A company’s employees’ productivity is a direct measurement of the management’s competence.
Hence, to become an effective leader in a workplace, improving and managing employees’ productivity is a necessity.
There may be no definitive guide on achieving this, but some strategies are best avoided. Some may even result in massive employee turnover.
On the other hand, there are secrets to successfully improving and managing your staff’s productivity.
Here are the ways to improve and manage workplace productivity:
Genuine leadership style
There are plenty of books on how to become a better leader. Numerous training and conferences are organized to teach people the best leadership methods.
For newly promoted leaders, outshining a predecessor can be an overwhelming task.
Reading books on becoming a better leader and attending training organized to teach people the best leadership methods can help.
However, these strategies must be fine-tuned to suit your personality. You need to be yourself to become an effective leader who inspires employees to improve their productivity.
Everybody has a unique personality, and this is what you should reflect in your style of leadership. Do not fake it.
People can sense fakeness. Pretending to be who you are not would only make your employees trust you less and also dampen their morale.
Assign employees the work they do best
Employees have their strengths and weaknesses. You are wrong if you think assigning them tasks based on their weaknesses would improve their performance.
A 2014 study discovered that employees are more engaged and productive when they discover their employer focuses more on their strengths rather than assigning them tasks to improve their weaknesses.
Managers who understand this usually track their employees’ skills with Skills Management Software.
It will help you assess and track your employees’ skills and assign them suitable projects for optimal productivity.
Some companies quickly resort to external hiring to fill a vacant position. Dedicated software can help identify the talent in the organization and help decide who is best to be promoted from within.
External hires can result in an increase in employee turnover. They are also 61 percent more likely to be fired compared to employees promoted from within.
Promoting someone from within will lead to better productivity as employees will feel more appreciated.
Healthy interpersonal relationships with staff
People have lives outside work. Employees need to know you care about their well-being to trust you and enthusiastically carry out tasks you assign to them.
This does not imply you should hire a private detective or stalk them. Rather, portray yourself as someone they can come to whenever they have an issue.
When you notice an employee is less lively than usual, ask what might be wrong.
Do not force them to work even when you can see they are ill. Encourage them to prioritize their health above anything else.
Walk out of your office twice daily to check on each desk while engaging them.
Doing this will help you understand the employees better.
Ask them if they need anything to improve their work and reassure them they can always come to you if they have any trouble.
Likewise, encourage your team to build strong interpersonal relationships. When assigning tasks, get at least two employees involved to foster and improve their work relationships.
Teams with high employee engagement rates are 21 percent more productive. There is also 28 percent less internal theft in such a team when compared with teams with low engagement.
Dispose counterproductive employees
A team can only succeed when every member is equally motivated. A rotten egg on the team can be the major reason for its low productivity, especially if the person has a lot of influence on others.
As a good manager, ensure the team consists only of people of similar minds regarding the objective of the company.
Observe all employees to identify the motivation-killers. Transfer them to another department where they are likely to be more productive.
Aside from an employee being a motivation-killer to others, there are certain actions you may be encouraging that could also be a motivation-killer.
Some of them include the following:
- Creating unhealthy competition among employees.
- Lack of empathy towards employees’ personal ambitions.
- Intentionally denying an employee promotion or reward for unprofessional reasons.
- Publicly showing you have favorite team members.
- Assuming an employee’s incompetence in handling a task without finding out.
- Autocratic management style.
Encourage them to be managers of themselves
Various studies have confirmed that autonomy boosts creativity and productivity. When employees are assigned tasks with less supervision and given more control, they take ownership of the outcome.
This, however, does not imply workers should be left without guidance. Projects they work on should be related to the overall company’s goals and objectives.
Assign them tasks but do not micro-manage them. Let them know you have confidence in them and emphasize the results you expect.
Interesting Related Article: “9 Tips to Improve Your Business’ Productivity“