Are you looking for the finest strategies on how to increase productivity in the workplace?
Here’s your guide to making your workplace more efficient and more productive.
Businesses endeavor to sustain a productive workplace, yet some fail miserably. Managers find employees’ workday ballooning out of control. Employees also strive to start each day with a goal of doing so much, but they quickly become distracted, focusing on non-productive activities and just stalling.
There are myriad reasons for this, and one of the fundamental factors responsible for low workplace productivity is inadequate management. According to studies, approximately 80% of employees have experienced poor management, which demotivates them to give their all to the organization where they work.
So as an employer, how should you plan to eliminate these issues? What should you do to improve your workplace, reduce procrastination, and increase productivity?
Hit The Play Button To Listen:
You may have gone through many articles on how to increase productivity in the workplace, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll get desired outcomes. You first have to be able to acknowledge and realize the problem from your side and make them better; then, only can you expect your workforce to use their full potential to drive your company toward success.
How To Increase Workplace Productivity?
Identify The Areas Of Improvements:
If you want to increase productivity in your workplace, you first need to identify where it’s lacking. What are the reasons your employees cannot be productive throughout the working hour? Is there any issue that they are facing regarding work or work environment?
To ensure your business works smoothly, you must first identify areas where the problem lies. To determine what may be done to increase employee productivity, solicit feedback from your employees. Encourage employees, even if they are accustomed to traditional ways of working, to be open to new ways to improve their capacity to prioritize and increase productivity at work.
“Stressing output is the key to improving productivity while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.”
– Paul Gauguin
More Activity Does Not Mean More Productivity:
If at all possible, refrain from giving employees who are working toward more significant projects unnecessary chores. Look at the team’s daily schedule to see if there is anything you can cut out to give them extra time to work on more critical activities.
If employees want to write daily reports for their managers but managers don’t have time to read them, think about lowering the word count requirement. When something is done merely as a formality, valuable time is lost that could be used to accomplish objectives that would benefit your company.
Instead, you should rely on employee monitoring tools like EmpMonitor that will allow you to see how your employees have spent their day during work hours and how much they have been productive.
Create A Flexible Work Schedule :
The covid-19 epidemic changed the workplace dynamics significantly. Many employees now enjoy the freedom of flexible working for the first time due to the government’s “work-from-home” advice.
A flexible organizational culture is essential for boosting employee productivity. One example is allowing workers to work part-time from home or other remote locations. Some of your staff members could be happier and more productive while working remotely on some days because they save time and money by not having to commute.
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is a tried-and-true method to increase productivity. However, it is still imperative that these staff members respect the boundaries set by your organization. Utilize and offer the newest technology to remote teams to sustain high employee productivity.
Many advanced tools like EmpMonitor are of great help to maintain this hybrid work culture. It allows you to get a detailed breakdown of every activity an employee has done during the work hour. Not just that, EmpMonitor tracks everything and provides information like productivity, active time, neutral time, idle time, and unproductive time. We will talk about EmpMonitor in a bit.
“Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can’t miss.”
-Lee Iacocca
Assign Tasks Depending on Employee Skills:
Knowing your employees’ abilities and behavioural types is critical for increasing productivity. For example, an extroverted, creative, out-of-the-box thinker is likely to be a fantastic individual for proposing ideas to clients. They may struggle, though, if given more rule-intensive, detail-oriented work.
It is impractical to expect your employees to be outstanding at everything; instead, when assigning a task to an employee, ask yourself: is this the individual best equipped to accomplish this activity? If not, look for someone else whose abilities and personality match yours.
Provide Opportunities For Career Advancement:
Talking about abilities and skills, these are something that can be honed with time. If you feel an employee is not as skilled as you expect but have the potential to do more, it’s your responsibility to help them. You can also use EmpMonitor to see productivity and performance data to analyze the area of improvement in employees.
Having career development opportunities available is a crucial way of maintaining optimum productivity. If people do the same work day-in-day-out, 40 hours a week, they will get bored. Some employees’ current roles and responsibilities are not enough to keep them productive.
If budget constraints are an issue, consider asking senior members to train junior staff. They can be more productive and happy by making employees realize that there are more responsibilities and scope available. So can you offer them a management program? Another good option is training courses that you can provide either internally or externally.
“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.”
–Paul J. Meyer
Establish A Pleasant And Positive Environment:
A place where we spend most of our time impacts us psychologically. If employees spend their time in a dull and hostile environment, you can not expect them to be productive. But, when the atmosphere is friendly and cheerful, it automatically improves the efficiency and productivity of the workplace.
Here’s what you should do:
- Check if the temperature and lighting are appropriate.
Compact fluorescent lamps provide excessive blue light, which can cause significant eye strain. In addition, the temperature in the office should be regulated according to the weather and maintained consistently.
- Choose the wall colours wisely.
Each colour has a different psychological impact on people. Red is a vibrant hue; seeing it increases attentiveness, blood pressure, and heart rate. Yellow, on the other hand, is a colour that inspires imagination. This colour works best in locations where creativity is highly valued. Designers, developers, and artists will find this environment more stimulating.
Empower Your Workplace And Employees With Advanced Tools:
Many advanced tools, such as EmpMonitor, can optimize complex workflows and procedures. It is a cloud-based advanced employee tracking system that allows you to monitor the performance and activity of your in-office team and work-from-home employees with a complete suite of tools and detailed analytics that you can access from any device.
With such powerful features and capabilities that automate repetitive and time-consuming processes like checking on every employee if they have been productive or not. How much work have they done?
You can monitor their work performance in real-time with EmpMonitor. If you observe a drop in production, it’s time to look at your processes and see where you can make improvements.
EmpMonitorn is simply the one-stop solution to increase productivity and protect your business from insider threats, security breaches, and inefficient employees.
There are many powerful features such as:
- Time Tracking
- Screenshots
- Chat Monitoring
- Clear, Detailed, and Insightful Reports
- Web & Apps Usage
- Payroll
- Attendance Logs
- Keystrokes logging
- Stealth Mode
To Increase Productivity, Avoid Multitasking:
“Must be able to multitask” is a common phrase in job descriptions. If you ask any successful organization what are three ways to increase productivity, they will say don’t micromanage, don’t encourage multitasking, and create a positive work environment. And that is where most companies fail.
The human brain was not designed for multitasking, and it is hardwired to focus on one activity at a time, which can negatively impact productivity. But the truth is that multitasking wastes more time and energy than performing identical chores one at a time. If you want to increase workplace productivity, avoid multitasking at all costs.
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities.”
–Stephen Covey
Encourage Open And Honest Communication:
It is vital to keep your employees informed about your company’s immediate and long-term goals and to keep them linked. Furthermore, your employees should feel at ease discussing their concerns, observations, and suggestions with you. To avoid murmurs and distrust among your team members, keep everyone aware of any corporate problems that may affect them. Regardless, they’ll find out through the rumour mill.
Reduce Stress:
Work as hard as you can to reduce stress as much as you can because it is counterproductive in the workplace. Encourage your staff to discuss any problems and help them devise a solution.
There are several ways to improve the productivity and performance of your business. Try a few of the suggestions listed above, and monitor your results.
“Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No Excuses.”
-Kobe Bryant
Appreciate Them For Their Hard Work:
Small gestures, like appreciating employees’ efforts, can make a huge difference. However, we can become so preoccupied with our work that we lose sight of the importance of gratitude. It is a minor but significant factor that can significantly increase employee productivity.
Employers tend to overlook appreciating their employee’s efforts, but it is a low-cost and highly successful tool to increase employee productivity at work. Employee appreciation means acknowledging an individual’s or a group’s contribution that goes above and beyond the standard.
It’s about showing them how much you appreciate their efforts, whether with a simple “thank you,” extra days off, public recognition in the company newsletter, training courses, or promotion.
Encourage Breaks To Prevent Exhaustion And Burnout:
It is not required for every employee to be busy at all times during the workday. In reality, overworking your employees can lead to exhaustion and burnout. The human mind can focus on any given task for about forty minutes. After this, the attention level starts to wean out until one loses focus completely.
Allow your employees to take a short break of 10-15 minutes every two hours. It means 40-60 minutes of breaks for an 8-hour working day. 60 minutes (an hour) might seem like a lot of time for breaks, but the added boost in attention provided by these helps employees make up for the lost time.
Encourage Teamwork To Increase Productivity:
The seamless and efficient operation of any business is primarily reliant on teamwork. No organization has ever gained success purely on one employee’s ability. The same basic level of team-building occurs during the hiring process, increasing employee productivity.
When selecting a new employee, consider the following:
- Is this candidate a good fit for your current team?
- Is he competent or qualified enough to keep up with your team?
- Are this person’s work ethic and corporate culture compatible?
- Is this individual looking for a long-term relationship with you, or are they merely looking for a better job?
Remember, you have to encourage existing and new team members to create a bond to work together as a team. You can only achieve your goals if the cumulative efforts of every employee are in the same direction.
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Final Thoughts:
You are reading this post because you want to establish a more positive and productive workplace. I believe you are already on the right track. All you have to do now is follow the advice in this post.
Consistently analyzing your team’s performance and development opportunities will increase workplace productivity. While numerous tools are available to help with workflow, ultimately, as a leader in your organization, you must be present to support your team.
I hope you have found all your answers on how to increase productivity in the workplace. If there’s something you want to add or have any queries, let us know in the comments section below!