How to Easily Engage Your Employees to Achieve Ultimate Productivity In The Office or From Home
Every business should prioritize helping their employees achieve ultimate productivity. It can seem daunting to guide your workforce to be highly efficient; however, there are simple ways to engage your team and steer them on the right path. Check out these best practices to help your workers be as productive as possible.
Eliminate Distractions
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No matter if your employees work from home or in the office – distractions are the enemies of productivity. Repeated interruptions can drastically slow down your workforce. Get your team on the same page by introducing a busy light. These easy-to-use productivity tools with indicator lights help prevent distractions.
The green light indicates that it is a good time to collaborate or talk. A red light indicates do not disturb – it’s as simple as that.
Visual communication systems such as Luxafor Flag keep workers from breaking concentration and losing time. Periods of deep focus and collaboration keep everyone on track and sets priorities. What more could you ask for as a manager?
You can read more on how to eliminate distractions when working from home here.
Encourage Collaboration
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Superiors should encourage collaboration between co-workers. Team leaders should find a happy medium between independent and group work, as collaboration brings to light fresh perspectives and prevents mental blocks.
If your team is working from home, you’ll find our Action Plan for fostering remote team productivity useful.
Dividing and conquering make tackling a major initiative much easier. Breaking down a task into smaller chunks helps team members set priorities. Individual priorities allow employees to focus their energy on specific tasks that, in turn, make completing the entirety of the project easier.
Foster Employee Wellness
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Fostering a culture of corporate wellness is essential to productivity. Healthy and content employees stay on task and are often more willing to work hard. There are many ways to incorporate employee wellness into your business’s daily routine.
Here are some tips to help you achieve this:
- Dedicated Spaces & Mindfulness
One way to improve your employees’ health is to create a mindful office space. Dedicate an area where your team can take a load off. Have comfortable seating, plenty of natural light, and some pleasant decorations. In a comfortable space, workers can take a break and practice mindfulness.
Mindfulness is a great technique to help overwhelmed workers compose themselves. Mindfulness re-channels negative energy and helps to alleviate anxiety. By practicing mindfulness, employees can feel refreshed and recharged. It’s amazing how promoting wellness and a relaxing work environment can make your workforce feel calm and engaged. Apart from a zen space, workstations need to be designed with the individual in mind.
- Ergonomic Workstations
Office ergonomics is critical to employee wellness. Workstations with ergonomic designs help employees feel more comfortable and productive. Make sure that your office setup promotes physical well-being. Workstations need to be fit for the needs of each individual. Allow for a mix of standing and sitting workstations. Some people work better while standing, and others while sitting. Seating options such as a yoga ball or a bean bag chair may keep your workers more satisfied. Be open to employees having a little freedom with their workstation setup.
You can also check out 9 science-backed ways of organizing the desk to boost productivity and happiness here.
Offer Flexible Schedules
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Flexible schedules can be a great solution for combating the afternoon slump. Some people are early risers and can hit the ground running; others accomplish more when they can start and end their days a little later. Everyone has a sweet spot for productivity, and having some wiggle room in schedules can make a world of a difference in an individual’s efficiency.
This is especially crucial if your team works remotely, as you must allow for the distractions that come with working from home. You can read more on how to manage a remote team here.
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Businesses suffer when employees feel burned out. You can lose valuable team players that feel bogged down by the humdrum of mundane tasks. Even worse, company goals fail to be met when individuals take sick days of being overworked and stressed.
To help ease the burden on your workforce, consider implementing robotic process automation (RPA). RPA is software that automates repetitive processes such as data entry. Workers allocate countless hours to activities that can easily be automated.
By reducing time spent on redundant tasks with RPA, you can motivate your workforce to focus on initiatives that are more meaningful to your business. Workers will feel more confident that they can meet deadlines on projects.
Additionally, RPA can reduce human error. Long hours of tedious tasks are often prone to input errors. RPA not only helps your workforce prevent burnout but saves you time and money by preventing costly mistakes.
Recognize Employees
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Employee appreciation and recognition are the pillars that boost productivity. Everyone wants to be applauded for a job well done.
Recognizing strengths creates a positive and supportive environment. Valued workers are more willing to put hard work and dedication into everything they do. Recognition systems make employees not just put in the minimum, but go above and beyond to exceed expectations. Implementing a recognition system motivates workers to be productive.
Some ways to show your appreciation are to give shout-outs, distribute thank-you notes, and have an employee of the month. Motivated individuals are often the most productive.
Check out the tips on recognition & encouragement in this article.
Allow your workforce to work in sprints and educate them on the benefits of taking breaks.
Working for long periods of time on the same project causes fatigue. It’s best to break up the monotony by resting. Set a timer and allow yourself to work and rest for a period of time.
It has been found that an optimal time to work is in twenty-five-minute increments punctuated by 5-minute breaks. This method for work is known as the Pomodoro technique, and it’s one of the best ways to ensure your team stays motivated and focused on the tasks at hand.
Finding the right balance of work and schedule breaks can be a saving grace for your employees. So spend a little time learning how to use the Pomodoro technique for various tasks and then go watch your team’s productivity prosper!
Some final words
Engaging employees to achieve ultimate productivity is not as hard as it looks. Business leaders would be surprised how simple changes can increase efficiency.
As productivity is key to the success of your organization, It’s worth your time and investment to embrace these best practices. Likewise, measuring employee engagement and keeping track of the right metrics are equally important to know where you should focus your efforts on engaging your employees. The improvements that can be made by implementing these strategies can have a ripple effect.
Productivity impacts all departments and initiatives, right down to your overall revenue. Productivity and employee engagement should not go unnoticed. The foundation of your business depends on a healthy, happy, productive workforce
