Employee productivity dips aren’t something uncommon. It happens to all of us, even to our most conscientious employees. But when they do happen actions must immediately be taken because once a person begins to underperform, this can easily turn into a chronic problem that may affect long-term business results.
In short, employee productivity is vital to your business’s success. It can either make or break a company.
To improve employees’ performance is not a one-night event, it can take months or even years to build the perfect company culture that your employees can benefit from.
Productivity increases when these two main factors that determine it are at their best:
Productivity — Number of completed tasks
Effectiveness — How much effort was put into each specific task (work smarter not harder)
You need to reach the perfect balance to achieve the desired results and thrive.
5 Reasons That Affect Your Employee Productivity
#1 Lack of a monitoring system
If you haven’t invested in an employee monitoring software tool, then it is time you did. That would be the perfect starting point for improving employee productivity, especially during the still ongoing pandemic. Being able to track how many tasks your employees are working on, and how they are managing them, will immensely help in optimizing their workflow. By doing that you will ensure that they are not loaded with a ton of work, but just enough to fill their work time. Your employees will have enough time to focus on delivering high quality work while still being productive.
A couple more benefits of monitoring include:
- Ensuring that safe practices are being followed
- Reducing the chance for theft
- Helping you uncover problems
Keep in mind that you should only be tracking their work and not invading their privacy. Making them feel devalued or violated may do more damage than reducing their productivity alone.
#2 Company culture
There are a couple of things we should discuss when it comes to company culture. Those are:
- Work Environment — We do not refer to it as just a physical location and its conditions. It can start from the design of the office, ethics, goals, company vision, all the way to the processes and procedures. Research has shown that companies that emphasize on relationship building and rewarding teamwork drastically improve productivity, while businesses whose structure is based on hierarchies and individual success often derail productivity. This can be improved by adjusting your hiring practices. Hiring employees that will help energize and motivate your current employees is exactly what your business needs.
- Employee Direction — If you want your employees to know what is expected of them you as the owner/manager should make a clear and strong direction regarding that. Strategy clarification is a must in a situation like this, where employees must know what goals they are working towards.
- Collaborative Culture — It’s a must to have collaboration among your employees to maximize their knowledge and capabilities. Managers are the only people to rely on improving the collaborative culture, the entire organization must take action to increase overall productivity. Collaborative cultures yield other benefits, including a better retention rate of employees and improved engagement between them.
#3 Lack of communication
It is essential to have effective company communication among your employees if you want your business to survive and thrive. Lacking good communication can cause a detrimental effect on your business. It can be felt not only between employees but even leaking externally to customers.
With a clear direction from management, employees will start feeling connected with each other. That alone will improve satisfaction, performance, and engagement between employees.
Ensure your employees are connected to your company goals, by doing that you will negate a range of negative outcomes.
#4 Incentivize Employees
Rewarded efforts lead to a drastic increase in productivity and retention. Put the bonus system aside for a while that should not be the only reward they receive.
What about a free lunch? We all love food, especially when it’s free. If you see productivity above a certain level, there is no reason why you shouldn’t reward your employees with free lunch. Make sure you organize it on a day where everybody can attend, you wouldn’t want anyone to feel left out.
Gym memberships are perfect for surprising your employees. Exercising not only makes you feel in better shape, but it also improves your focus and energy. Keeping your employees healthy will undoubtedly improve their productivity.
#5 Multitasking
While multitasking may sound productive, it’s not as efficient as you think. Truth is, our brains can’t handle several complex tasks at once, and that’s why we sometimes unintentionally hurt our efficiency.
We hate to break it to you, but yes, listening to music while working actually makes you underperform.
Instead of doing multiple tasks at once, make a list of things you need to get done and place a realistic timeframe on all of them. Devote yourself to complete everything without any distractions, may your motivation be the faster you get all of your tasks done, you will have more time to focus on improving other skills.
If you or your workers are overwhelmed with tasks, the best thing to do is to take a break every now and then to clear and refresh your minds.
End Result
At the end of the day, you need to put yourself into your employees’ shoes to clearly see what needs to be changed and improved.
Remember, to achieve your corporate goals it is paramount to keep your employees as motivated as possible and to promote a good organizational environment.
