Sometimes a company can have a fantastic product that customers do want and still fail. When this happens, there can be many different possibilities for what lead to that breakdown. However, one of the most common sources is often poor productivity in a business’s workforce. US companies lose $450 to $550 million every year due to low productivity among employees.
Lack of productivity can eat into your bottom line and pose a serious long term threat to your company’s survival. You need to do what you can to ensure that your employees remain engaged and productive while on the clock. Below are some tips you can use to increase your employees’ productivity and efficiency.
Monitor Computer and Phone Usage
Computers are wonderful tools. They can certainly be an important part of worker productivity by supplying employees with the software they need to complete important tasks. They can also be a distraction thanks to the internet, social media and video games. 39 percent of people admit to wasting time at work browsing the internet, and 38 percent admit to wasting time using social media while on the clock.
You should also be aware that this doesn’t only happen on the computers you provide to employees. Many employees think they can get around that rule by wasting time on their smartphones instead. Make sure employees know this is specifically against the rules and inform them that they will also be monitored while connected to the company’s Wi-Fi on their phones. Consider adopting time tracking software into your business so you can have more control over monitoring your employees productivity and ensure that they are abiding by the rules.
Slash the Number of Meetings
Sometimes meetings are important. They can be great strategy sessions for an office. The idea behind the meeting certainly has merit. However, many companies go completely overboard. They schedule so many meetings that they begin to lose the point. In the end, they become huge timewasters.
In fact, the pointlessness of meetings is so off the rails that 39 percent of employees admit to sleeping during them. There’s no universe in which a sleeping employee is a productive employee. If you want to increase productivity, limit the number of meetings to a minimum. The ones you do have will be more important as a result.
Provide Proper Working Space
Sometimes the workplace can be the culprit for harming worker productivity. If your current Dallas office is so cramped that it feels like all your workers are crowded together, consider contacting a Dallas moving company and moving into much larger office space in another part of town. Giving employees some space to work apart from each other can increase their productivity.
Improve Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is crucial. Engaged employees are much more likely to be productive employees. In fact, companies with highly engaged employees reported that they had 2.3 times greater growth in their revenue over a three year period compared to companies without engaged employees. Engagement can be a huge difference maker. Make increasing employees’ engagement with their work a priority.
Provide Direct Feedback to Employees
One reason why employees may be unproductive in a workplace is because they believe their efforts really don’t matter. You need to make sure that employees do feel like their efforts are being recognized by the company on a one on one basis. Do this by providing direct feedback to employees about the work they’re doing.
This includes negative feedback for poor work and positive feedback when they are doing a good job. Simply recognizing the effort employees make in this way can make them feel much more motivated to do a good job day to day. Without this feedback, they may not see much of a difference between working hard and slacking off.
Overall, you need to make increasing employee productivity a priority for your company. You need your employees to be productive to ensure that your company has the efficiency and momentum it needs to make a healthy profit. Consider instituting some of the strategies above to increase productivity in your workplace.
