No matter what industry you are operating in, your company will rely on its employees. Increases in employee productivity can offer a range of different business benefits, from boosting your output rate to improving customer satisfaction. The list below has been designed to help business owners and managers start increasing employee productivity today.
1. Improve Employee Training
Offering employees regular training and development sessions provide them with the opportunity to learn the new skills and knowledge that they need to excel in their existing role and to improve their overall career. This means that businesses that offer high-quality employee training and development sessions experience short-term benefits, as productivity is increased. However, the effects of training and development are not only left short term. As training and development encourage career development, you will experience an increased amount of internal promotions, which reduces the costs associated with hiring a new employee.
You should remember that training and development are equally important when you are onboarding a new member of staff. The right training and development opportunities can have a big impact on the speed at which it takes a new employee to work optimally.
2. Improve Communication
Employees cannot work productively without high-quality communication. This is because communication is how tasks are assigned and explained and high-quality, actionable feedback is conveyed. Managers need to make sure that they are always communicating effectively with staff. This involves actively listening, speaking clearly and nurturing a culture that embraces open communication.
3. Track Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is a hugely important business metric, as engaged employees will go above and beyond in their work to further the interest of the organization they are working for. While an engaged employee is absorbed and enthusiastic about their work, a disengaged employee feels the opposite. A disengaged employee might do the bare minimum at work or actively try to damage the reputation of the company they are working for. As inpulse.com describes, you can use engagement surveys to track existing levels of employee engagement in your organization and discover actionable insights that will lead to improvements.
4. Offer Flexible Working Options
All of your employees are individuals – they will all work best in different styles and settings. Recent research has found that many employees work best when working from home, which leads to increased productivity and output quality. Offering your employees a flexible working schedule means that staff are free to choose the working environment that is most conducive to their individual productivity needs.
5. Encourage Self-Care
When employees are suffering from poor mental health, this can have a big impact on their productivity levels at work. In fact, studies have found that being worried about something can actually decrease your brain’s ability to function as normal. Research has found that being worried about money leads people to temporarily lose the equivalent of 13 IQ points, which is the same effect as spending one night without sleep.
Encouraging self-care in the workplace might involve a range of different measures. You can practically show how much you value self-care by offering self-care courses. Managers can improve employee wellbeing by regularly praising and recognizing employee accomplishments. Simply showing recognition for an employee’s accomplishments can increase employee satisfaction and lead to feelings of pride and fulfilment.