Productivity. The most crucial element for an employee and the employer in an organization. There are several things that are dependent on the productivity of employees, with the success of an organization leading the chart.
When your employees are productive, the chances of them achieving their targets are at an all-time high. As a result? The organization takes a step closer to success. Thus, the productivity and success of the organization are directly proportional.
Hence, if the productivity of your employees is in danger, it can be disadvantageous for the organization as a whole.
Now, with remote teams working from their homes, productivity has faced the biggest challenge ever. Many are finding it difficult to concentrate on work while sitting on their beds, in their blankets. Many do not have a proper setup. Moreover, the daily chores and other household tasks are just adding to the misery,
Thus, to help you tackle the same, read about the top strategies that have worked for many employees to keep their remote teams productive.
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1. Track every single hour
By every single hour, we mean to track the amount of time a task takes and to track the time your employees are starting and ending their work. This will help you understand which task is taking more effort and how many extra hours your employees are giving.
When you have both the information, you can easily delegate the tasks accordingly to your employees, without overburdening them with any kind of work.
The best tool for this is an employee time tracking app. This app has a solution for all your time-related issues. You can easily keep a track of your employee’s time with this tool. You can also see how much time your employees are spending on which website or an app. This tool can do wonders for you and your organization.
Moreover, when your employees understand that they are being watched, they will automatically perform better.
2. Encourage a proper, designated workstation
Everybody requires a place that is free of clutter and other distracting elements. This is what you want your employees to understand.
When you communicate with your employees, try to learn about their environment and work area.
Make sure they have a space that is designated especially for office work. When your employees have a particular place to work from, it will help them feel like they are working from their office itself.
Give them some time to try out different areas and choose the one that works best for them. Moreover, you can support your employees by offering to rent a table, chair, and other necessary equipment for them.
This will help them stay productive and it will make them feel like a part of your organization, thus encouraging them to perform better every day.
3. Keep the communication going
Communication is underrated. There are several conflicts and chaos that can easily be sorted out with just a few words. Thus, it is essential for you to keep the communication going. When your employees are communicating with each other, they can easily resolve any queries they might have or any doubts they might come across.
Also, it is only the communication that makes remote employees work as a team as and when required by the employers.
There are now several tools and software that employees can invest in. These communication tools, such as Slack, that allow you to either initiate instant messaging between employees. Or there are video conferencing tools that allow you to host virtual informal chat sessions of employees where they can talk about anything and everything they wish to.
4. Focus on recruiting better
Corporate culture plays a significant role in making the experience of your employees remarkable. There are companies that have cultures where employees are treated like family. This might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
A culture that is not accepted by employees will certainly act as a hindrance for many. Thus, it is always better to find employees that are pretty similar to other employees, at least when it comes to culture and value.
It is true that cultural fit might not seem like a critical factor when you are hiring an employee but it is still one of the most important ones.
This way, it will be easier for them to adjust to your organization and for your previous employees to accept them. The communication will be easy, work will be easy to streamline, and your organization will be climbing on the ladder to success.
5. Avoid micromanaging, encourage autonomy
With managers constantly scouting for little mistakes, pestering employees every now and then, or micromanaging, the productivity of employees can easily get hampered.
Like Robby Slaughter, a productivity expert said, the most effective tool that will help you improve the productivity of employees is when managers simply back off. It is important to give your employees a break if you wish for your employees to stay on track.
When managers constantly mingle with employees’ work, it hampers their confidence. It also makes it difficult for them to maintain their focus.
The best way to encourage productivity is by making employees responsible to take ownership of their own work, time, and resources. HR managers should look for employees who have the capability of becoming a self-starter/ Someone who will be able to operate independently when the need arises.
When you don’t try to control your employees, you will help develop a work ethic that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to witness.
6. Upskill employees
Adding more skills will obviously lead to more productivity. When your employees are well-trained or know a lot more than they did when they first joined, they are ready to take up more responsibility.
Make sure you are focused on the growth of your employees. Growth prospects in themselves act as a motivational factor for many employees to work harder and better. You can make sure you train your employees on their technical knowledge as well as other significant skills.
These skills could include manipulating spreadsheets, touch-typing, time management, and more. These are the skills that will help them manage their work well and also make sure that they have a good balance.
Training is beneficial for both you and your employees both. After all, your employees are the faces of your organization. The more trained they are, the better it is for your organization.
7. Promote mental health and self-care
Calling in sick at work is one of the most common reasons for work not getting completed and targets not being met. Encouraging self-care among employees will boost the productivity of employees like never before.
When your employees feel overpressured with work, they will lose their productivity. It will be difficult for them to find their motivation under all the workload. Money, in itself, would not be a good enough motivation when employees’ mental health is being affected.
They might even show up at work or for every meeting, but they will be mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. The more stressed your team is, the unhealthier it is for you as a team.
Thus, make sure that your employees are encouraged to take care of their health, no matter the level they are at. As an employer, you can do your part by listening to their problems, offering constructive feedback, and also by not setting too high expectations.
8. Don’t ask employees to avoid social media
It is true that social media is often seen as a hindrance when it comes to the productivity of employees. But there are several reasons that employees use social media for.
For a few, it is a mental break from all the work stress. While others might be leveraging social media platforms to build a professional network. When you completely shut the use of social media at the workplace, it can easily turn into a serious morale killer for employees.
When you put strict instructions and rules around the use of social media platforms, it conveys a message that you don’t trust your employees. Those workers who are social media experts, are often better multi-taskers, much happier, and thus overall more productive.
If you are worried that your employees will end up spending too much time on social media, you can use employee monitoring software to control that. Controlling the time they use social media is better than discouraging them to use social media altogether.
9. Offer perks
Perks and incentives are perhaps two of the most common motivational factors. An employee will get job satisfaction when he is offered relevant perks. These perks do not have to be all monetary. Take Google and Facebook, for example. These big brands offered perks in the form of nap pods, massage rooms, and also complimentary haircuts!
These perks are often preferred by employees over a pay raise. These additional perks help you to build a loyal team with increased productivity and morale.
If you have a traditional work arrangement, you can offer Kindle and monthly stipend to add books as Twillo does, or you can offer your employees a full two days off like REI and encourage them to do what they consider their favorite, or you can follow Tesla’s offer that allows employees to save up to 35 percent on movie tickets.
For remote employees, you can offer to sponsor a major portion of your employee’s course that they are planning to undertake.
10. Foster employee morale
Employee morale plays a significant role in improving the productivity of employees. The happier your employees are, the more engaged, hard-working, and smarter they will be. When your employees loathe their work or are not interested in the undergoing project, or who feel underappreciated for their hard work, they are bound to feel burnout.
After all, who would want to work and put their best foot forward when they don’t have any sort of motivation.
When you add raw materials like self-care, prioritizing mental health, open communication along the basic human needs of respect and trust, the result that you bake is going to be sweeter than you can imagine aka better employee productivity.
Thus, you should always nurture and foster employee morale if you are looking to improve employee productivity.
11. Ensure transparency
When there is transparency among employees, there will be trust. With trust comes more productivity.
You can ensure transparency in your organization by sharing every little detail of the projects with your employees. When they are not kept in the dark, they will try to empathize and help you achieve your targets.
Today, there are several digital tools that can help you achieve the same. Take project management software, for example.
You can divide a complex project into smaller tasks and assign them to employees easily with this tool. Give access to your employees. They will have every detail at a glance. They’ll know who is responsible for what and can easily talk to the person responsible in case of any doubts or queries.
This will help them achieve real-time solutions to their problems, which will help them stay focused and thus, productive.
Conclusion
Productivity is one of the most important elements that is needed to ensure the success of an organization. There are now plenty of tools and methods that one can make use of in order to ensure that their workforce is as productive as possible every day.
This is a guest post from eLearning Industry.
