4 Tips To Increase Employee Productivity

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At the centre of focus for any business is productivity, which is especially important during lean times. You don’t have the man hours to spare to idle chit-chat, daydreaming, and redos of large projects, so make sure that every minute an employee spends at work counts. Review these guidelines to see what you’ve been doing right and how you might also improve.

Delegate the work

Delegating is tricky because you want the right type of work to end up in the right employee’s hands, and each employee has their strengths and weaknesses. This is completely normal because it happens in every organization, so take a breath before you assign the appropriate tasks.

Once assigned, the employees are responsible for their work, meaning you shouldn’t cut them slack for missed deadlines and making sure they’re on track through the use of progress reports.

Trust your workers

Once the work is assigned, it’s time to be hands off — don’t micromanage, even if you’re tempted to. Let your employees learn from their mistakes and grow at their own pace, even if you’re chomping at the bit to see them contribute their best to the company immediately. Nothing interrupts the workflow more than someone peering over your shoulder and second-guessing every choice.

If an employee is taking longer than expected to get up to speed on processes, then you can step in. Otherwise, give them a reasonable amount of time to learn their role and excel in their positions given.

Give the appropriate feedback

It’s a mistake to watch your employees from a distance too far because productive feedback should be immediate. Don’t wait a week to tell them that they’ve made an error when you spotted it days ago since they may not even remember the actions they took which led up to the mistake.

Feedback includes both good and bad things so they’ll know what to continue doing and where they should make improvements.

Work on goal setting

Goals should challenge your employees to do their best without setting a standard that’s unreachable. You may find yourself asking what’s wrong with setting an unrealistically high goal? Well, the answer is your expectations also become high, and when those inevitably fail to be met, that puts you in a very dangerous position.

If you don’t follow through and make serious changes in the company, you’ll appear inconstant and unwilling to stand your ground, and if you do respond accordingly, that will put your employees in a psychologically strained position. Avoid making those decisions in the first place by setting good goals, as no one but you as the manager is responsible for doing so.