MightyRecruiterBoth you and your employees will be happier if you learn how to increase workplace productivity. It’s important that every moment an employee spends at work is spent wisely and for the overall benefit of your company, and the same goes for any projects you’re currently working on and have coming up. To help you with this, it’s a great idea to create a checklist to increase workplace productivity.
‘Tis the Season
Timing is everything, and the same is true of improving your workplace productivity. You’ll want to meet with your managers (possibly even your entire company) once a year to determine which of your activities are essential to your overall business strategy and which can be either changed or eliminated outright. To help make this specific task easier, there are three categories into which you’ll want to divide workplace activities:
Those that are the most essential and require the most focus
Those that are important but not essential to the overall performance of your company
Those that are either entirely unnecessary or redundant
One you’ve divided up company activities, your checklist to increase workplace productivity will be that much more focused.
Prepare for Heartache
Know that improving productivity is equal parts pleasure and pain. Some managers may have to give up or reduce their efforts on certain projects while others will finally be able to get started on theirs. This is something you should make clear from the beginning of your productivity meeting in order that everyone can prepare themselves.
Added into this hurdle is the fact that your company culture or philosophy may clash with decisions you make regarding your checklist to increase workplace productivity. For instance, if you’re a company that prides itself on seeing matters through to the end or not compromising on value or quality, it may feel downright wrong abandoning a project or reducing your efforts on the project.
Consider Employee Activity and Productivity
Your employees are sure to be instrumental to your company productivity, and for that reason their activity and productivity should be compared. The best way to do this is to start keeping track of productivity levels from month to month, that way you have something to compare every year. Be sure in addition to overall productivity and activity that you also note the number of employees you have for each department. You might even want to divide overall productivity up by days, weeks and months.
On a related note, you should also be upfront with your employers if you monitor their computer usage, whether it be to see who’s doing what while in front of the computer screen or to better measure overall productivity. Understandably, employees don’t like it when you mention you keep track of their web activity after they’ve been called out for going to Facebook too many times during the workday.
The Checklist
Items that should be added on the actual checklist to increase workplace productivity include:
Ensuring all managers have an active role in the process
Improving productivity at the department level as well as the company level
Determining which activities you’re most unlikely to start again if you haven’t already gotten started on them
Deciding how essential projects, tasks and goals are on a regular basis, making sure you discontinue those that are deemed less important
Making sure the process you use to decide which tasks are important and which are unimportant is consistent and clearly understood by everyone involved
Syncing ïspring cleaningï up with employee opinion surveys and chance processes
Set Goals and Encourage Employee Growth
Once you’ve compiled your checklist, it’s time to use the information to set goals for your employees and managers. Let your team know what specific changes will be made, how you plan on making those changes and how you plan on evaluating whether or not you’ve achieved the results you desire. Aside from major goal deadlines to go with your checklist to increase workplace productivity, you should also have regular check-ins where you give employees and managers an idea of how well on target you are for achieving your goals. This lets everyone know how well they’re doing and is also an opportunity to do some course correction if necessary. After these check-ups, be sure to reward those who are doing a good job and find ways to help those who seem to be in need of it.
For more tips on improving your workplace productivity and effective strategies for running your business and finding all-star hires, don’t hesitate to explore more of the tools and articles here on Mighty Recruiter.