This blog was produced in collaboration with Vehicle Weight Checker Solutions from Weightru; and written by the team at SEO Agency London: Axies Digital
Regardless of whether you’re leading a team of 10 people or a 100, when different people come together it can be difficult at times to keep workplace productivity levels high.
Ultimately, your team is your biggest asset and if they’re happy, they’ll produce better results and achieve business goals.
The need for a productive workforce is a necessity no business can ignore and there are certain factors that can have an impact.
Here are Axies Digital's top 5 ways to improve productivity in your team.
1. Give Employees Ownership
Giving ownership to employees simply means allowing them to make their own decisions about the processes they follow to complete tasks, as well as making them accountable for their own work.
As a result, employees will feel a sense of responsibility for their workloads and begin to view it differently, as their decisions will have an impact on the rest of the team.
Plus, if an employee feels as though you trust them enough to take ownership, it will boost their self-esteem as they know they are capable of handling this responsibility, boosting productivity levels overall.
2. Understand Strengths and Weaknesses
Following on from the previous point, it’s important to understand each employee's strengths and weaknesses before you can start giving them ownership.
For example, if there is someone in the team who is more extroverted, it would make sense to ask them to pitch ideas in front of a client, rather than someone who’s a little more timid.
So, before you delegate a task to an employee, ask yourself: is this person the best suited? And if any weaknesses come to mind, it may be better to pass this on to someone who’s skills are better matched.
As a result, this boosts productivity as they will be able to perform better where their strengths lie and make positive contributions to the business.
3. Communicate Properly - Forget Emails!
Every leader understands the benefits of clear communication and it is critical for a productive workforce.
Consequently, ineffective communication can lead to confusions, such as misunderstanding job responsibilities and stressed employees.
And with so many technologies now available, it’s definitely a good idea to step away from boring emails and try social networking tools instead.
As a result, you’ll encourage your team to communicate back with you (emails can sometimes feel too formal) and you’ll find that it’s a lot quicker than going back and forth on an email chain.
In fact, even a simple phone call or a video meeting will be a more effective way to communicate and settle a situation within minutes; emails can take away 28% of an employee’s time which will negatively impact productivity.
4. Give Constructive Feedback
With all things said and done, you cannot improve productivity if team members are not aware of how they are performing.
Positively, giving constructive feedback can help to identify where improvements need to be made as well as understand the areas where they excel.
As such, regular performance reviews can help your team understand what they’re good at as well as give them the opportunity to reach out and ask for help.
In other words, constructive feedback encourages a culture of open communication which allows for continued personal development in the long run and thus improves productivity.
5. Team Building Activities
Ultimately, a team can only be productive if they work well together.
To put simply, if team members understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, personalities and get along with each other, the workplace will automatically be more productive.
Of course, not everyone will get along - sometimes people clash and that’s OK.
But, to reduce any animosity, team building activities are a great way to strengthen bonds and bring everyone together.
For instance, going on a hike, playing a sport or doing an escape room are a few ideas that you could introduce and you’ll quickly find team members are able to communicate with each other better and this will project off in the workplace.
The Takeaway
I’m sure you can understand by now, there is no single way that will increase productivity in your team. Rather, it falls down to a combination of things which must be enforced by leaders and managers.
Overall, clear communication, constructive feedback and understanding where strengths lie are the first steps in creating a collaborative and productive workforce.
Make Work Work Better offer a comprehensive Team Cohesion and Productivity solution - for more information, get in touch with us today.
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