You and your employees, like the rest of us, spend one major part of your life at the office. But making the most out of your time there isn’t easy. Every company wants to be more profitable – boost the income while lowering the costs, or maintaining them as low as possible.
All of this can be achieved by improving the productivity of everyone in the office, including yourself. Although, spending too much in order to gain a little productivity boost just won’t cut it.
There are two methods of increasing the output – either work harder or smarter. If we were to go with the latter, we would need to start being more deliberate and plan everything beforehand. In this post, we will explain to you how.
Table of Contents
1. Practice positive reinforcement at work
Motivate, encourage and reward. Speak to your employees about how great they’re doing their jobs and provide constructive feedback. It is more crucial, however, to offer a personal incentive for completing the job adequately – maybe they can have a free takeout coffee or a free holiday for excellent performance?
You can also transparently show the success of one of your workers to other staff members to nurture a sense of fulfillment to motivate others. Properly motivating your workers to work more and providing them with a reward for it will make them more likely to put increased productivity high on their daily to-do list.
2. The skill of delegation
New entrepreneurs always like to rely on themselves only and micromanage every possible thing. Which is probably why they end up being unproductive. Delegation can actually complement productivity. Once you begin utilizing it, you’ll be surprised at how much quicker and simpler your job has become. But only if you do it right.
Most managers understand delegation wrong. They start delegating but supervise the delegated task just like they were doing their own. This isn’t the way to do it. When you delegate a task to someone and then supervise them completely while they are doing it, you aren’t just micromanaging, but also showing that you don’t trust that person will complete the task on their own.
Delegating properly means assigning the right tasks to the right employees – a person you know has the skills to complete the job when you leave them to it.
3. A working environment that boosts productivity
Contrary to popular belief, the big mahogany table that will motivate a worker is not a luxury. It can actually have an exactly opposite effect – act as a distraction rather than motivation. When it comes to the workplace environment, it’s the subconscious that impacts the performance of an employee.
For instance, decoration of the right kind can stimulate productivity – putting floor rugs in every room will make the office feel warm and pleasant. The same is true for colors. Selecting the right colors for your office and all of its featured rooms will also boost productivity.
For example, the green color creates a feeling of peace and would be an excellent option for the break room, while the color white inspires sharpness and clearness of the mind – perfect for an R&D department.
4. Less frequent meetings
Sometimes, meetings are one of the biggest distractions at work, yet somehow we still don’t question their use, attend them, and ultimately, complain about them. According to statistics, executives see more than 67 percent of meetings as failures. No wonder, since 73% of persons multitask during one.
Before you appoint your next meeting, ask yourself whether the same goals can be accomplished by just using an email, telephone, or holding a Web-based meeting. If you do need a meeting, the evidence suggests that standing meetings – where everyone stands – can produce increased group motivation, decrease conflict, and improve the overall performance.
5. Keep everything clean
There isn’t such a thing called “creative chaos” – only disrupting one. Clutter all over the place is both a physical inconvenience and a distraction, which is why it should be cleared as swiftly as possible. Not only does clutter obstruct moving around the office, but it also can hide items that are necessary for work.
Just searching for these items makes you lose time, which could have been simply avoided in the first place. In addition, if you keep the place near you will make it more presentable for potential partners, investors and customers paying you a first-time visit.
6. Reduce multitasking in the company
Just like multitasking ruins meeting productivity, so does it ruin the overall productivity at work. While it is currently in fashion, trying to multitask everything and accomplish more than a single task at a time can actually be more damaging than beneficial.
Studies suggest that people who try to do two or more activities at once end up becoming unfocused, and the quality of their work suffers. Make everyone concentrate on one task at a time and complete it fully before moving on to the next one.
7. Create a work-life balance for everyone at work
In an age when every person has a smartphone in their vicinity, it can be hard to find time away from work. Although there is nothing wrong with completing a task or two after normal working hours, if you aren’t careful, you may find that work completely takes over your employees’ life as well as your own.
This will, in the long-term, end up as a complete disaster, since everyone will swiftly end in burnout and put their career in jeopardy. Time for hobbies, sports, and relaxation have to be in everyone’s schedule, regardless of how many projects need to be completed. Otherwise, professional life will ultimately end up suffering.
Increasing productivity is an ongoing task. The trick is, however, to take things one at a time. Slow implementation of each of the above tips into your workplace can make a world of difference. And remember, if you have the energy to improve, you’re already halfway there.
About Carson Derrow
