12 Ways to Increase Workplace Productivity

Suppose you want to outperform your competitors to become the most favorable brand to your customer base in a particular industry. In that case, you have no alternative other than to achieve the highest level of productivity. The buzzword 'productivity' was initially a measure in which we used to calculate how much output we get from a machine for a given input, no more confined in the gloomy mechanical world.

Productivity is now a widely used word to interpret which, you don't need a rocket scientist around you. Yet, debunking how productivity can be pushed up might be tricky given the workplaces are overblown with numerous distractions and workplace time wasters. This article is going to show you 12 ways to increase workplace productivity.

What is Productivity in the Workplace?

Workplace productivity is basically how efficiently your workers accomplish their tasks within time.

A strong foresighted leader, flexible organizational hierarchy, world-beating technologies, or a palatial workplace building- all these things would result in zero if you don't have a bunch of motivated workers who consider the company as their own. People in organizations are obsessed with measuring and tracking productivity in every aspect of the workplace. Contemplating how it could be improved depends on in which way you are trying to define productivity. To some companies, getting the best possible outcome is the ultimate productivity definer, no matter how little the job satisfaction the employees get.

The futuristic companies take good care of their employees. In return, employees show reciprocity by anticipating what to do next and proactively working on something that helps the organization to become a better one.

12 Ways to Increase Workplace Productivity

Nowadays, workplace productivity is of paramount importance as the competition is at an all-time high. Companies spend thousands of dollars finding out how to manage employees to get more output and efficiency decisively. Here are 12 ways that will lead you to create a more productive workspace.

Let’s get started!

Stop ‘Multitasking’

Being a multitasker might sound very cool to many of us, but it isn’t. It can severely impair your brain performance and lower your intelligence. It can slowly and progressively decrease the productivity and efficiency of your brain. So, as a manager, your task is to inhibit the practices of multitasking. Instruct you, employees, to set priorities for their tasks. They should focus on only one thing at a time. That will help your employees become more efficient in the workplace.

Eliminate Officetime Distraction

The unparalleled achievement in the technological world led us towards a more machine-centric workplace that is absorbed by electronics and applications. This is threatening to employees’ productivity as they are more likely to engage with the distraction factors.

We are fortunate that technological upsurge made things far more effortless, yet we are now more subjected to get sidetracked easily than ever. Checking out online products, watching videos on YouTube, and poking people on Facebook can melodramatically lower the productivity bar. It’s a burdensome job to remove distraction, but it’s conceivable.

Introduce the 'Scrum' Method

Scrum is a workload management method in which we can divide a project into small tasks and set times to complete the project timely, effectively, and more quickly. This concept of working is featured in many renowned organizations, and it helps people be more productive while working. This simple and straightforward method can bring success if everything goes well.

Set Priorities for the Tasks

There are tasks where you can allow a bit of respite to yourself while working. Some tasks go behind the urgency threshold; you need to begin them as the word goes. But the problem is we forget to set the priority in the first place. Advanced planning is required when selecting the task, and the more crucial factor is to set the importance.

Setting priorities ranging from high to low will boost productivity by allowing you space for thinking and acting. Thus, prioritization brings a viable solution to complex workload issues.

Match Employees’ Skillsets

The job description we set for the vacant seats in our organizations are primarily generic and cliché. Of course, they are required, but that significantly confines a candidate’s skill set. The potential he is born with might be beneficial to the organization at a particular time, but while recruiting, those potentials hardly matter.

That’s why a person who does the desk job all the time seems boorish to us. He might be an engaging personality, but his designation tricks us into the fallacy. So, a manager’s task is to bring the flair out of the people around him. A typical manager doesn’t want to step out of the box, but a progressive manager will do everything to make the human resource worthy of praise.

Track the Time for Every Task

Nowadays, getting the proper insight regarding your employees’ working time is a necessity for the leaders of the organization. By looking into how they manage their time, you will get a complete understanding of how things are going on and how to handle things better. The tech world provides you with a plethora of productivity apps that will give detailed information about your employees’ working hours, procedures, and usage of applications. Additionally, leveraging KM tools can enhance data organization and accessibility, further optimizing productivity.

Reduce the Skill and Communication Gap

Diversity is one of the basic characteristics of a workplace. People with multivariate human traits and varied backgrounds come to work for you in your workplace every day. Some of them will be the lives of the party, where many will seclude themselves from the party as they dislike the crowd.

Communicating with all of them requires a manager with tremendous emotional intelligence, a person who can handle things magnificently under any circumstances. You have to assign someone who can communicate very well with the employees. Employees will face myriads of problems every day. Solving the problems and healing the wounds will unleash their potential skillset, and they will consider your organization as human-centric and motherly caring. So, exceptional communication can act like aspirin amid unbearable pain.

Set a Deadline for Assigned Tasks

Victory is victory, no matter how little that is. Admiral William H. McRaven once said that if someone wants to change the world, he should start off by making his bed because this early accomplishment will give him the thrust to achieve more in the day. Every time an employee ends a task, he feels that desired sense of accomplishment.

So, setting the deadline for the tasks helps people to pursue that accomplishing moment. At the same time, as the time is set and they need to comply with that, distraction will be lesser. So, setting deadlines will automatically generate more productivity.

Reinforce your Employees Positively

Operant conditioning is one of the most deliberated organizational behavioral theories around the world. Positive reinforcement is one of its core issues. We saw from the experiment that if an auspicious outcome is assured after performing an action, that particular behavior will be reinforced. This could be applied to any organization which values its customers.

Praise your employee in front of everyone for whatever good he/she has brought to the company. He/she will be one step ahead of doing the following task and give her 100% to make that a success. This is the power of positive reinforcement which eventually will increase organizational productivity. In focused environments, adopting employee intranet software can greatly enhance communication and productivity by streamlining projects and centralizing information for easy access.

Set Realistic Goals for Employees

The acronym S.M.A.R.T is well-known across business platforms which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Vagueness in announcing and allocating tasks to the employees will spoil time and effort. Being specific in a particular thing is a gifted skill. Asking the employees to do something measurable and calculative is what is expected in a corporate workplace.

Generally, we tend to overvalue the time we get in a single day, but we always underestimate what can be done in a month or year. This is because we are subjected to appointing tasks with nebulous goals. To restabilize the operational flow, a goal should be set that is harmonious with the S.M.A.R.T acronym.

Make Employees Feel Valued

How many workers can you find in your company who are proudly working for you? How many of them recommend others to work for you in a future opportunity? The pride that an employee possesses in mind for working in a company is an invaluable gift. But when should they feel that? They will feel that when they will recognize themselves as valued employees. One way to reinforce this sense of value is by presenting acrylic recognition awards or even gifting thoughtful items like Tallow Balm Products to acknowledge their contributions.

An employee with a think trifling job to do in an organization will feel misvalued and unmotivated. No matter how little the task you assign to your employees, make sure that they are doing it with responsibility and satisfaction in their minds. It will boost the overall productivity.

Try out Alternative work Schedules (e.g., 9/80 Work Schedule)

The work schedule you set for your organization is a factor that might affect productivity. Most of the companies are working with an 8-hour-day program, but that is now an archaic approach. People are moving towards a more flexible work schedule, and a 9/80 work schedule is a famous model for that.

It is a workload management system where employees get an extra day off bi-weekly. The daily working hour is extended from 8 to 9 hours, and there is an 8-hour long day a week. So, despite having almost a month off, you can get the same work hour as the old approach. But, is your company suitable to fit into this new workload management schedule? Check it out!

To Sum up

Workplace productivity is an issue of pivotal importance if we take the current corporate world into account. It’s hard to stay productive all the time, so it is to ensure outstanding efficiency. Nevertheless, techniques that are discussed in this article are instrumental in pushing productivity upward. You could choose the best Cloud Services to increase the productivity level of your work. So, try applying these techniques in your company and make sure you stick around them. Success will be inevitable.

This article is contributed by Hasan Abir.

Hasan Abir is working as a Growth Marketer at Apploye. He would love to work out of his comfort zone and his passion is for digital marketing.