According to recent research, most American workers say they’re only productive for about one-third of their workdays. Many of them are spending less than 3 hours putting their all into their work each day.
Is employee productivity something that has turned into an issue within your company? If so, you should know there are steps you can take to boost productivity once and for all.
By increasing employee motivation, you’ll be able to see a change in both employee productivity and employee happiness. You’ll also enjoy better employee relationships with those who work for your company.
Are you prepared to give productivity levels within your company a big boost? Check out seven of the best ways in which you can do it below.
1. Lay Out Expectations for Employees
Have you taken the time to tell your employees exactly what you’re expecting from them day in and day out? Surprisingly, a lot of employers don’t provide their employees with lists of expectations from the start.
If you haven’t ever laid out expectations for your employees, it’s hard to blame them if their employee productivity is lacking. They might think they’re doing a great job based on what they believe they’re supposed to be doing each day.
Take it upon yourself to sit down with each of your employees to talk about your expectations for them. It’ll give them a much better idea of how they should be approaching their days.
2. Gives Employees Incentives for Reaching Goals
Your employees obviously collect paychecks for coming in to work every day. You might be under the impression that this should be enough to keep them motivated.
To some degree, this should get the job done. But you should also consider giving your employees additional incentives for hitting the goals you set for them. And we’re talking about doing more than just ordering some pizzas for them every few months!
There are so many other incentives you can dish out to your employees to improve employee productivity. For example, you could give them the opportunity to earn free days off. You could also provide them with other prizes, like gadgets, to incentivize them to work harder than they are at the moment.
3. Keep Your Workspaces Clean for Employees
Do you have your business cleaned by professionals on a regular basis? If you don’t, your workspaces might be very messy, and this can actually take a toll on employee productivity.
With this in mind, you should make cleanliness a top priority when it comes to your company’s headquarters. You should either hire a cleaning company to come in and help or figure out another solution for keeping things neat and tidy.
You might be surprised to see how much more productive your employees are when you set them up with clean places to work.
4. Provide Employees With Advancement Opportunities
If your employees get stuck working in the same positions for years on end, you shouldn’t be shocked if you see their productivity levels suffer. They might not feel like all the effort they’ve put into their jobs matters when you aren’t promoting them.
You should provide all your employees with the chance to advance within your company. Even if you have to create new positions for them, it’ll make them feel more challenged and inspire them to want to work harder than they have been to do a great job.
5. Help Employees Achieve Better Work-Life Balance
Are some of your employees spending almost every waking minute either working or thinking about work? Their work-life balance is clearly all out of wack.
Selfishly, you might love seeing them work this hard. But if they’re overdoing it, it’s going to begin to affect their employee productivity levels. You should try to get them to achieve a better work-life balance both for their own sake and for yours.
6. Take the Wellness of Employees into Account
The overall wellbeing of your employees is going to play a huge part in their productivity. If they’re always physically exhausted or if they’re stressed out beyond belief, it’s going to be nearly impossible for them to be as productive as you would like.
For this reason, you should make enhancing workplace wellbeing a bigger priority within your company. There are tools you can use to show your employees you care about their wellbeing. Don’t be afraid to use them to the best of your ability.
7. Ask Employees What Motivates Them to Be Productive
If you try some of the other things listed here and find that your employees still aren’t as productive as you need them to be, you might feel like pulling your hair out. But before you get too frustrated, there is one other thing you should consider trying.
How about simply asking your employees to tell you what motivates them to be more productive? You might get some great answers that’ll help you put new policies and incentives in place that’ll improve employee productivity in no time.
Give Employee Productivity a Boost Within Your Company
There is absolutely no way that every single employee who works for your company will be productive all the time. Even the best employees will usually only be productive for about 70% of the day.
But there is also no reason to settle for employee productivity that’s much lower than it should be. You should try out a few of the things we’ve mentioned here to boost productivity within your workplace.
Get more business management tips and tricks that will help improve employee productivity by browsing through more of our blog articles.
