One of the most important factors that determines how well your company performs, is productivity. The more productive your employees are the more work they will get done in less time and the more revenue your company will generate.
Every company should strive towards improving employee productivity. But while doing this you shouldn't ignore another important factor, engagement. If you only work towards increasing productivity and not engagement you will see positive results in the short term. But in the long-term productivity will decline as low levels of engagement will lead to unhappy employees.
This is why you need some tactics in place that increase both productivity and engagement at the same time. Here are 4 that can help...
#1 Find out as much as you can about your employees:
To create a productivity boosting strategy that also increases engagement, you need to first learn as much as you can about your employees. If you know more about what their strengths, weaknesses and preferences are, you can create a strategy that appeases them.
So, start by creating a survey that asks employees about what they currently like about work, what they would like improved, their strengths, their weaknesses, the team members they like working with, the steps they take to increase their own productivity, etc.
After that you can interview employees based on their survey answers to get even more specific.
Take your time with this and dive in deep. Record the interviews if possible and also observe them while they answer. Don't just pay attention to their answers, but also pay attention to how they answer them as this can offer more insights.
#2 Create a plan for managing your employees:
Once you have the data you can create a custom employee management plan. The main advantage of having a plan in place is that you will have something consistent that you can track. If things don't work out, you can make changes to the plan and this will show you what brought about the positive or negative result.
To execute this plan, you can use an app for scheduling employees. When you create a schedule, it gives a structure for your employees to follow. This helps them get into a routine and plan the other parts of their lives around work. Make use of your employees' preferences while creating this schedule.
#3 Provide employees with the best tools:
If you want your employees to get more done in less time you need to provide them with the best tools. This includes the best software, laptops/computers, printers, scanners, furniture, etc. When employees are given the opportunity to work with the fastest equipment in a comfortable environment, they will want to spend more time there and will be able to finish tasks more quickly.
Providing employees with the best equipment and tools will also improve engagement as it shows them that you care about them. Hence, they will be happy to do more work for you.
So, don't be afraid to invest a good amount of your budget into this. The tools will pay for themselves in the long run.
#4 Track performance:
The only way you will know if the tactics you have put in place to increase both productivity and engagement are working is if you track their performance. So, get a good employee tracking tool to monitor your employees' productivity. These can be installed on their computers, smartphones and browsers. They will track their presence and display how much work they are getting done at the workplace.
To track engagement, you will need to interview and survey your employees periodically. You should ask them questions that help you garner information about how happy they are about working here and how committed they are towards helping the company achieve their goals.
You can use the data gained from these methods to modify your management plan and employee schedules and boost productivity further without sacrificing happiness.
Conclusion:
These are the 4 tactics you can use to increase employee productivity and engagement. If you begin implementing them today you will not only get more out of your employees, but you will also gain their long-term loyalty. This will improve employee retention and profits.
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