15 Mind-blowing Ways To Improve Productivity In An Organization
Sometimes, it can feel like the overall productivity is going downhill and you have no idea how to stop it.
The management, employees and consumers are very important to maintain the productivity of your business. If all these parties are happy, it will give rise to high productivity that will make your business to flourish.
If you are looking for ways that you can boost productivity in your organization, you’ve come to the right place.
I will take you through some points to improve the level of your business productivity by making alterations to office conducts.
You can get excellent work done using the same or smaller resources i.e. capital, time and labour.
By the time you have finished reading this article, you will know exactly what you need to do.
So, take a look at some easy solutions that can help boost your capacity in your organization.
1. Effective work environment
There is a whole lot of things that can reduce business productivity. Eliminating or at least reducing them will be a huge leap forward in improving your productivity.
To ensure you have a good work environment, the first thing to do is to set the working conditions right. Make sure you have a comfortable working temperature in your office space.
A temperature slightly lower than room temperature on hot days and slightly higher than room temperature on cold days is ideal for work. You don’t want too cold or too hot which can affect employee productivity.
You should also provide good chairs, desks, clean toilet, and serene work environment
2. Be Open to feedback
Welcome feedback to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.
Indeed, you can’t keep doing the same things and expect a different result.
Do your employees need the motivation to stay right on track or do they need help in achieving goals.
Support then in any way you can and give clear directives to elucidate what is expected of them. When employees know that you support them or offer a helping hand when needed, they will become more productive.
3. Positive reinforcement
Three simple tips for positive reinforcement: encourage, motivate and reward your employee. Praise your worker when they are doing or have done a great job. If need be, be constructive in your criticism.
Reward your employee for a job well done. You can have bonuses, paid vacation, feeding and other forms of remunerations for their great performances.
Also, learn to point out the areas of success to other employees, this will motivate anyone slacking and promote healthy competition. When you have employees motivated to work harder and get remunerated for it, there is a better chance of higher productivity.
4. Make Them Happy
Even though different things make different people happy, there are common grounds. Ensure both your employees and your customers are happy. Research and implement what makes your employee happy.
One of the things that bring happiness in the workplace is the alleviation of stress. Most people do not perform to their fullest under stress. A nerve-wracking workplace will not get a good outcome.
Absenteeism and high level of disengagement are associated with a stressful workplace. The stressful workplace will eventually produce traumatized workers.
Positive reinforcement, on the other hand, also makes your employee happy and active.
When you show how much you value and appreciate your employee, they will engage more in productive activities.
Human resource is the most important in your business, make it a priority to make them happy.
5. Deep Review
The first thing I’ll suggest is that you do a deep review.
Sometimes, you need to take a look back at where you are coming from to move forward. A review will give you a perception of where you were, where you are and what discrepancies are between your goals. This will help you know what you have achieved so far.
You can also carry out such review with the help of a Productivity Tracking App. Common mistakes business owners or management make is having no vivid idea of the performance of their employee. One way to curb this is to use Hubstaff.
Work hours are just a fraction of the day, why not make all days productive?
Productivity Tracking Apps make it effortless to monitor the progress of your employee on the task you have assigned to them.
6. Give Responsibilities
Giving responsibilities to your employee will boost their morale and self-worth.
When you delegate tasks to your employees, it may come with some risks but it is key to employee job satisfaction.
I remember the first time my boss told me “This is your client, you will handle his file”. I knew immediately that I now carry the responsibility of satisfying the client, and I must see to it till the end.
When you delegate, watch out for track record. The history of employees matter. Employees have a number of strengths and weaknesses, make your delegation based on these. Allow room for improvement too.
Just because an employee isn’t good enough yet does not mean he will not perform when given the opportunity. Some of your employees are looking for a challenge, an avenue to get better.
Your business will improve when you give your employee a chance to sharpen their skills and gain more experience. It will reflect in the overall productivity.
Besides, your employee will feel satisfied as they progress with their careers. Their sense of achievement will also be felt.
7. Ensure You Have The Right Services and Equipment
Look at the services you offer in your organization.
If you want things to be productive, you need to ensure that you have the right departments on your side. You might need to worry about how much this will cost you.
Also, you need to equip your business with the right tools in order to render a good service. The equipment and tools you use for your business have a great influence on your productivity.
Yes, a lazy man blames his tool; even a hard worker with bad tools will be ineffective. To get your products to go through the roof, you’ve got to use the correct tools.
8. Embrace Change
Having the right tools is not enough, they also needed to be updated at every point in time. If you want to improve how you’ll be perceived in the market, you have to be updated.
You do not want to use Windows XP when people are already using windows 10. Get high quality and modern tools required for your business.
This important because it allows you to keep up with the demands of the market.
Imagine if the manual saw is still used to fell trees or if you have to wait for some hours to print about 200 papers.
There are fast, easy to use, durable and reliable equipment in the market, get them for your office and get your employee acquainted with them.
For example, if you don’t have a marketing department or don’t employ any kind of IT Outsourcing Services then you might be missing a big opportunity as a company.
Things like this are vital to the bottom line of your productivity levels, and without them, you can’t even hope to be as productive as your business could be.
You need to go through your business model and see if you can think of any department or services that you currently need which you do not have.
Once you have identified them, introduce them to your organization as soon as possible. This is the best thing that you can do to help boost your productivity to where it should be.
9. Itemize your goals
People get swayed around or run other people’s vision because they don’t have a vision of their own.
Write down your business goal and develop objectives to achieve that goal. Your organization’s vision should be made simple to understand by all employee. Put a timeline to the objectives so you can track your progress.
You should have a list of long term and short term goals. You can also have personalized goals for each employee, group of employees or department which can be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly.
This not only increases productivity but also increases efficiency: doing more with less. Remember, efficiency and effectiveness go together most of the time.
If you want to improve productivity, you’ve got to ensure that you and your employees are efficient at what you do.
10. Back off
This may look converse to supporting your employee; I assure you it is not.
For instance, this was how I learned to ride a bicycle: first, my father will hold the bicycle with both hands while I just enjoy the ride. After a while, he stopped holding the handle so I could steer; that gave me a sense of confidence to control the bicycle to wherever I please.
At a point, he stopped holding the bicycle. He backed off! And that’s how I rode the bicycle on my own. You must learn to give a task and then back off. Encourage autonomy, it will boost your employee’s self-worth.
Robby slaughter, in his interview with Hubstaff in February 2015, said: “The best way to encourage productivity is to encourage individuals to take ownership over how they manage their own time and resources.”
Autonomy boost productivity, so allow your employee to operate autonomously, and when they need help, make yourself available.
11. High-Quality Staff
The next thing to look at is hiring high-quality staff.
When you read that, what was the first thing you thought of? Was it an employee who does his work fast or well? It’s likely the right answer is both. However, you’ve got to prioritize quality always.
A business that does not take into account the resources hired will find itself in the pit sooner than I could say jack. When you want to hire, you should consider people that will fit into the position and run the vision of the business.
You must ensure that the person you are about to hire possess the skill set for the task you have for him and he can deliver as at when due. The employee must be able to play his part in the achievement of the organization’s goals and objectives.
If your staff are doing a good job, this is the kind of reputation your business needs. Whether you recognize that right now or not, it’s the fact.
When you are conducting your interview process, you need to make sure you select the right quality-driven candidate for the job.
Well, don’t be so intense that nobody sticks around long enough to get hired, but ask the right questions. Find out what they can bring to the table, what they are looking for from you and so on.
This gives you an indication of who you should employ to help take your business as far as it can go.
12. Eliminate distractions
Distraction can be of internal or external. All forms of distraction should be reduced as much as possible. One common type of distraction is noise.
Ensure your workplace is well padded and insulated from external noise. Educate your employee to keep the internal noise down.
Another form of distraction is the use of gadgets like phones. Even though you shouldn’t eradicate the use of it in the office, you should put a limit to its use. Some gadgets could be used in the office either for stress release or other recreational purposes.
Use of gadget can be used at regular intervals, at breaks or during recess. It is also not a good idea tot ban social media. Even though it might be a source of distraction, it has other uses too.
If you ban social media, it portrays that you don’t trust your employees.
Another use of social media apart from the relaxation it brings is the professional connections and support e.g. on LinkedIn. Don’t kill your employee morale by eliminating the use of social media, just ensure they use it productively and lightly.
13. Use communication and partnership tools
Effective communication is essential for productivity. The type of communication tools you should use will depend on the type of business you’re into and your mode of operations.
Is it a traditional office or a remote office? You might need to go a step further from the traditional text and email to apps like Skype or Google Duo for video calls; Whatsapp, telegram or Imo for messages; Google Drive, One Drive or DropBox for data storage and sharing.
Good communication ensures the team’s workflow is as efficient as possible.
Partnership tools also help to simplify and promote teamwork. There are times the members of a team might need to work together in real-time but in a different place, these tools will bridge the gap between them.
Teamwork tools not only boost team chemistry but also make ideas flow naturally. A very good example is Trello.
14. Flexible work hours
To increase productivity, you can give options for flexible work hours to your employees. People work best and are more productive at different hours of the day.
When you allow your employees to choose the time they work, you will improve your company’s productivity. Once you have established good communication within your business, you can set up satellite offices where you can have an employee working remotely.
You can also have freelancers to work for you. This gives room for flexibility and encourages your employees to work on the go.
15. Regular Training
It is alright to have the right equipment but you and I both know that the equipment will not use itself.
Try to also train your employee on how best to use the equipment you have. It’s one thing to know how to use a tool, it is another thing to know how to use it effectively.
That is the reason two employees can have different results using the same tools. An employee may finish a task in ten minutes using machine XY while another will finish the same task in less than four minutes using the same machine.
This equipment training can be done internally or through external trainers.
You also need to train your employee to increase their knowledge. This allows them to go further into their career.
You will also benefit from the knowledge they acquire. Their skills and efficiency will increase too.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, your employees are the ones who will be able to make or break your business. You need to be able to trust every one of them.
If you want to improve productivity in your business, you should follow these points and reap the benefits.
I hope that you found this article helpful. Internalize these pieces of advice, and your business is going to thank you for it! 😉
