How can workers improve their work performance?

How can leaders increase the productivity of their employees while at the same time saving time? The following is a list of the top ten things that can be done to boost employee productivity in the workplace.

Because of the way the world is changing, businesses are rethinking how they should go about building their workforces in order to make the most of their resources. A research conducted over the last year on the topic of remote work found that productivity increased by 47% when employees worked remotely from their homes. However, not all businesses have adopted a remote first mentality in their operations. A poll conducted by Workest among the workers of 1,000 small businesses found that 67 percent of respondents claimed their companies are planning to resume normal business operations this year and return to the office.

Therefore, what are some time-saving strategies that leaders and managers may use to simultaneously boost staff productivity? The following is a list of the top ten things that can be done to improve staff productivity.

1. Don't be scared to hand certain tasks off to others.

This piece of advice may seem to be the most apparent, but in reality, it is sometimes the most difficult to put into practice. We understand it; your business is your baby, and as such, you want to have a say in everything that takes on inside it. While placing an emphasis on quality is not in and of itself a bad thing (after all, it is what contributes to the success of a company), doing so at the expense of delegating responsibilities might cause everyone involved to squander their precious time.

Instead, you should provide your staff with responsibility and have faith that they will successfully carry out their duties. Your workers will have the chance to develop their talents and acquire experience in leadership roles as a result of this opportunity, which will eventually benefit your firm. You recruited them for a cause; now give them the opportunity to demonstrate why you were correct to do so.

2. Match tasks to talents

It is critical to your company's success to have a solid understanding of the competencies and personality types of your workforce. For instance, a person who is outgoing, creative, and able to think in novel ways is definitely an excellent candidate for the role of pitching ideas to customers. However, if they are assigned a job that is more rule-oriented and focused on the details, they may have difficulty.

It is not productive to require your staff to excel at everything; rather, before assigning a job to one of your workers, you should ask yourself whether or not this individual is the one who is best prepared to carry it out. If this is not the case, look for someone else whose abilities and approaches better suit your requirements.

3. Engage in successful communication.

It is common knowledge among managers that open lines of communication are essential to maintaining a productive staff. Because to technological advancements, we are now able to communicate with one another with the simple press of a button (or should we say, tap of a touch screen). Because of this, we may safely assume that our existing modes of communication are as effective as they possibly can be, right? Certainly not in every case. According to the findings of a research conducted by McKinsey, employees may find that their time is consumed by email about 28 percent of the time. In point of fact, research has shown that checking email is the second most time-consuming activity for employees (after their job-specific tasks).

Try using social networking technologies (like Slack), which are built for even speedier team communication, as an alternative to depending primarily on email. You may also try to get your workers to communicate with one another verbally more often, which is a more conventional but also more archaic method of interaction. A topic that might have been resolved in a matter of hours via back-and-forth emailing may be resolved in a matter of minutes through a phone conversation or meeting.

4. Keep your objectives distinct and your attention on them.

If workers aren't given a specific objective to work toward, you can't expect them to be productive on the job. Employees will be less productive if the objective that they are working toward is not well defined and is not genuinely feasible. Therefore, make an effort to ensure that the tasks given to staff are as specific and limited as is practicable. Give them a clear understanding of what it is that you anticipate from them, as well as the precise repercussions that this project will have.

Make sure that your objectives are "SMART," which stands for precise, measurable, achievable, reasonable, and timely. This is one approach to do this. Ask yourself this question before delegating a work to an employee: Does it fulfill each of these requirements? If it doesn't, you should ask yourself what changes may be made to the job so that your employees can remain focused and productive.

5. Provide incentives to staff members

One of the most effective methods for encouraging people to work more efficiently is to provide them with a tangible incentive for doing so. When you acknowledge the hard work that your employees have put in, you will not only make them feel valued, but you will also motivate them to keep improving their output.

Be sure to take into consideration the specific requirements or inclinations of each worker before settling on a method of rewarding hard-working personnel. One worker, for instance, could value public acknowledgment, while another would be more inclined to respond favorably to a private "thank you." In addition to only expressing your appreciation via words, you may also consider the following alternatives:

Paid time off (PTO) is a benefit that may be provided to workers in place of a cash bonus or a salary increase. This PTO can be used in lieu of sick time or vacation time.

You may take the crew out to lunch, supper, or happy hour... You could also give a gift card for GrubHub or DoorDash if you're trying to practice social distance.

Send a Note Written by Hand If you want to express your appreciation for the hard work that your workers have put in, sending them a note that you have written by hand demonstrates that you have taken the time out of your day to do so.

Lazy Monday Coupons: Another alternative is a "Lazy Monday" coupon, which enables workers to report to work later on a Monday morning.

Tell Your Boss That If You Send An Email To The Team Or Any Member Of The Team Expressing Appreciation For Their Work, You Should Consider Copying Your Boss On The Email.

Consider Participating in a Wellness Program One strategy to minimize the number of sick days used by employees and the amount of money spent on health insurance by a business is to participate in a wellness program at their place of employment.

6. Get rid of the extra stuff

When staff are working towards a greater objective, it is best not to distract them with additional, time-consuming activities that are less important. Take a look at the routine that the team follows and determine whether or not there is anything that can be eliminated in order to provide staff with more time to concentrate on tasks that are of greater significance.

For instance, if workers are requesting to submit daily reports for their supervisors, but supervisors often do not have time to read them, the word count requirement should probably be lowered. It is a waste of important time that might be used toward achieving objectives that will truly aid your organization if you carry out an activity just out of a sense of obligation.

7. Educate and foster the growth of staff members

It could seem like a smart idea to cut down on training or even eliminate it entirely as a method for a firm to save time and money (learning on the job is said to be an effective way to train, after all). On the other hand, things could not work out in the end. It may be a very wasteful use of resources to require people to learn their occupations on the job.

Therefore, rather of letting staff attempt to do a task in a haphazard manner with no direction whatsoever, you should use the additional day to teach them the essential skills to execute their job. In this manner, they will be able to begin working on their own to complete the duties that have been assigned to them, and your time will not be spent in the future answering basic inquiries or correcting mistakes.

After they have completed their first training, continue to support employee growth. Providing assistance to them in expanding their skill sets will produce a much more sophisticated workforce, which will be to the long-term advantage of your firm. You may encourage the growth of your employees in a variety of methods, including one-on-one coaching, group or individual instruction in the form of workshops, classes, or seminars, job shadowing, mentoring, or just giving them more duties. By providing these chances, employers may help their workers acquire new skills that will enable them to become more efficient and productive in their jobs.

8. Make use of remote work options

It is possible that allowing your staff to work from home may give the impression of inefficiency. After all, how can you ensure that they will continue to be productive when there is no one observing them? On the other hand, this is not at all how things really are (in fact, studies show that people who work from home are more productive than office employees). Giving your staff the option to work from home will enable them to reclaim time that would have been lost in any other circumstance.

Take for instance a worker who is unable to report to work due to illness (or who is just concerned about infecting their fellow employees) but who is nonetheless capable of doing their duties. They will feel compelled to call in sick or skip work entirely if you do not provide them the option of working from the comfort of their own homes. Or, if an employee has to wait between two and four hours for their refrigerator to be serviced, it is inefficient to require that they take the whole day off from work in order to accommodate the wait time. Instead, you should provide your worker with the opportunity to work from home so that they may make the most of the time they do have available.

9. Provide comments and criticism to one another

If workers aren't even aware of the ways in which they waste time and resources, it's impossible to expect any improvement in their productivity levels. For this reason, performance evaluations are quite necessary. After measuring the performance of your staff, you should arrange individual meetings with each one of them to discuss where they are succeeding and where they still need improvement.

It is not just up to the employees themselves to determine how their productivity might be improved; rather, you also bear part of the responsibility for this. But just like your staff, you aren't psychic. After you have evaluated your staff members, you should next ask them what you might do to assist them better. Perhaps they would want a little more direction on certain activities, or perhaps they would favor a little bit more latitude for their own creative expression. Not only does soliciting feedback provide you with distinct and quick methods to assist your staff members in improving their performance, but it also fosters a culture of open discussion, which will allow for continuing improvement over the course of time.

10. Keep the larger picture in mind.

Things that right now may seem to be a waste of time for you might end up working out better for you in the long term than they did for you right now. Therefore, before objecting to anything that seems like a waste of time, it is important to consider how your organization may potentially gain from it.

Putting money into HR software today might end up saving your business and your workers a significant amount of time in the long run. Adopting HRIS technology can help your company enhance productivity, minimize employee dissatisfaction, and expand while also streamlining processes such as onboarding new employees and processing payroll.

You may avoid falling behind by putting a few of our time-saving suggestions into action, at which point you'll be able to put that additional hour to beneficial and fruitful use.