The key to increasing productivity in your workplace is working with employees to establish an environment that facilitates communication, collaboration, and efficiency, where successes are celebrated and feedback encouraged.
Productivity can be the key to your business’s success, but increasing productivity in the workplace can be daunting. As a manager, you must be careful to support employees without crossing the line into micromanaging. This delicate balance may seem difficult to achieve, but there many ways you can successfully encourage productivity.
When you want to encourage your employees to increase their productivity, you should focus on creating an environment that facilitates more effective work. These eight tips can help you establish a workplace where employee productivity soars:
Provide the right tools
To increase productivity, provide your employees with the tools they need to work smarter and faster. Collaborative tools, such as the Ooma web meetings platform, and time management tools can help your team work together and work efficiently. You should prioritize the automation of repetitive tasks so that employees can focus their attention on more important objectives.
Set clear and measurable goals
Employees that have clear goals are more likely to work productively. Goals should be well-defined and unambiguous. Your team should know exactly what is expected of them.
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Goals should also be measurable, and you should closely follow the progress of each one. Monitoring goals allows you to identify areas where employees may be struggling so you can provide the support they need to get on track.
Encourage feedback
A productive environment encourages feedback from all members of the team. As the manager, you should actively seek the input of your employees. They have valuable insight into their own day-to-day experience and may be able to bring potential issues to your attention before they become full-blown problems.
Get to know your employees well
Take the time to get to know your employees personally. When your team members believe that you have an interest in their lives, they will feel more motivated and inspired. Understanding your employees individually can also help you identify and capitalize on their strengths while managing any potential difficulties they may have. It can help you determine who will work best together, as well as who may be ready for more responsibility.
Celebrate accomplishments
Acknowledging and celebrating your employees’ successes demonstrates that you value their contributions to the team. It also underscores the standards that you want employees to live up to.
While individual accomplishments should be recognized, focus on celebrating the group successes that reinforce the importance of teamwork in your workplace.
Provide autonomy
Few employees perform at their best when they feel someone is constantly looking over their shoulder. While you should provide oversight of their work, you should also leave plenty of room for autonomy and independence. You should trust your employees to meet the expectations you set.
Encourage regular breaks
Limiting distraction and promoting focus are both important to increasing productivity, but your employees still need to take regular breaks to rest and refresh. Decreasing the stress in your workplace in this way will allow your employees to perform at their best when they return to their desks.
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Offer support
As a manager, your mission should be to find solutions that allow employees to be happy and healthy so they can work more effectively. You should let your employees know that they can trust you and seek you out for help. When your employees trust you, they will feel comfortable communicating about challenges in the workplace. A strong relationship with you will create satisfied employees who can work more productively knowing that you are supporting them.
The key to increasing productivity in your workplace is working with employees to establish an environment that facilitates communication, collaboration, and efficiency, where successes are celebrated and feedback encouraged.