Have you noticed your productivity taking a dive?
It makes sense. The entire workforce has been through a gauntlet of trouble, and there’s no definite research on how the pandemic affected the mental health of various groups.
In any case, there are ways to bring your productivity back. We’re talking about productivity in the workplace today, exploring some ideas on how to enhance productivity. We hope the ideas below give you some food for thought and make a real difference in your workplace.
Let’s get started.
1. Loosen Schedules
If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that schedules change. Everyone operates on their own schedule, whether we like it or not.
Work holds no bearing over emergencies, personal rhythms, mental health, family requirements, and more. A person’s life is much broader than their work schedule.
Naturally, we need to work to make a living, so most of us compromise our lives for work. As a boss, you don’t have to hold that standard anymore.
If the style of work your business does is flexible, offer that flexibility to the schedules of your employees. Set standards and expectations and see how they do.
It might surprise you how flexibility can boost productivity at work.
2. Remote Opportunities
Are there things your employees can do from home? Do they think they could work more effectively from home from time to time?
Give it a shot. This Stanford study suggests that remote work productivity was 13% higher than pre-pandemic productivity. Ask your employees how they’d feel about the choice to work from home for a period of the workweek.
If you’re struggling to increase workplace productivity, the solution could be to let employees decide where the workplace actually is!
3. Shed a Few Things
How’s your workday’s optimization looking?
Are there more meetings than are necessary? If not, are the meetings that you have longer than they need to be?
The advent of thousands of different technologies and applications has provided us with the opportunity to eliminate some of the ways that businesses used to get done. Open up a discussion with your staff and see if they know about any software that could streamline the way you’re doing things.
4. Monitor Performance
One of the aforementioned categories of technology is performance management facilitated by innovative solutions such as the performance management software provided by profit.co.
It’s possible to monitor a significant amount of data about your employees. We’re not talking about personal interests or social media metrics here.
We’re talking about productivity metrics and key performance indicators. These things can be used as a way to offer helpful suggestions to your employees based on their personal data.
Naturally, this is something that you want to discuss with your staff. Make sure they’re aware of this process and feel comfortable with it. You can look here for more information on this technology.
5. Focus on Workplace Culture
Imagine two scenarios.
In one, you’re working for a company that monitors the amount of time you spend going to the bathroom. You’re punished for talking excessively during work hours, and your boss is a lifeless slug.
In another, you work somewhere that allows you to take the necessary time to do your duty. You’re encouraged to get to know your coworkers and you actually enjoy the company of your boss and their helpful insights.
Which company will you work harder for? Which one will you care enough about to actually try for? Obviously, the answer is the second company.
Still, a lot of antiquated ideas about productivity and work stick with us. The fact is that you’ll work more in a company where you care about the people who depend on your work. They’ll do the same for you, and the whole machine runs a little more effectively.
6. Build Purposefully
A big problem with workplaces of the past is that they’ve been “copied and pasted” into different environments. You could step into one office and navigate it just as you would another office two thousand miles away.
The same expectations for the same positions, the same marks to hit, the same punishments for the same offenses, and the same chairs for everybody.
The issue with copy-pasting company culture is that no two groups of people are the same. Each workforce is made up of a network of very unique individuals. All of those individuals have their own strengths.
While they may perform the same job in title, their efforts and abilities are not the same.
That’s why you should build your workflow around company culture, not the other way around. Identify strengths and make changes based on the evidence. You’ll find that your employees work better when their environment is tailored to them.
7. Offer Chances for Wellness
Workplace wellness is drastically underestimated, especially when it comes to productivity.
Simple shifts in workplace wellness can make massive differences in your output. The challenge is that many people can’t make time for wellness practice because their jobs are too demanding.
Further, wellness requires education, which is difficult to get access to when you’re working 40 hours per week. One Stanford Medicine study showed that a meditation practice can lead to a 30 percent decrease in stress-related symptoms.
Similarly, positive results occur in studies on attention, productivity, happiness, compassion, irritability, and more. Mindfulness practice is something that’s worth investing in. It might be worth hosting a class with a trained professional and giving your staff the opportunity to go.
You can also focus on the ergonomics of your workspace and encourage individuals to educate themselves about physical wellness. Exercise, yoga, healthy diets, and more are all things that affect happiness and productivity.
Medical Insurance
It’s a complicated thing to offer medical insurance in the United States, but note that healthcare is better for the workplace.
Healthy employees are employees that will come back to work and do a great job. If someone can’t get treatment for a physical or mental illness, that person will have a very difficult time at work.
Want to Learn More About Productivity in the Workplace?
We hope our look at productivity in the workplace was useful to you. There’s more to learn, though. We’re here to help with more ideas on streamlining your workplace.
Explore our site for insights into health, wellness, business productivity ideas, business, and a whole lot more.
