Small entrepreneurs struggling to keep their overhead costs low will tell you just how important productivity levels really are. A well motivated employee with high productivity levels is good for business. Here’s a worrying statistic, less than 35 percent of employees in the US feel engaged with their jobs, the remaining are hampered with boredom don’t much care about their role. This can cost companies in the US a total of over $600 billion every year!
While it is normal for the occasional slump in productivity levels, it isn’t normal for consistently low levels that just don’t go away. To get your employees back on track, we’ve rounded up 4 proven strategies to increase employee productivity.
1) Provide Your Team with the Right Tools
The tools your employees use can play an important role in their performance. For instance, choosing the right software can make payroll generation much easier for HR staff. Collaboration software for smoother work flows such as Slack can improve tasks that depend on team work, making it possible for cross-departmental communication between employees.
2) Provide Employees with Greater Responsibility
Providing someone with a new range of responsibility comes with an element of risk, but if it works correctly, you can improve your staff’s job satisfaction and morale. Make sure qualified employees with a proven track record get more responsibility. This makes your staff feel more ‘valued’ and ‘trusted’, prompting them to work more efficiently.
If anything, such an experience will enhance their leadership experience and provide them with a new set of skills. Both these are good for your business while empowering employees with a sense of direction and achievement in their careers.
3) Minimal Distractions
Modern day technologies can easily kill productivity levels by providing employees with distraction. The biggest culprit is a social media and of course, the smartphone. All of a sudden, your employees are staring into their phone screen instead of being more engaged and focused. It is not practical at all to ban phones from the workplace because people have important calls to tend to, and now depend on Uber or Lyft to get from point A to point B.
What you can do is encourage employees to turn off their phones during work, but turning them back on during regular breaks to check up on their phone.
3) Improve Working Conditions
Make sure the ambient temperature at the office is comfortable enough. An environment that is too hot or too cold can distract employees from the task at hand. Their mind focuses too much on acclimatizing to uncomfortable ambience than being more productive. So make sure both air conditioning and heating systems are working efficiently in their relevant seasons.
4) Have Realistic Goals
The last thing you want to do is expect unrealistic goals from employees. A failed milestone, no matter how ludicrous it sounds on paper, is a failed milestone and it will sting your employees that they weren’t able to hit it. Make sure you provide your employees with realistic goals in order to give them a sense of direction.
Want to increase productivity and engagement levels at the workplace? Click here to get in touch with JS Benefits Group for more tips.
