The life of an entrepreneur is challenging, to say the least. Although it is indeed gratifying, and even exciting, it’s not without its struggles. Days are a blur of many tasks and tribulations, and while hiring employees can ease some of this hardship, it will only do so if the team that you build are productivity. For a business of any shape or size, employee productivity is much like breathing – It keeps the company alive. With that in mind, it’s up to you to ensure that your team put the work in. Here are fifteen things that you can do to improve productivity in your business.
Hire The Right People
A happy and calm work environment is generally one that is also productive. Unfortunately, it only takes one lousy hire to ruin the good atmosphere you’ve worked so hard to create. Whether they gossip about their colleagues, steal from the business, or always slack off, you don’t want bad apples on your team. To avoid hiring the wrong person, you should invest more time in the hiring and interview process. You should also make sure that you always check references.
Provide The Proper Training
Even with great skills and extensive experience, no new hire can walk into a job knowing how to do it exactly right. If you want to get the most out of your help, then you need first to teach them how to do that. This means having them complete training before they start working. However, you shouldn’t stop there. By offering individuals additional training material later, you can equip them with new skills, which may give insight into how to do their job more efficiently than before.
Allow A Flexible Schedule
Although nine until five are the traditional working hours, they’re not necessarily the hours during which your employees are the most productive. In fact, some will feel more energized and ready to work much earlier or later. For this reason, you should try offering a more flexible schedule, allowing your team to work whenever they choose to. Studies have shown that working from home can also increase productivity, so you may want to let certain employees telecommute.
Set Clear, Attainable Goals
You can’t stay productive unless you know what it is that you’re supposed to be doing. Keeping that in mind, you have to set goals for your team members and business as a whole, explaining to your employees how their roles are important. These goals should be challenging, of course, but they must also be attainable. If you set impossible targets, your team will fail to meet them, which will cause their confidence to plummet. This, unfortunately, will harm your productivity too.
Keep The Office Tidy
Clutter can be a major source of stress, which, as you probably already know, is a big productivity killer. To keep your team on task, you must make sure that the space in which they work is kept as clean and tidy as possible. You can ask that they clean up their own messes, of course, but, with so much else to do, you can’t expect them to polish and vacuum the whole office too. Instead of wasting your own time doing this, you should consider hiring a cleaner.
Let Your Team Decorate
As important as it is to keep workspaces tidy, you shouldn’t ban employees from adding a personal touch or two. Whether it be a family photo, small cuddly toy, or another knick-knack, personalizing your desk can give you an emotional connection to your work and inspire you to be more productive. You can set some boundaries so that no team members go over the top, but asking employees to keep their desks clear can negatively impact the mood of the whole office.
Use The Right Tools
Without the right tools to get their work done, your employees won’t be able to perform their duties efficiently, if at all. Keeping that in mind, it’s up to you to ensure that your team is provided with everything that they require. For some businesses, this may be a mere computer, but for others, more specialist tools will be needed, like chip-seq kits. Rather than lumbering your team with menial and repetitive tasks, you should use automation software to do it instead.
Aim To Eliminate Distractions
When you’re trying to focus on the task at hand, the last thing that you need is some distraction breaking your concentration. To prevent this, you should work with your team to eliminate the distractions that they face each day. An open plan office space, while beneficial in many ways, can also negatively impact productivity in the wrong circumstances. For this reason, you should consider creating a quiet place for employees to work for when they really need to focus.
Break Away From Routine
Boredom can kill productivity faster than just about anything else. Because of this, you need to do what you can to make sure that your employees don’t get bored at work. The easiest way to do this is to break away from routine now and then. This could mean rotating job roles, introducing new ones, or something a lot more fun, like heading out for a meal or hosting a “Bring Your Pet To Work Day”. This will break up the monotony and make your business more fun.
Learn To Show Thanks
No one wants to work for someone that doesn’t appreciate all that they do. In fact, it can make them hate their work, which, of course, damages how productive they are. To make sure that your employees know how much you care, you need to learn to show it. Most assume this has to cost money, but that isn’t necessarily true. Some employees are happy just to hear the words “thank you” now and then. There are also plenty of cheaper rewards and incentives to consider.
Don’t Micromanage Your Team
Nothing is more insulting or demoralizing to an employee as having their boss micromanaging everything that they do. After all, when you know that you have the experience and skill to do your job well, it’s disheartening to have your boss always looking over your shoulder. This suggests that they don’t trust your abilities, which can wreck your mood. As difficult as it can be to take a step back, you need to do so. You spent time hiring the right people, so let them do their jobs.
Set A Good Example
You may be the one in charge of your company, but that doesn’t mean that you’re any more important than the employees working for you. With that in mind, why would you expect them to complete tasks that you’re not willing to do? Whether they’re complicated, time-consuming, or just plain boring, you shouldn’t ask your employees to do something that you wouldn’t. Instead, gain their respect by getting stuck in with the unpleasant stuff and setting a good example.
Cut Down On Meetings
Daily meetings are the perfect place to catch up on important projects, set new goals and targets, and offer feedback to your team. However, they can also be a major waste of time. If you head into these meetings with no agenda, you’re likely to frustrate your employees and use time that neither of you can afford to lose. To prevent this, you should make sure you always know what needs to be discussed in these meetings. You should also try planning fewer of them.
Encourage Employees To Care
The sickness of even one employee can spread quickly throughout the entire office, leaving your whole team feeling less than their best. Because of this, you should encourage your employees to take better care of themselves and adopt a healthier lifestyle. You can help them with this by providing health insurance, offering somewhere for them to work out, and providing healthy snacks and lunches. You should also be strict about employees taking breaks when they should.
Open The Office Door
While you were the one to build your business, it’s impossible for you to know everything that goes on within it. For this reason, you need to ask for and act on feedback provided by your employees. You can introduce a suggestions box somewhere in the office and establish an open door policy so that your team knows that you’re always available to talk. Ignoring what your staff has to say and assuming that you know what’s best for your business could hold it back.
Low employee productivity can jeopardize the sustainability of any venture, but this is especially true for small businesses. With that in mind, tacking this entrepreneurial issue sooner rather than later can help to ensure that your business reaches its true potential. As every company is different, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with a lack of productivity. That being said, if you follow the advice above, you should be able to find a few tips that work for you.
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