6 Ways to Improve Employee Productivity
Employee productivity is an assessment of the efficiency of a worker or group of workers. The need to ensure and enhance employee productivity is a reality no business can ignore. Increasing employee productivity requires a rethinking of business as per usual.
Here are some eye-opening employee productivity statistics:
- Sleep deprivation means lost productivity. For American companies, this means lost productivity amounting to $63 billion.
- The highest-performing workers take breaks. The most productive employees are on break for nearly 30% of their workday.
- A whopping 70% of American employees feel disengaged at work.
- Firms with weaker engagement reported a little over six sick days per employee on average. On the other hand, firms reporting high employee engagement had an average of 2.5 sick days per employee.
- Highly engaged employees are almost twice as likely to have above-average productivity.
With these stats in mind, let’s look at ways to improve employee productivity in the workplace.
1. Communicate effectively and efficiently
Effective and efficient communication is an important aspect of any business. It’s one of those things that can make your business or break it. When an effective communication system is lacking, you’ll have difficulty functioning properly and achieving goals.
Communication that’s effective and efficient means that workers should know who to reach out to regarding their concerns. This means knowing the hierarchy and expertise within the company properly.
There are a variety of tools that can help you with this. For instance, you can instill a culture of sharing and helping across the enterprise by making use of cloud-based office suites like Office 365. You can also make it easier for employees to contribute to institutional knowledge by using social networking tools such as Yammer.
2. Increase employee satisfaction with great perks
Successful employers recognize the importance of appreciating employees with workplace benefits. Around 84% of employees said that perks were more motivating than financial rewards, according to a study.
Tech giants like Google and Facebook understand the value of on-the-job perks. They offer perks such as massage rooms, complimentary haircuts, and even nap areas. eMarketer gives out business books. Burton offers free ski passes. Twillo gives employees a Kindle and a monthly stipend to buy books. And Tesla employees save up to 35% on movie tickets.
You don’t have to be a Silicon Valley powerhouse in order to give your employees great perks. You could, for instance, offer free weekly lunches, or free coffee and snacks.
3. Set standards and provide skills development
Establishing standards is important in every business. This tip is courtesy of Mousa Ahmed, founder of Own It Detroit. Workers need to understand what their assigned roles are. This helps improve their productivity as they are familiar with what the company expects from them.
When explicit expectations are missing, employees will have a hard time achieving company goals. Therefore, be clear about what you expect from them at the outset. Define your expectations and lay down out a strategy which they’ll use to realize company goals.
Training greatly benefits both employers and employees, according to a 2013 study in the International Journal of Science and Research.
Additionally, let your employees realize that there are other things they can do besides the skills they’ve mastered. Provide opportunities for developing skills or advancing professionally.
4. Get more done with remote work
Studies have proven that those who work remotely get more done. According to research, remote workers perform better, take less sick leave, log more hours, and are generally more engaged at work.
By hiring remote workers, you can usually expect to reduce your overhead costs.
Unsurprisingly, companies are catching on. According to a survey by Global Workplace, remote work has seen a growth of 103% among non-self-employed telecommuters over the last decade. Also, Gallup reported that the number of employees working remotely jumped from 39% to 43% from 2012 to 2016.
5. Improve cultural fit with better recruiting
At its core, cultural fit means that employees’ beliefs and behaviors are in alignment with their employer’s core values and company culture. Think about an ambitious employee stuck in an organization that offers no room for development, tuition reimbursement or training.
Or imagine a company founder who believes that team projects and open office plan promote creativity and progress, but whose majority of employees are introverts.
Ensuring an employee fits in your business means looking beyond their skill set. According to a survey by Cubiks, results showed that 82% of companies thought that it’s important to measure cultural fit.
To understand an employee cultural fit during a recruitment, you could ask questions such as:
- What’s the last movie you saw in the theatre?
- What websites do you browse for fun?
- What book could you read over and over?
- What would be a deal breaker for you at a new company?
- What are common obstacles to achieving your work goals?
- What would be your ideal day at work?
6. Get rid of motivation killers in the workplace
Motivation killers in the office mess with the quality of work, employee satisfaction, and overall productivity. Therefore, it’s important to check your workplace for these motivation killers if you want to make sure you’re providing your employees with a thriving environment.
Examples of motivation killers include abrasive personalities, toxic people, poor communication systems, an absence of opportunities for professional development, lack of organizational vision, a feeling of lack of appreciation, and autocratic management styles.
Granted, enhancing and maintaining employee productivity isn’t always easy. However, as an employer, implementing some or all of these will greatly help your employees do their work more efficiently.
We hope you found this promoted post as entertaining and informative as we did!
