodyguards.

Soldier A goes in guns blazing, sprays all the bodyguards with his machine gune and kills his target with a grenade

Soldier B kills his target one time with a headshot taken from range with his sniper rifle.

Both soldiers were effective as they both achived the goal of killng their target

However only soldier B was efficient, as he achieved his target without wasting time, energy, money, or bullets.

I will make you the Manging Director of the company with this illustration. 1billion likes to you bro. I'd love to have a chat with you. Pls leave a medium of .

KehindeAwoniyi:
From what I learnt in a management course I took a while back, Effectiveness is doing the right things while Efficiency is doing things right. Hope this helps

God bless u my brother. a person might be doing d wrong thing yet be efficient. efficiency is directing ur power to a certain course while to be effective is to serve d purpose u re needed for... my own view tho