Making employees productive and motivated to work more is the first step to business excellence.
The secret of increasing productivity is to make the employees focus on important tasks rather than keeping them busy all day with mundane jobs. Use outsourcing and automation to eliminate repetitive tasks and make the human employees concentrate on core business jobs challenging their brainpower.
Over 63% of employees report they do not like their work and feel they are not contributing anything useful through it. Lack of job satisfaction and growth is the primary reason for high attrition in many fields.
Providing constant growth opportunities for the employees, recognition for hard work and a chance to express employee potential innovatively motivates workers to stick with the company longer.
Leverage the Power of Technology
Leverage the power of technology in management to provide all the necessary tools for the employees to extract the best from them. Investing in good IT architecture and advanced software always helps in increasing employee productivity.
Employees working with such tools get more time to concentrate on doing value-based work instead of spending their time on repetitive, monotonous work. An employee spending three to four hours entering data in a spreadsheet can automate the process with the help of advanced business intelligence and AI tools.
They can use the time to do quality data analytics and come up with ideas to reach target customers better. Job satisfaction improves and the employees feel they are genuinely contributing to the company’s growth. It inspires them to work with more enthusiasm and curiosity instead of loathing to show up for work.
Autonomous and Flexible Work Environment
Modern companies treat employees as an asset rather than just workers. It is important to provide them with enough autonomy and make the workplace more flexible. Hybrid workplaces which combine the power of remote working and office working attract more employees.
Give employees a chance to express their ideas and finish the job at their own pace (of course keeping in mind the deadlines) which makes them feel they are in control. Employee autonomy includes allowing them to make decisions, choose what they like to work on and whom they like to work with, and do tasks without micro-monitoring.
Offices with high employee autonomy usually come up with several practical innovative ideas and products giving them a good competitive edge over their peers. Flexibility in the workplace which accommodates their personal choice with a professional balance creates a trustworthy bond between the employees and the company.
Constant Training and Growth Opportunities
It was a norm for people to join a job and retire in it a few decades ago. The modern work environment has changed so drastically. Employees look for constant growth and the altered work environment demands it from them too.
Huge corporate companies investing in employees often spend millions to train them constantly. Some sort of personal growth training, technical education or professional development meeting is held at least once in six months. Employees always feel they are challenging their best selves and try to move forward to build a new better version of themselves.
Such activities motivate them to do better in everything and they feel grateful to the company for taking such good care of them. It is estimated companies who spend an average of $1500 for employee training per year reap 17% more benefit on their return on investment.
Companies like HCL, Microsoft and other top corporate doyens have comprehensive plans to identify where the employees lack, what sort of training they require and take steps to conduct such training for employees in batches. Performance monitoring mentors work with every team and help each employee know their strengths and weaknesses individually.
Positive Workplace Environment
Workplace can be made fun using cultural activities, department swaps for a day, conducting birthday or talent shows, etc. Several activities from cake decoration to making a gingerbread man can be done for just Christmas alone. Monthly events like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Friendship Day can be celebrated with new employee ideas.
In case there is no single organized system with the information about employees’ dates of birth and other important dates, use Nuwber to gather necessary details. Something as simple as a collective congratulation will always uplift the mood and strengthen the bond between colleagues.
Encouraging the employees to decorate their workspace or the department workspace, having small contests among each other, making them dress up for an occasion all help in fostering new friendships. Talent shows to make the employees sing, dance or participate in sports would also be a great idea.
Contests asking the employees to solve a project problem, asking them ideas to improve performance or bring down costs also might get conducted. The companies gather several ideas which even the industry experts cannot give in such contests as the experienced employees know the process well.
Make Working Fun
Gamifying jobs is a new trend gaining enormous attention in 2022. The purpose is to make the employees treat every project or task as fun. They shoot down the project module instead of simply checking the checklist. This simple animation gives them a huge sense of achievement.
Several daily tasks from collecting data to preparing charts and presentations are now made interesting through advanced audio-visual tools. Employees enjoy working with them, strive hard to maintain their metrics to show something presentable on these tools and do it in a playful and happy mentality which increases productivity automatically.
Conclusion
Increasing productivity among the employees is easy if the higher authorities take steps to provide good autonomy and constant training to the employees. Maintaining a positive environment in the workforce, conducting contests and fun events and gamifying work helps the employees to work tirelessly.
Provide good recognition and constant growth opportunities for all the employees. Make use of the latest resources to bring down their workload and make them concentrate only on the core tasks to see constant productivity increase.