Increase Workplace Productivity

Image Source:emailanalytics.com

Have you been thinking about employees face workplace productivity issues lately? Truth is, it is impossible for the workplace to always be as productive as it could be. Maybe employees feel sequestered or morale is down. However, sometimes you just need someone to lay out the solutions just in a simple way. Here are 10 simple ways to increase workplace productivity in your workplace.

Set Your Milestones and Keep A Daily Schedule for You

When motivating employees to meet deadlines, you should simply state that a project is due soon. And letting them at it can cause procrastination and intense stress. Especially for the employees whose time management skills are lacking. Or when parts of the project thought to be simple and unassuming actually take far longer.

This can feed into existing stress and anxiety. And, especially for the employees who might have medical issues or mental health conditions. This added stress can only mean poor performance and unhappy employees.

You should also set a schedule for the project, one tailored to the project ahead. If projects are individualized, there is no larger scale schedule but to set milestones for projects with soft due dates.

Your employees have more of an idea how long each section should take, gives them a feeling of progress and achievement. And allows for them to offer you feedback if a part of the project in an earlier stage.

Setting milestones and communicating with your employees through them is the most effective way of alleviating stress. And it allows your employees to feel like they have a bit of extra weight off their shoulders.

Foster Collaboration and Show an Interest in Their Ideas

What does it honestly mean to “foster collaboration”? A lot of times it feels like one of those phrases everyone uses but no one truly understands the meaning of. Encouraging team work, the obvious idea, can only go so far.

A team means nothing if not everyone can play an equal role in it. The best way to foster collaboration between employees is to show genuine interest in what they have to say. Just because they don’t have as much experience, it doesn’t mean their ideas have no merit. You must show a genuine interest in things and tease out how any idea can work.

When employees feel like they have no input at their jobs, there is very little intrinsic motivation to their work. Feeling like their ideas have value, like they have value, changes the motivation from extrinsic to intrinsic. Employees have more of a desire to work, which will greatly increase both morale and productivity in an organization.

You Should Understand Employee Needs

When it comes to working in any field or on any project, not every individual employee is going to be the same. Some work better in beginning of the day, some later, some with a definite structure and some with more flexibility. Some need more breaks or the ability to walk around. It is important to understand the needs of your employees beyond just medical needs that require accommodation by law.

Every employee should be taken into account and flexibility should be employed within reason. If an employee feels like their needs are not being seen to, they won’t feel like they are a valued member. It can cause extra anxiety that will only put them off the work required of them.

Always be mindful of your employees’ needs, and if they come to you with a problem, listen to them. Ignoring their needs is only going to make them bitter and anxious, and their performance will fall. Accommodate where you can and allow your employees to feel genuinely comfortable in their workplace.

You Must Know How to Delegate

Just as everyone’s needs within a team are individual, so, of course, are everyone’s skills. While everyone may have similar skills, one employee’s skill set may be stronger in one area than another. Catering tasks and projects to those skills can help immensely to improve productivity in the workplace. Allowing tasks to be delegated properly, firstly, means no employee feels the weight of an entire task on their shoulders.

The stress of that entire project is lifted, and they can focus on specific tasks tailored to their skills. Secondly, if a project is tailored uniquely to their skills, they will feel more confident in the work they are doing. Because it is an area in which they are comfortable. Just as importantly, though, some projects will require you to delegate to people in areas where their skills need improvement.

This makes your employees’ work valuable because they are building skills. And this will help with later projects if delegation in this manner is not possible. This is a long-term solution that will both bolster confidence in tasks and ideas. And help your employees to develop skills in which they may be lacking, thereby increasing future workplace productivity in those areas.

You Should Always Voice Clear Expectations

Whenever you hand a task to your employee, make sure you are absolutely clear what is expected of them. This is not treating the employee like a child or doing work for them. Instead remove any ambiguity which may cause either anxiety in the progress of the project if there is a problem with the finished task.

Similarly, it is important that these goals, these expectations, are realistically achievable for your employees. Expecting the moon from them may be a clear expectation, but the stress is just too much. Allowing their goals to be attainable and reasonable once again removes stress from the job. And articulating these expectations clearly can clear up any confusion and make the process of work much smoother.

Allow for A Change of Scenery

This piece of advice may be the least conducive to a traditional office environment. But it is also one of the most effective pieces of advice for you. As a human, you are naturally distracted and can get bored after a while of the same work. When boredom hits, you are certainly less productive, less proactive, and less motivated. Same thing applies to your employees. One way to counteract this is to give employees a change of scenery.

You should rotate their places or swap their seats every couple of hours. So, they’re not in the same place for hours on end. Allow them to stretch their legs and be someplace other than the desk they spend all day in. This will allow them to be less bored, particularly when they are working on the same task for long periods of time.

However, this can apply to tasks, too. You should rotate through tasks, so your employees aren’t working on the same thing all day. This keeps them from getting bored with their work, keeps their mind on alert. And prevents them from slipping into an unmotivated mindset. Whatever you can do to accommodate this idea will increase workplace productivity. Because it will keep things a bit more interesting.

Nip Conflict in The Bud Immediately

When working as a team, it is too idealistic to believe people will get along all the time. Only in a perfect world will everyone always agree. However, if you see a problem brewing amongst employees, try to mediate the conflict as soon as possible.

Especially if your employees don’t particularly like each other, it will be difficult to resolve it all the time on their own. So, you need to make sure that conflicts about a project do not escalate anyway. It is important to note that this is not always possible, of course. Your employees are adults and should be able to mediate conflicts themselves.

However, if the conflict is causing a problem with your employee morale, it is important to try and resolve the conflict. If your employees are unhappy in their work space, it can become a hostile work environment. And this is extremely counterproductive and limits efficiency within the office.

You Should Provide Incentives for Better Workplace Productivity

Long hours doing monotonous work can be a lot for your employees of any age or experience. You may already know that sometimes things simply get boring and your employees can easily be less motivated to finish work. One of the most useful tools in combatting this is to offer incentives. It can be as simple or elaborate as you want to make it but offer rewards for high-quality work.

This external motivation gives your employees the extra push they may need. It will help them to fully commit all of their energy to your project and deliver a great outcome. This is not a one-size-fix-all solution. If all motivation is external, then your employees won’t want to work if there is no reward in place.

You Should Provide Positive Feedback and Reinforcement

Do not punish your employees unnecessarily. Obviously, if poor quality work is being done it is important to talk to your employees about it. Instead, reacting negatively in any situation can almost always affect their productivity negatively. If you approach your feedback from a positive angle and offer positive reinforcement, your team will feel appreciated.

Your employees are more likely to feel special and valued when given positive feedback. And they will attempt to replicate that feeling and that reaction from you in the future. While negative feedback can be useful if it is constructive.

Positive feedback and positive reinforcement will be far more effective in getting the desired outcome from your employees. Your employees want to be told they are doing well. So, you should tell them when they do. And they will continue to excel because they want to continue to be valued as employees.

You Should Be A Positive Force in The Workplace 

Not only it is important to offer positive feedback to your employees, you should be a positive force in your office too. It is important to be present, ready to hear concerns of your employees when they come to you.

It is important for you constantly allow your employees that you are there to assist in any way. This could be in a professional or friendly capacity. It is in this role that they will feel comfortable coming to you with their needs. Especially, if these are things, they may have been afraid to approach their supervisor with in another workplace.

Allowing yourself to be present, in always making sure the workplace is a positive environment for your employees. It will help to boost confidence in your leadership within the team, boost morale. And increase workplace productivity with a happier, less negative environment.

Conclusion

Increasing workplace productivity is a problem almost every team leader has to face. It will always be difficult to figure out the solution to every problem you face. But, by implementing more of these tips in your office, you won’t just foster workplace productivity amongst the people.

You will also promote camaraderie and acceptance, as well as an environment where people feel their needs are met. Also, their ideas and skills are valued. In managing a more positive environment, you will be able to more easily foster productivity in your workplace.

So, what are your best workplace productivity tips? Did you find any secret to increasing your work productivity in your office? Don’t hesitate to share below!