For any business to flourish, prioritising productivity is a must. After all, hiring talented employees is not enough to ensure that your company meets its goals. Ultimately, your business productivity will determine how efficiently and effectively goals are achieved.
Productivity relies on the relationship that employees have with their work and organisation. When team members feel unmotivated, disinterested, and stressed, they are less likely to deliver quality work. Conversely, employees who find their work engaging and rewarding tend to be more productive. Hence, it is crucial to cultivate a motivating work environment that promotes focus and well-being.
Creating an effective productivity strategy does not have to be complicated. A simple, clear, and actionable plan is all your need to set your team up for success. To help you get started, below are five tips for boosting the productivity of your business:
Create Realistic Goals
The first step to better productivity is ensuring that your business goals are realistic. Not knowing the limitations of your workforce can lead you to create unattainable targets. Chasing these unrealistic goals wastes precious time and valuable resources.
When establishing objectives, be sure they are SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. This way, you and your team know exactly where to focus your efforts.
Remind Your Team of What Needs to Be Done
It can be difficult for your team to track what needs accomplishing, especially when things get busy. Luckily, digital solutions can show you how to set reminders for all your tasks.
For example, by using collaboration software, you can establish a centralised system where your team can create goals, track their progress, share files, and communicate. You can create alerts for both key milestones and small individual tasks. It streamlines your workflow and ensures that your team never misses a deadline.
Find Ways to Motivate Your Team Members
High productivity needs a motivated team. Employees cannot get any work done when they feel it is not worth their effort. Therefore you need to find out what matters most to them. What inspires them to perform better? This way, you can formulate motivational approaches that work for each team member.
Generally, you will need to promote both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of your employees. As the name suggests, intrinsic motivation comes from within. It stems from the desire to achieve success for no other reason than self-fulfilment.
You can boost the intrinsic motivation of your team members by asking them what they want from their work and encouraging them to strive for it. Sometimes, simply congratulating them for a job well done is more than enough.
Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is achieved through external incentives. For example, you might give employees salary bonuses for their exceptional performance or throw a company party as a reward for meeting business goals.
Host Fewer Time-Consuming Meetings
It can be difficult for employees to concentrate on their tasks after a meeting. Indeed, research shows that it takes 15 minutes for people to become productive again after an interruption or break. Plus, unnecessarily long and disorganised meetings can eat up time, which could have been on more urgent tasks.
Luckily, there are simple ways to fight off this common productivity-killer.
Firstly, avoid conducting too many meetings within a day or week. As much as possible, reserve conferences for highly important or urgent matters. If agendas can be addressed through direct message or email, it is best to do it that way. Should there be a need for a meeting, be sure that it has a clear set of objectives. That way, discussions can stay focused and concise.
Additionally, set a time limit for each conference so your team can stay on schedule. Experts say that the ideal meeting duration is between 15 to 45 minutes. Anything longer than the maximum can make it increasingly difficult for participants to pay attention.
Place More Importance on Employee Wellness
The mental and physical health of your employees can affect their productivity. If your team members are exhausted and stressed from overworking, their performance will deteriorate significantly. Likewise, employees will not be able to attend work if ill.
It is paramount to provide your team with wellness programs to keep them healthy—inside and out.
For example, you can offer mid-day fitness classes, regular health screenings, and meditation breaks. Providing regular vacations is also an effective way to promote wellness. Studies show that vacations improve mental and physical health and cognitive functions. After all, a good break can give the mind a much-needed refresh.
Boosting the efficiency of your business can be as simple as streamlining your workflow with digital systems, reducing time-consuming activities, and treating your employees well. By incorporating these tips into your productivity plan, you can create a work environment that will help your business thrive for years into the future.