Every employer strives to maintain high productivity at all times, but finding a way to keep your workforce regularly motivated and engaged can be challenging. If you fail to accomplish this goal, your team’s job satisfaction rating could plummet, and your valued workers may join forces with the competition. To keep your workers motivated and engaged, you must create a positive work environment.When you and your managerial team know how to properly harness the creative abilities and overall potential of your team, your business stands a much better chance of staying competitive in a rigorous market.
These tips can help you to boost productivity in your team.
1. Match The Right People With The Right Job
A critical aspect of workplace productivity is matching the right individual or team to various projects and tasks. You need to understand the skills and interests each member of your team has, and be aware that this is more than just a list of qualifications on a resume.
Each person has unique talents and behaviors, making them better suited to different tasks than others. As an employer, you should spend time learning more about each staff member’s challenges, goals, interests and more.
Understand that people and life factors change over time, so always stay in touch with your team through active communication. Remember that you may also experiment with some employees to see if they have untapped skills or abilities that you are not currently aware of.
Before assigning any projects or tasks, always consider which individual or team is the best fit for the project. You may even need to reassign long-term projects over time as skills and behaviors change.
2. Have Accurate Expectations
In order for your team to be fully efficient, they need a clear understanding of the final result. Specify your expectations clearly, and ensure that they do not have any questions. Consider making assignments narrow or brief so that your team members can focus on completing one small project at a time.
Focus your staff’s attention on the primary goal associated with a project and ensure that each person understands what to do and what to avoid. This means that they should not be confused or distracted by menial tasks or issues. If necessary, help them to skim away the unnecessary details to find the truly important elements of each project that they need to focus on.
Communicating expectations and goals should be done individually, but you also need to give your team a big picture view. They need to learn what others are working on and how each project fits together in beneficial ways. Strive to keep the lines of communication open, and be a role model for communication standards in your office.
3. Encourage Employee Training and Development
Employee training and development is critical to maximize productivity. Everything from skills workshops and courses to coaching or mentoring sessions enables your team to improve their knowledge base and skills over time.
Remember that you need to provide your team with growth and development opportunities in-house rather than expect them to seek all further education outside of the office on their own. On-the-job training does not have to be structured at all times. Simply sitting with your employees from time to time to show them how to accomplish tasks or correct errors can be very productive.
In the future, they may be able to work more quickly and with fewer errors. In addition, you will spend less time correcting mistakes or dealing with errors going forward. Well-rounded employees are often happier and more productive in the workplace. They may also be more content with their jobs.
Encourage your team to explore new interests outside of work. These skills and interests may help them to improve their career or work efforts in different ways.
Training and certifications are especially vital for companies in technical fields, as these show expertise with cutting-edge hardware and software. According to New Horizons' 2019 State of IT Training Report, 86% of IT professionals and decision makers believe that remaining on top of new IT trends is an important or very important focus.
4. Consider Flexible Work Schedules
If your workplace requires strict attendance during specific hours of the day, you may want to think about creating a more flexible work environment. Employees may feel stressed and anxious about punching a clock every day. Furthermore, they may need leniency from time to time to accomplish personal goals or tend to responsibilities.
Your team should be focused on meeting deadlines and doing quality work rather than on spending a certain number of hours in the office each day. From your end as the employer, offering flexible work hours or even allowing your team to work remotely from home a few days per week can dramatically boost morale.
More than that, a flexible work schedule can decrease your employees' stress. Stress can negatively affect the ability of your staff members to concentrate and work productively. Anything you can do to decrease stress at work can result in higher productivity rates.
5. Equip Them With The Right Tools
There are numerous productivity tools available for your team members. These tools can boost their quality of work and speed up completion rate. To get started, analyze your workers’ daily tasks to determine which tasks are taking up the majority of their time and which are not be as productive as possible.
One idea is to determine which actions or activities are currently being completed manually and to look for automation tools. These tools could potentially save time and bolster productivity, and they could lead to greater job satisfaction overall. Explore all of the options carefully, and ask your team for feedback and ideas before you implement the use of a specific program or tool in your workplace.
6. Celebrate Their Accomplishments
When you care about your team, they feel more respected and motivated to work hard for you. Each individual should be told regularly and in different ways that their contributions matter and that they make a positive difference in the company. Consider everything from a professional performance review to a personalized thank-you note.
For more important or significant accomplishments, celebrate in a more formal way. For example, you may announce accomplishments at a weekly team meeting.
This article was first published by Heather Redding on Careermetis.com.
Reach out to New Horizons to learn more about the benefits of training and certification for your team.
