Productivity is everything in a business. You pay for your employees’ time, you pay for the tools they use, and in most cases, you pay for the workplace. If you’re missing hours from the working day because of low productivity, that’s money you’re throwing down the drain. It’s not always a good idea to get at them for wasting your money, however. Instead, you can maximize your investment by looking at and removing the existing barriers to that productivity.
Some new habits need to be taught
The simple organization of the working day can play a big role in how productive people are. When we spend too much time working on things that could be done later, when we let emails and messages interrupt our day, when we jump from task to task, we make it hard for ourselves to get into the zone. However, there are productivity boosting apps that can help teach habits that are much better. For instance, task management software doesn’t only give you a to-do list. It can help you choose with tasks are a priority, putting them at the top of that list. You can even use it to batch similar tasks together so you waste less time getting ‘into the groove’ of using a specific tool or piece of software. Being stricter with our scheduling can help as well. If we set an hour of dedicated email and comms time at the start of the day, we’re less likely to allow it to pop up later in the day.
They feel it’s not worth it
When a single individual seems like they just can put themselves into their work, it’s easy to say that maybe they need to go. When it’s becoming a more common problem throughout the office, you need to look at why people aren’t motivated. It might be that good work they’ve done isn’t recognized, so the occasional event of a corporate event, handing out award plaques and paying homage to achieve, might give people the motivation they need and the examples to follow. Other problems like a hostile workplace can be just as big a downer on team morale, so you need to figure out what exactly is getting your team down.
There’s too much on their plates
When you simply have too much of a workload, it’s hard to be productive. Not only does it make the task of organizing work as unwieldy as doing the work itself. It is also a big contributor toward chronic stress, which is just another reason people can lose the will to give their job their all. Sometimes you need to take a look at what duties someone is dealing with and see if you can help them do so. This might mean outsourcing certain tasks, automating others or even hiring someone new. If you let the burden of any one employee become too much, it can have a ripple effect across the whole business.
Most people do not want to be unproductive at work. They want to know that they’re doing things well and they want to achieve something with their day. Help them by finding what’s missing; what’s stopping them from doing just that. Then not only will you have a more productive workforce, but one that’s happier as well.
