Even though productivity is critical to a functioning company, people don’t always work that way. It’s hard to stay on task during the entire work day. Reports show that the average person is only productive for a little under three hours every day.
However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things you can do to get more from your hours during the day.
Employee productivity is vital for any company that wants success, but it isn’t the easiest thing to optimize. Follow the seven tips below to create productive employees that add value to your business.
1. Reward Great Work
Are complaints the only thing your employees hear when you speak with them about their work? If so, that’s a big demotivator. How does someone know they’re doing great work if all they hear from you is complaining?
People lose confidence in their abilities when this happens. They second-guess their choices and take more time to get work done. You can’t optimize productivity when this happens.
It makes more sense also to praise people when they do great. It builds confidence and helps people branch out to take on more work.
It also pays to offer benefits for meeting performance milestones. Offering free lunches, extra time off, and other benefits is a great way to push people to accomplish more work.
2. Avoid Micromanaging
Do you enjoy someone standing over your shoulder all day to make sure you’re doing your work right? You aren’t alone if you say you don’t want that. Most people don’t like being watched at all times.
Your employees are no different. You hired them because you believed they were good at their jobs. Standing over their shoulders is a sign you don’t trust people to do things right.
It’s okay to check in with people to see how they’re doing, but don’t constantly monitor your team. Let people do their work and show you what they can do. You can correct the course later if someone isn’t doing the job right.
3. Invest in Automation
It’s hard to get away from manual administrative tasks in business. It doesn’t matter what role you have at a company. You need to regularly handle little details to get to the more critical work.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use tools to make things easier. There are now countless ways to automate repetitive tasks in business. If you don’t offer that ability to your team, they won’t get as much done during the day.
Ask your team what tasks they need help with and look for software to automate them. If you don’t find anything, there’s always the chance that you can hire a developer to automate the work.
4. Promote a Regular Schedule
Some managers try to get so much from their employees that they end up working extra hours all the time. While it may look like you get more done at a glance, that usually isn’t the case.
People burn out when they work too much. Even if they are looking at work material, the chances are that they aren’t as effective at getting things done. And when they burn out, it’s hard to recover without a break.
It’s better to embrace a regular work schedule instead of running people into the ground. Encourage people to go home at the end of the day instead of pushing tight deadlines that don’t make sense. If you still can’t get everything done, it’s more likely that you need to hire more employees instead of pushing people to work more hours.
5. Embrace Project Management Software
Managing employees is much different today than it was a decade ago. You no longer have to manually keep track of project progress, tasks, and communication. You can now use project management tools to make the whole process easier.
Investing in these tools is a great way to increase employee productivity. You can use this software to organize your projects in one place. From there, you can assign tasks, handle communication, and everything else relevant to the project.
On top of that, modern project management tools run on the web. That means remote employees can access your project system from anywhere. Nobody has an excuse for not having the information they need to handle their job.
6. Offer Training and Advancement
When you run a company, you’re at the top of the food chain. You don’t need to worry about advancing your career. You only need to grow your business and make more profit.
The same isn’t true for your employees. You hired them for a role, but that doesn’t mean they want to stay in that role forever. Most people want to advance their careers and make more money.
Motivating people is hard if they don’t feel like they can get ahead. Give people training to learn new skills and let them advance into bigger roles. This will motivate people to work harder and contribute more to your business.
7. Track Performance Metrics
It’s hard to measure employee efficiency when you aren’t collecting data. Sure, you can monitor general trends. But the problem is that you don’t know what changes you make have the most significant impacts.
Tracking employee performance metrics will give you that information. You can use software to define productivity goals and collect data about what people accomplish during the day to conduct employee performance reviews.
Once you have this information, you can measure those results over time to see if you’re getting your desired results. Find more information here about using advanced software to measure the performance results of your employees.
Never Stop Trying to Improve Employee Productivity
You only have so many hours in the day, so you can’t afford to waste those hours on unproductive activities. However, there are many tactics you can use to improve employee productivity. Use the tips above when managing employees to get the most from your employees.
Are you interested in more advice to help you manage your company? Learn more tips by checking out the latest blog posts.
