How can you increase the productivity levels of your business? If you’re excited about what the company future holds but need buy in – take a look at these golden rules.

Share your vision

They say that a business is only as good as its employees and to get the team as involved and passionate as you are, you need to ensure sure you share the success of past achievements as a business, get them to focus on their personal work achievements, and encourage them to set new plans and targets for what they want to achieve. Crucially, you must share your vision for the company and lead by example. If you’re excited and enthusiastic about the plans and changes ahead then your staff are more likely to be as well.

Culture and incentives

There’s a famous saying, that “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. It’s a lesson that a lot of businesses neglect, despite good intentions. No one sets out to create a lousy working environment; frustrating and unproductive work cultures develop when no one acts to deliberately create something better. Employees who are engaged in a positive workplace culture are inherently more productive. And there are loads of things that business owners can do without huge budgets. Little incentives like duvet days, group meditation, BBQs, ‘show and tells’ so that staff can share things they’ve learned and 121s ones managers can all make a big difference. It’s about creating a trusting and inclusive environment, where everyone feels respected and motivated.

Go automated

Did you know that more than a third of business owners in the UK cite HR administration as one of the biggest drains on productivity? With 77 per cent of businesses resetting their holiday entitlement at the start of the year, and the annual deluge of holiday requests in the first week back after the new year, you may not have had a look at this in a while – and you may not think you need to address it. However as a manager, even if you have a system in place, you still have to receive the form, check the spreadsheet for any conflicts (hoping it’s up to date), give the employee the ok, update the spreadsheet (hoping nothing goes wrong) and finally update your calendars to ensure you know when the employee is off. It’s time consuming and a drain on productivity. Using an automated system can mean your employees can book their holidays via an app. You can instantly check any conflicts, approve leave with just a few clicks and your calendars are automatically updated. Now obviously this will save you (and your people) time.

Flexible workspaces

As technology blurs the lines between our personal and professional lives, stress among employees is on the rise and can be a drain on productivity. The simple design of an office can go a long way to improving this, creating spaces that people that people enjoy coming into every day. IWhether you go for open plan with pockets of breakout spaces for people to recharge on comfy seating or simply have a change of scene from their desks or something more formal, you may need to consider a change. In many cases, open plan spaces improve communication at all levels and across teams. Interaction, collaboration and information exchange all happen seamlessly, without formality, and meetings can be avoided by encouraging people into huddles to exchange views. Alarmingly, the average employee’s work is interrupted by emails or social media alerts once every 10.5 minutes. It can then take up to 23 minutes for them to refocus on their original task. So it’s no surprise that cutting email down to size can also make people vastly more productive.

Monitor

Recent research by BrightHR revealed that only eight per cent of UK companies regularly monitor their productivity levels, and more than this, many are in the dark about the real business benefits of doing so, Easy online time tracking systems can be a good place to start, giving you a realistic view on where time is being spent each day.

 

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