For any business owner, productivity is always going to be at the front of their mind. Productivity will play a massive role in just how successful a company is, and often if the business is struggling, you can look to productivity as the culprit. Productivity at your workplace isn’t a stagnant measurement either; rather it is one that should constantly be tracked, monitored, and analyzed for any weak spots that can use tweaking. This is the only way to ensure you’re hitting the targets you had set forth.
So, what happens if productivity isn’t quite where you want it? How can you improve productivity in the workplace? Here are 12 tips for your employees and yourself to start using immediately.
Content Summary
Ensure Employees Have Ideal Workspaces
The first thing to do is make sure your employees have ideal workspaces. This means they have the equipment needed to do their job, and that it is set up in a way that is comfortable and safe for them to use.
Encourage Regular Breaks
While taking a break may seem like the exact opposite of productivity, in reality, giving employees a chance to step away from their desk or work station and take a 10-15 minute breather in a breakroom will help them come back more focused and energized, which will reflect in their work.
Keep Distractions to a Minimum
Distractions in the workplace are another big reason productivity levels drop. So, how do you stop them? You can ask employees to set their own personal phones to silent mode while at work, encourage them to create a set time to check emails each day so they don’t get overlooked, have set office hours, and even use software that can block specific sites. Look for tools that can help with scheduling and blocking sites during work hours to increase work productivity.
Plan Your Day in Advance
While there is much employees can do, you can also join the quest to be more productive. This can be done by planning your day in advance. This ensures nothing gets forgotten or looked over, and it also helps you to stay on task and organized.
Go Ahead and Set Goals
Did you know that setting goals can also help with productivity? They give employees something to work towards, and require a blueprint of steps in order to achieve them. Just be sure you are setting realistic goals that can actually be achieved.
Try Time Tracking Your Tasks
Sometimes it’s a matter of needing more information on how much time each task takes up. Once you have a true sense of what is involved to get the job done, it allows for better time management and expectations. You can then give employees a sense of how long they can spend on a particular task before they need to move on to the next item.
Update Computer Software and Hardware
In some cases, it’s not about human inefficiencies, rather it is the software and hardware they are working with. You want to be sure that everything is always up-to-date and that it is powerful enough to get the job done. Perhaps it’s time to upgrade the computers in the office, or maybe a new copy machine is needed – simple things like that can cause a real hit to productivity.
Cut Down on the Meetings
Another thing that can seriously cut into people’s productivity levels is meetings. If you’re holding too many meetings, you are in fact distracting people from their work. Is it truly necessary to hold that many meetings? If meetings are a necessity, then put a time limit on them and stick to it.
Make Sure Everyone Is on the Same Page
By making sure that everyone is on the same page at all times, you will also be ensuring that productivity remains at peak levels. You can do this by using task and time scheduling software, inter-office communication such as emails, ensuring everyone is aware of their specific goals, and so forth.
Multi-Tasking Isn’t Always a Good Idea
If you’ve been in the habit of encouraging your employees to multi-task, it may be time to re-think that approach. With multi-tasking, you are asking people to only give a portion of their time and energy to each task. It can get overwhelming and confusing. Instead, focusing on one task at a time, and completing it before moving on, can be much more efficient.
Hire Enough of the Right People
It also comes down to your staff. Have you hired enough people and are they the “right” people to get the job done?
Learn to Delegate
Of course, when you’ve got the right staff on-hand, you’ll also be able to delegate and give up some of those responsibilities and some of the workload.
Not an Overnight Fix
The one thing to keep in mind about improving productivity at your workplace is that you can’t expect an overnight fix, rather it will be an on-going effort of balance on your part.
