One of the most important pieces of the company puzzle is the people who work there. Employees – productive employees – are the ones who will make your company a success. They’ll execute your business for you and ensure that things run as smoothly as possible. Productive employees are happy, paid and looked after employees, and if you are doing all that you can to look after yours, you’re going to reap the rewards in the way in which they work.
If you want your staff to be more productive, you need to consider that they have to be treated well – and that’s up to you. The problem is that so many employees are burnt out these days. We’re working longer hours for less pay, and these things are not a good recipe for motivation and productivity in the workplace. For those in the restaurant industry, there are guides like the 12 Restaurant Scheduling Tips For A More Productive Team, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t apply some of those tips to your circumstances in your current industry. If you want your staff to be more productive, you will need all of the tips below.
- Start with workplace conditions. If you want to have a team of productive and happy employees willing to work well, you need to ensure that the place in which they are working is a good one. You want your office to be comfortable, well lit and warm. You also want to make sure that they’re working in a temperature controlled environment where you are putting their comfort first.
- Focus on emails. There are so many things that annoy employees and meetings are one of them. Unnecessary meetings that take them away from their tasks at hand and put them in the boardroom are a problem, and yet you can focus more on email and show your staff that you care about their time being spent well. Blocking in time for email checking in the morning and through the day is a smart move to make your staff more productive. There are so many meetings that can be put into an email, helping your staff to use their time wisely.
- Allow flexibility. One of the hardest things for employees is working for a rigid employer. Sure, there’s a level of rigidity required when you plan to run a business but you’ll find people much more productive when you give them options. Allow flexible scheduling and allow your staff some control over their working environment. Instead of having your staff working eight hours in the day, change your work day to two four-hour days! While you’re allowing flexibility in scheduling, choose to allow your staff to work remotely, too!
- Offer learning opportunities. If your staff know that you are in the business of offering better working opportunities, they’ll work smarter and better for you. It can make such a difference to productivity when there is an employer willing to offer training. Your employees want a job with progression and no ceiling to worry about, so provide training to as many employees as possible.
- Stop being a helicopter. No one likes a micromanaging boss – neither do you, or you wouldn’t have started your own business. Delegating tasks is going to be a game changer for you, and yet managers often struggle letting go of specific tasks. Don’t be that manager. You hired and trained these people, so you can trust that they will be able to handle the tasks that they are given.
- Do what you can to improve communication. Teamwork makes the dream work and while that’s the most cringeworthy phrase, it’s still true if you want to make your staff more productive. You want to have a collaborative workplace, and that means putting emphasis on your employees communicating together. It’s even the remote employees who can communicate better when you foster it. Building teamwork purposefully is important and you can start with hosting webinars and casual get togethers, and move forward with targeted training. Your staff need to be more productive and this is much easier with collaboration and communication. Your company might use a range of communication tools but the best one that you can use is the one you have in your hand – your voice! Talk up and get to know the people working for you. Ask them how they like to communicate!
Productivity is very important in a business, and you are more than able to look after your staff and enhance their motivation and productivity when you are. You just have to keep their best interests in mind at all times.
