The average employee is only productive for less than three hours per day. And for companies that are dealing with remote work and various other challenges because of the global pandemic, this can be a big hurdle to overcome when trying to remain competitive.
But the good news is that while productivity isn’t something you can magically fix, there are ways you can enhance how your employees perform without having to micromanage their every move and by getting them excited about the prospect of getting more done in the time they have available.
Organize a Lunch and Learn
Education is a crucial part of success in the workplace. The business environment is continually evolving, so your employees need to learn and update their skills if they are going to remain productive and complete the assigned tasks.
However, a common problem businesses face is finding the time to squeeze in training days into a busy schedule that’s already causing enough stress for teams. Many employees would much rather have more time to spend on their tasks than step away from work to learn a skill they might not need right now.
But this is where a lunch and learn program comes in handy. As the name implies, it’s a combination of learning and lunch, where employees can enjoy their lunch while also learning something new.
For example, it could introduce a new tool that the company is starting to use, go over a strategy change, or even talk about an important topic that can impact productivity or office morale.
Sometimes, one of the employees can be the presenter, going over their experiences in overcoming a challenge or working through a project. Using a lunch and learn, you can encourage a more collaborative environment where employees share their successes and establish best practices that have been proven to deliver consistent results.
Make Productivity an Integral Part of Your Company Culture
The easiest way to ensure that your employees make the most of their available time is to establish a strong office culture that encourages innovation and efficiency.
But to do that, you need to figure out how to write a business plan that encompasses the best productivity practices available today, identifies the types of people that the company should hire, and considers the type of work environment that the employees need to have in order to perform at their best.
If you’re at the early stages of starting your company, you can easily make adjustments to how you launch by taking into account strategies for boosting productivity and getting more done with fewer team members.
And even if you’re already up and running, you can always revamp parts of your business model to better reflect the productivity needs of your company and make sure that both current employees and future hires are aligned with the company culture you’re trying to build.
Provide the Right Tools
One of the biggest bottlenecks in productivity is having to go through repetitive manual tasks that take up a large part of the day. After all, your employees are at their best when they can use their skills and knowledge, so you need to free up as much of their time for creative tasks that have the biggest value for your business.
And that means you need to leverage technology to improve productivity as much as possible. Whether it’s making communication easier through apps like Slack, centralizing project management through Asana, or even keeping track of time-wasting activities with a time tracking app, there are many ways you can streamline processes and ensure that every hour your employees have is spent on something worthwhile.
While it may take some time to fully embrace technology, the result will be a more cohesive, focused, and engaging workplace that gets right down to the core of the tasks that need to get done.
And over time, having efficient processes driven by technology will become an appealing proposition for prospective employees who want to work in a forward-thinking company that puts their teams in a position to succeed.
Minimize Meetings
Meetings are an unavoidable part of business operations. But while they do have an important role, you should aim to minimize the number of meetings you actually have as much as possible.
The good news is that if you implement communication tools as discussed in the previous section, you can turn many meetings into quick virtual updates, collecting feedback through questionnaires or simple messages and resolving questions without actually having to get together with the team.
Another effective way to boost overall office productivity is to be very strict about who needs to attend a meeting. Most of the time, even the most critical meetings can be handled by a few key decision-makers, who can then inform everyone else about the decisions and ask for feedback remotely, saving a lot of time in the process.
Conclusion
Improving productivity is a top priority for any company. But at times, finding ways to make employees perform at their best can seem all but impossible, especially when they are already overworked and stressed from current projects.
However, if you optimize processes, find time for learning, and minimize unnecessary activities, you can create more time for tasks that actually matter, which can have a huge effect on your company’s success.
