The hours employees spend at work are never equivalent to their productivity time. Likewise, assigning them loads of tasks will not boost productivity. Instead, it would increase stress, one of the major factors contributing to lower job performance, dissatisfaction and high turnover.
Since the great resignation, many companies’ managements have been looking for ways to boost their productivity without stressing out employees.
Below are some of the best strategies to improve employee productivity.
Well-planned onboarding process
Many companies make the mistake of leaving the onboarding process to the human resources (HR) department. The HR, in this case, will do their best to familiarize the new hire with the workplace environment and company culture.
Doing their work, the HR will not hesitate to inform the new employees of the astounding benefits the company has to offer.
As much as this could help boost their morale, more is needed. The onboarding process should clearly state expectations if you intend to make a new hire productive.
Let them understand the purpose behind the company, a detailed description of your customers, the company’s culture, and the primary reason they were employed.
Their direct manager should be actively involved in the process, and they should be able to know what is expected of them within the next 12 months.
They need to understand how you measure success. Find a model employee to mentor and speak with them. Assign tasks they can finish quickly, review them and offer applicable feedback.
Also, provide them with the necessary tools and equipment needed to perform their tasks.
Create and implement transparent employee performance metric
Create an internal ranking system to track employees’ performance. The metrics should directly reflect the kind of productivity you are expecting.
Popular employee performance metrics include:
- Work quantity
Rate employees based on the number of assigned tasks they get done. It can be the number of sales made by the employee. Typing speed can be used to measure the work quantity of employees in data entry jobs.
- Work quality
This ranks employees on how well they handled the assigned tasks. The number of errors and ingenuity, among others, can be considered in this ranking. - Teamwork
For a company to succeed, its workers must work as a team. A good team player will not hesitate to reach out to others to offer assistance and also brainstorm with them. A survey or questionnaire can be used to gather the needed information for this metric. - Learning ability
It is not unusual for an organization to organize training for its employees. The effect and benefit of the training can be assessed among staff to gauge their learning ability. - Adherence to timeline
Finishing a task within the specified timeline is important to beat the overall project deadline. Score employees based on how well they meet up with deadlines for their assigned tasks.
You do not have to score individual metrics similarly; the rating should depend on how important they are to the company’s objectives.
Be transparent with the rating system and make the result accessible to all your staff.
To boost morale, you can introduce awards for the best-performing staff. Organize an office party to present them with custom trophies.
Set realistic goals with a deadline
Your employees need to understand your goal to help you achieve it. Assigning tasks without selling them the bigger picture will limit their productivity.
Also, your goals should be realistic and achievable within a reasonable time frame. Trying to complete a project that would take at least six months within one month will only be tantamount to unnecessarily stressing the employees; unless you are ready to increase the staff strength.
To effectively communicate the company’s goals with your employees:
- Be concise and clear.
- Allow all employees or team leaders to participate in setting the goals.
- Ensure everybody understands the goals and their roles.
- Let them know what they stand to benefit from the goals if achieved.
- Always remind them about the goals and deadlines at meetings.
- Give constant updates on the progress.
- Listen to their inputs and challenges.
Prioritize employee health and safety
Employees need to be healthy for them to be productive. Forcing them to work despite being sick is harmful.
A study by the Institute of Employment Studies in the UK discovered that company culture is responsible for presenteeism.
According to Harvard Business Review, presenteeism is the problem of workers showing up for work, but their performance is hindered by illness or a medical condition.
Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, absenteeism costs employers almost $150 billion yearly, while presenteeism results in about $1.4 billion loss.
Prioritize their health and also make sure the work environment is safe. Safety at the workplace makes employees happy and encourages them to stay longer at their organizations.
Various studies have discovered that happy employees are about 12 percent more productive.
Embrace feedback
Create a system for periodical performance reviews, at least once a year. This can be done by the direct managers whereby the employees’ strengths and weaknesses are communicated.
Ensure the feedback is objective and constructive. This way, they can know how to improve their productivity.
Likewise, welcome feedback from the employees too. They should be able to communicate their grievances. This way, you can adjust any policy that could make you lose your best employees.
