If every employee was on their A-game 100% of the time, businesses would consistently reach goals and achieve higher profits year in and year out.
But the sad truth is that in the US, employees are less engaged than they once were. Then an astounding 70% of American employees feel disengaged at work.
And it’s no better around the world, with only 15% of employees being engaged across 155 countries. This is causing a stunning $7 trillion loss in productivity.
Needless to say, this isn’t a category you want your company to fall into. So it’s up to you and your management teams to do whatever possible to create a workplace that promotes productivity.
If you’re worried about losing money due to a lack of productivity, then you’ll find these workplace productivity hacks useful.
Let’s review!
1. Create Efficient Workflows
Right off the bat, you need to make everyone’s jobs easier and more fluid. This way, there are few delays and hiccups along the way.
Each workflow you implement into your daily processes needs to be analyzed for efficiency. Are there ways you can enhance them to make them faster or more intuitive?
For instance, you may find that going digital will minimize lost paperwork that employees would spend countless hours searching for or recreating. Then there’s the onboarding of new employees – using digital documents and signatures can make the process seamless.
You can do this using a platform like Xodo Sign, which tracks and monitors documents requiring signatures. Then you can easily access and find all of your documents with ease.
Implementing a digital workflow is a clever way to eliminate unnecessary office supply expenses and speed up processes, such as the signing of contracts or training of new hires.
The more self-reliant your workers are, the less time your managers have to spend micromanaging.
2. Delegate Mundane Tasks to VAs
How many tasks do you and your employees perform each day that could be delegated to someone else? Surely, there are a number of tasks that are being performed that require little to no skill.
And that takes your workers away from doing more productive things. By delegating these tasks to virtual assistants you can save time and money.
These assistants can be general workers or even specialists in marketing, business communications, or any other area you need them for. Hiring a virtual assistant saves you money since you only pay them for the tasks they perform.
Bringing aboard a full-time assistant would cost a lot more since you’re paying for a salary and benefits, even when they don’t have as much to do.
By getting rid of the mundane tasks, you’ll enable your employees to get engaged in projects that truly matter.
3. Minimize Distractions
In the age of technology, it’s quite easy to become distracted. So it’s important to make rules that will inhibit certain activities to prevent distractions.
This includes the use of private social media accounts. If social media is a part of employee tasks, then only make it so they can log into company accounts. One way to do so is to use a tool like Hootsuite that combines all company social profiles into one platform.
This way, your workers never have to log into Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms.
Another policy to consider is requiring workers to turn off their phones while working. This way, they can focus on the task at hand. Then while on a break, they can check their devices.
You don’t want to implement a no-phone policy because this could potentially backfire on you. Workers have lives and family outside of work and they need to be accessible in the event of an emergency.
This will cause a lot of workers to break this rule, wreaking havoc on your employee retention rates. Plus, it’ll likely scare away new candidates, especially those from the millennial and Gen Z age groups.
4. Improve Your Workplace Experience
There’s nothing worse than trying to concentrate in a room that’s too hot or too cold. In this state, all you can think about is getting comfortable.
Be sure to set the temperature to a comfortable setting between 68 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit.
Besides the room temperature, you should also look to enhance the workspace. The desk areas can be enhanced by upgrading the desks and chairs.
Consider getting an ergonomic setup so that employees will feel less fatigued and strained. You can also have workspaces with standing desks and ball seats.
This is shown to keep workers from getting too lax and promotes productivity. Explore different options to see what would work for your particular workplace.
5. Offer Plenty of Support
During the onboarding process, you extend a helping hand for many months. Then once they get accustomed to their role, you take off their training wheels and watch them ride off into the sunset.
But this shouldn’t be your way of thinking. Instead, you need to offer continuous support to all of your employees – new and old.
Why is this essential? Because everyone is constantly taking on bigger and harder projects and may need help with the transition. This is especially true for workers that have recently been promoted.
The more support you offer, the more engaged workers will be in achieving the goals you set for them. There are various ways you can do this, such as by setting clear (and realistic) goals for them each week or month.
The easier to understand the direction of their work, the more inclined they’ll be to over-achieve. This is possible because they’re spending less time figuring things out and more time performing their work.
6. Equip Your Workers with Productivity Tools
Simply asking your workers to be more productivity is the equivalent to a teacher asking their students to be smarter. If you’re not going to supply the tools they need to achieve what you’re asking, then it’s going to be impossible for them to do.
For example, if a lot of time is being wasted, then you can install time-tracking apps onto their computers to help them see where their time is going each day. One tool is called Hubstaff.
In this platform, you assign your workers tasks. The employees start the clock and stop it while working on each task to accurately track the time spent on each.
Having that clock ticking away can help boost motivation to complete tasks quicker.
Another option is to implement communication and collaboration tools. This way, your teams are able to work together to complete projects.
Some of the top collaboration tools include Basecamp, Trello, Google Drive/Docs, and Asana. Then to make it easier to communicate, you can use Slack, Twist, or something similar.
7. Continue to Train Your Workers
Again, roles are always changing and evolving, so it’s important for your workers to change and evolve with them. One way to ensure this is to offer continuous training.
You can do this by offering digital or in-person workshops that show workers how to use new and emerging technologies and software.
If there are new tools you want to implement, like from the last section, then you’ll have to train workers not only to use the platforms but how to use it in the workplace.
Not everyone uses the tools the same way so you need to teach them how to use them to be more effective in their roles.
Training may also consist of educating employees on new data and insights in their industry. Maybe there are new techniques and venues they can use to make their jobs easier.
For instance, there may be a new social network that will connect them with potential prospects to sell to. You don’t want your business being left in the dust by competition, so ongoing training is essential.
8. Promote Self-Care
A lot of companies, especially larger corporations, lack interest in the well-being of their workers. Employees are a business’s number one asset so it makes sense to ensure they’re well taken care of.
One way to ensure this is to promote self-care. You can offer incentives to employees who work out, eat healthier, and take breaks.
Then you can also improve the lunches offered in the cafeteria so they’re healthier. The better the well-being of your workers, the more energy they’ll have. And, in turn, this will boost their productivity.
Having a team of tired, over-worked, overweight, and under-nourished workers aren’t going to bring you the high productivity you desire.
Start Making Improvements for Higher Workplace Productivity
Ready to start improving workplace productivity in your organization? Then it’s time you implement these tips into your strategy.
These are just some of the ways you can help your workers become better at what they do – help your business grow.
So get started analyzing your workplace to see which of these tips will help your organization improve. Then let us know in the comments what you did to enhance your productivity results!