If you are an employer or a manager who has a team of juniors, you might always have these questions in mind. How do you realistically improve the productivity of your team? Motivation and micromanagement might not always get received well by your employees. When you see other teams getting results effortlessly, it might look more frustrating.
It is essential to understand that every employee is capable of becoming productive. There is only a need to guide them in the right direction. So, who better than you to guide them and make them aware of their potential? There’s help at hand as we bring to you this guide that shows how you can improve your teams’ productivity.
Employee productivity: What does it mean?
When your team works efficiently and effectively, it means they are working productively. They generate results for your company by making the best use of their time. However, it is also about doing more than just getting the work done. Your employees need to finish their tasks without spending too much time on them. It will mean they finish their work within deadlines.
When they do a quality job, the output will match or exceed your expectations. They will additionally not spend their valuable time doing meaningless tasks. They will understand what work they need to prioritize and finish them first.
1. Factors affecting team productivity
61% of employees have reported in a survey that they faced a work burn out.Several issues can plague productivity. In most cases, there is more than a single source to the problem. Many of these problems will be beyond your control. But there will be a lot of things you can do to improve employees’ productivity. Let’s take a look at some issues that affect team productivity.
Skills
If your team members do not have the right skills to do their job, it will show in the results. A competent employee with the right skills will deliver better performance and in less time. On similar lines, organizational skills are critical for them to do productive work.
Health and wellbeing
Employee burnout is usual, which happens because of work-related stress. Productivity gets hampered as employees cannot concentrate on their work due to stress.
There is also an increased possibility of an employee making errors. In the long run, the health of an employee will get compromised as stress suppresses the immune system.
Work processes
Teams often spend more time figuring out things due to inefficient work processes. They will spend much less time doing the actual job in such scenarios. Finding out the right resources to finish their tasks successfully always remains a concern for employees.
Work atmosphere
As the world is shifting towards the remote style of working, employee preferences are changing. Some people thrive in office environments, while others can work productively in the comfort of their homes. Having control over the environment helps an employee perform better.
Ambiance
Ambiance includes everything right from office furniture to lighting and everything in between. Employees spend a major portion of their day in the office. It is thus essential that they get an environment where they feel the most comfortable about themselves.
2. How to measure productivity?
Calculating productivity depends on varied factors like the company’s strength, industry, products, and services. Here are the different factors to measure productivity.
Tasks finished
You can measure productivity by calculating the number of tasks finished by an employee in a specified time. It is ideal for jobs that have repetitive tasks.
Percentage of duties fulfilled
You can set fixed goals for your employees and ask them to fulfill them. When they complete a certain portion of it, it will help you identify their productivity.
Earnings per employee
It works in the case of large teams. Businesses can divide the total revenue generated by the number of employees.
Involvement
It is ideal when your employees are working remotely. The level of their activities and involvement will be an indicator of their productivity.
3. Top reasons to measure productivity
If you don’t calculate productivity, you will never be able to identify problem areas. So, you will not be able to improve. Just like other areas of business, you need to track productivity and propose areas of improvement. Here are some benefits of measuring productivity.
Find star employees
There will always be some employees who outshine others at work. It is thus essential to find out those star performers as they can help you accomplish much more. They are likely to have better skills that they can also pass onto the other team members.
Increase profits
A productive employee will finish work much faster. When you find areas of improvement, you can improve work efficiencies for better deliveries and increased profits.
Find problem areas
When you identify bottlenecks, it becomes easy to overcome them by redefining our approach. Some of these include having clearly defined work guidelines and a proper workload.
4. Tips to improve employee productivity
Now that you know why employee productivity matters, here are some tips on how to improve it.
Avoid micromanaging
Micromanaging your employees might not be the intention. In-house employee monitoring is ideal when done in a better way. Define your expectations and allow them to do their job.
Define expectations
When you define the expectations in clear terms, your employees will understand better what they need to accomplish.
Hire the right employees
You would want employees who match your work culture if you are to get results from them. Every employee should have that attitude to make an impact through their work.
On-the-job training
Training programs are ideal opportunities for employees to enhance their skills and achieve better results. Regular training can also help employees keep motivated and engaged.
Reward your employees
Employee rewards platforms such as Empuls will make it easier to automate the process of rewards and recognition.
Identifying and rewarding the achievements of your employees is the best way to keep them motivated. They will go a step further to improve their performance the next time.
Bottom line
Boosting the productivity of your employees is not tough if you identify the problem areas. You can make a list of improvements and start working on them religiously.
It is also essential to involve your team members at all stages of this process. It will make for a collective team effort and you can see the changes in a couple of months.
