12 Best Strategies to Improve Employee Productivity

Employees productivity matters in order to maximize the output within the least amount of effort. This blog will serve you the answer to the following questions:

• What is employee productivity?
  
  
• Why is employee productivity important?
  
  
• What are the strategies to boost the employees productivity?
  
  
• What are the benefits of employee productivity?

Every organization expects high productivity from its employees. But, dealing with employees and understanding them is not an easy job.

It requires great strategies to overcome this problem.

So, are you an employer losing golden opportunities because of poor employee productivity?

Do your employees not deliver the work as per your requirements and you're worried?

If so, this blog is the right guide for you.

Did you know?

In the USA, each year, it costs employers a loss of $1.8 trillion because of poor productivity.

That is HUGE!

So that means if the workforce inefficiency is overcome these employers could achieve the unthinkable.

This issue can be beaten just by following these 12 strategies.

Number 8 is the one many of us often ignore but has huge effects.

But first, let's define employees productivity.

What is Employee Productivity?

In simple words, employees productivity is the output per worker per hour.

Employers identify the need of deploying more or fewer workers on any project based on this metric.

Clockify defined some measures of employees productivity.

For easy understanding, productivity is measured through generated revenue. If productivity goes up, revenue follows and vice versa, resulting in profit or loss.

Not all employees are productive.

Their productivity depends on their interest, motivation, and work satisfaction.

Importance of Employee Productivity

The importance of employee productivity is quite a simple concept to understand. Like the more productive your staff will, the more work will be getting done, moreover, carry out the heap of benefits.

Some clear benefits of employee productivity

• A productive employee means a staff who completes their work at the time or before the targeted time. Thus, their remaining time can be assigned to the other task. Here "Time is Money" prover is best suited.

• If your employees are productive then their quality of work as well as the time taken to accomplish a single task, dramatically improve.

• If you have a productive workforce who are dedicated to their work, then it will lighten the path for the organization to achieve its goal.

Top 12 Strategies to Boost the Employee's Productivity

The metric of employees' productivity is calculated based on output against their work.  Thus, tracking and maintaining employees' productivity is essential for business. There are some general things that boost employees' productivity.

The following strategies will help you succeed as an employer to increase employees' productivity.

#1. Communication is the key to employee's productivity

Communication means two-way talking. So you need to talk as well as listen, not just dictate.

This is will result in high employee engagement.

By communicating you can eradicate misconceptions, and misunderstandings, and clearly define your requirements.

When you communicate you understand the employees. You observe them and know if they are motivated or not.

Likewise, the employees are relaxed knowing that if they face a problem they can clarify it by asking questions.

This overcomes barriers and employees rather than spending more time understanding work by themselves can concentrate on their main roles.

Did you know?

According to Mckinsey's report, workers on average spend 20% of their workweek either gathering information or track someone who could help them in specific tasks.

This means.

This needs to be worked upon if you need better results.

#2. Set SMART goals if you want high worker productivity

If you need your targets to be achieved it is important to set SMART goals.

Smart goals give a direction to both you and your employees.

How?

According to set criteria, you form specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely goals.

You can track and evaluate your employees' performance and so can they form their list of targets to achieve.

If goals are generalized or seem impossible to attain they would lead to ambiguity.

With unclear job roles or un-SMART employee goals, your personnel would remain confused, unable to finish the timely tasks.

This means the business will suffer.

It is wise to set short targets that are not micromanaged.

Micromanagement requires perfection in every detail.

Focusing on the minute details would mean losing track of the bigger goals.

So, define outcomes instead of steps and let your employees do the rest.

#3. For higher employees productivity, omit unnecessary meetings

Meetings are held for two-way updates and inputs.

They're good to keep track of employee performances as well as give updated insights to employees. But, an overdose of everything is hazardous.

Unnecessary meetings every day for conveying smaller messages or so can greatly decrease employees productivity.

Let's be practical. Not all employees are confident enough to speak in front of others. Daily, uninformed meetings would just scare them.

They'd spend more time on preparation than on the main work. Moreover, if they make blunders they won't get over the embarrassment easily.

All these hassles are just time-consuming leading to lost productivity.

Use emails to convey shorter updates if important. Help them focus so they give you better outputs.

#4. Train and develop to create a productive workforce

Training and development are a critical features that smooths the way for high efficiency.

Well-trained employees become experts in their field.

With training they get their skills polished which boost's their morale.

You need to succeed in providing training that is need's specific.

When done right, this will develop the employees professionally.

These employees would then work hard to return the organization's favour.

A survey conducted by Udemy revealed that 79% of workers believe training enhances staff productivity.

Furthermore, research tells training motivates employees.

Motivated employees are more committed to their work. This eventually reduces the turnover rate too, bringing a good name to your organization.

What more would you want than a highly committed workforce?

Moreover, these employees would also practice knowledge sharing and support those who struggle.

Problem solved!

Train one employee and see the whole workforce being extra productive. Motivated employees lead to higher commitment and reduce employee turnover, enhancing your organization's reputation.

#5. Allow remote working as it increases productivity

The covid-19 outbreak made many new trends that are here to stay for long.

The top trend among all is the remote working practice.

Surprisingly, in Mexico, 72% of employees reported high productivity, while working from home.

This figure cannot be ignored.

Analyzing closely, working from home can be extremely beneficial for both you and your employees.

How?

Let's suppose,

Your employee is a part-time student and has an upcoming exam on weekdays.

He then takes leave to attend the exam but suddenly the exam gets postponed to next week.

Do you see the damage done here? Two days wasted as he will take an off next week too.

So, be smart and let your employees work remotely so the organization's productivity doesn't suffer. Not even for a single day.

#6. Trust and dedicate responsibilities to your employees

Fear is normal when it comes to trust and dedicating responsibilities. Your employees may not execute the projects the way you want them to.

Does that mean you have to head all the activities on your own?

Well, that is not humanly possible.

Handling everything without consulting others will drain your energy. You then may not be able to do things that you're very good at maybe market analysis.

It is better to trust and assigns duties. Let them do what they're good at while you focus on the bigger picture.

Picking out minor mistakes will just lead to frustration and your own productivity will decline.

Don't let the company suffer and believe in your workers.

Employees when entrusted with important tasks would make extra efforts to not let you down.

So, be positive about your employees' productivity.

#7. Take actions to reduce burnout

Employees perform least when their mind is preoccupied with different unaccomplished tasks.

How can they work well when they feel overburdened?

They would rarely meet deadlines in such circumstances.

Unable to manage work and constantly feeling worthless would just panic them resulting in reduced productivity levels.

As an employer, you need to be considerate about their situation.

Don't burden them so much that they keep on juggling with never-ending tasks.

Rather, carry out fun sessions to prevent burnout.

You can also offer paid time off (PTO) or mandatory vacations so they could just sit back and relax. More than 60% of Gen Z worldwide reported these benefits would make them more productive.

Ever thought, what is it that makes Google so different from the rest?

They have made their workspace so entertaining that employees enjoy it while working.

Be the next Google.

#8. Provide proper ergonomic supplies

Ergonomic refers to the comfortable design of the work environment. An uneasy workspace can be a big productivity detractor.

Imagine trying to work on something technical but your back hurts because your seat is troubling.

You would focus more on the pain than on your work resulting in inefficiency.

Similarly, your employees would be unproductive too if they're in the same boat.

A study by the Spine Research Institute stated that backaches indirectly cost reduced employee productivity.

Make sure, your office has a good physical design.

If you require concentration then you need to facilitate that too.

For better performance, make sure the room has proper furniture, lights, clean drinking water, and the likes.

#9. Provide incentives

Offering incentives and other perks to encourage employees to be more efficient are one of the most effective ways to improve employee efficiency. You might want to consider providing extra incentives to your staff who perform well and generate exceptional work.

You can institute many incentive programmes, like equity incentive plans for the C-suite, that may drive employees to take more initiative in their professions, ranging from organization-wide appreciation to real monetary bonuses.

#10. Celebrate achievements

Managers sometimes neglect to invest time to praise employees who accomplish critical outcomes and work to propel their association's main goal. Make sure you focus on the accomplishments your group has made as a result of their efforts. 

Investing in some opportunity to compliment your colleagues on their great work will assist them with feeling esteemed and can urge them to stay predictable and perform profoundly in their future projects.

#11. Be a good leader for your employees to be more productive

Leadership is a premium quality that can change your organization's fate.

It takes leaders to get down to the level of employees to create understanding.

Unfortunately, not all managers are trained to lead. According to Udemy's survey, 60% of respondents think managers need more training on management.

As an employer, it is important to work as a team and not put all load on the employees. This way, you can manage uncertain difficulties on spot reducing bigger damages.

Employees will feel safe knowing that they have your support.

Learn to forgive mistakes to promote innovations.

These traits along with many others will motivate employees towards productive performance.

#12. Give regular feedback

Feedbacks are a means to let employees know about their strengths and weaknesses.

How often you provide this feedback is what counts.

Annual feedback has a disadvantage. They can be unfair because if an employee performed well throughout the year but couldn't right before the time of evaluation they'd suffer.

Annual feedbacks can be demotivating for some, decreasing employees productivity.

Make sure you provide regular feedbacks every week. It is reported by a survey that 43% of highly engaged employees get weekly feedback. Additionally, 65% of employees want more often feedback.

Emphasize more on employee strengths than on weaknesses but, do find a way to overcome those laggings.

This will further improve the employees in their area of expertise and they will try to be better at their weaknesses too.

A win-win situation for all!

Employees Productivity Metrics

There are a number of metrics considered to track the performance of employees. The metrics are dependent on the type of work employees do. Performance is directly proportional to the employees productivity. 

Companies can monitor the performance of the employees through the quality of the work, achieved goals, work efficiency, and learning implementation. These are the common employees productivity metrics.

Here are some more employees productivity metrics that every business should consider while measuring performance:

• Number of errors
• Number of goals achieved
• Time take to complete a single task
• Quality of works
• Skill enhancement

Productive Employees mean Productive Organizations

Productivity is a consequence of efforts and the right implementation of strategies. It doesn't happen overnight as Paul J. Meyer quoted:

"Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort."

Above are the ways to motivate employees and increase productivity. It is your duty as an employer to strategize well to reap positive outcomes and happy employees.