In any workplace, productivity is key. As an employer, it’s important to make sure your employees are working efficiently to achieve the best possible results. However, it can be difficult to know how to help employees work more efficiently. Whether you’re a manager or a small business owner, here are some tips to help your employees work smarter, not harder.
1. Leading by example
The most professional, motivated, and disciplined employee in the team is the manager. It’s important for a manager to always be aware of what’s going on, and they can’t leave their subordinate face to face with a non-standard situation. An ideal manager always has his or her finger on the pulse, can answer dozens of different questions at once, and is ready to share his or her own experience, best practices and life hacks. To become such a leader, you need not only to wholeheartedly support the common cause, but also to constantly improve yourself, raising the level of personal professionalism.
Spending an hour a day studying is a good habit. Anything can be used: useful videos, webinars, seminars, training. Even a simple observation of competitors will give a positive result. You can spy ideas on how to improve work efficiency or find a source of inspiration for developing your own know-how.
A separate topic is the motivation of the boss. It can be anything, but it is important that your subordinates see that you really love what you do. This will become the basis of the corporate spirit and help other team members to be inspired to new work feats, training, and improving the quality of their job performance.
2. Motivating employees
Employee motivation is one of the key factors for the success of any company. When employees are intrinsically motivated and willing to work more efficiently, it leads to increased productivity and better business results. There are several ways to do this, so let’s look at each of them.
Financial motivation is the strongest for employees. It is money that reinforces the interest in performing a large volume of professional tasks on time, meeting quality requirements and not slowing down productivity. If the level of financial support remains the same from month to month, regardless of the employee’s real contribution to the common cause, their motivation is rapidly weakening. The task of the manager is to determine the amount of remuneration and the system of its calculation that would help maintain interest in the common cause and create a sense that the degree of financial well-being can be influenced by working more efficiently.
In addition to material motivation to work more efficiently, managers can use moral reinforcement tools. Do not forget to express gratitude for the work done, periodically organize events to build and maintain team spirit among subordinates, and recognize the competence and importance of employees. This approach can inspire a desire to work effectively.
3. Discipline
It also affects the efficiency of subordinates. Firstly, the less time employees spend on social media and doing personal things, the more attention they pay to their work duties. Secondly, don’t forget that discipline is the key to maintaining order in the workplace.
If most of your employees work remotely, it will be more difficult to maintain discipline among them. However, modern digital solutions can help in this regard. You can implement special software, such as a time tracker. It will show you exactly what the employee was doing on their computer during working hours. Implementing this solution will encourage people to work efficiently throughout the day without being distracted by personal matters, social networks, etc.
We recommend Yaware.TimeTracker. It is a simple and convenient tool for teams of any size and structure, designed specifically to increase productivity.
With its help, you can find out:
- what time of day is the most productive for employees;
- what resources employees use to perform a specific task;
- how much time is spent on a task;
- when there are difficulties in completing a task and help is needed;
- what distracts employees and prevents them from moving forward.
4. Employee training
Even the most motivated and responsible staff will not perform well if they do not know how to do it. Staff training is a very useful and important practice that should be regular. Work in this area should be carried out systematically. It should not stop regardless of the stage of career advancement.
You can organize a corporate library to store books that help develop professional skills or provide practical advice on effective time management. Such literature will help motivate employees to work better and reduce the risk of professional burnout. It can also include various online platforms, subscriptions, etc.
5. Implementing a time tracker
We’ve talked about this before, but now we’ll go into more detail. Some people may think that a time tracker works on the contrary — it demotivates. However, if used correctly, a time tracker can be a great motivator for employees. For example, if a company uses a time tracker to monitor the time spent at work, employees can see that their time is valued and that the company cares about productivity and efficiency. In addition, if the use of a time tracker is accompanied by a system of rewards and praise, employees can be more motivated to achieve goals and get the job done faster and better.
Also, a time tracker can help employees become more aware of their habits that affect their productivity and performance. For example, when an employee tracks their time, they can see that they spend a lot of time checking email or social media and change their “rituals” to be more productive.
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Moreover, Yaware offers 14 days of free use of the program so that you can experience its functionality to the fullest!
Conclusion
Improving work efficiency is not an easy task, but it is a solvable one. A comprehensive systematic work and modern tools of objective control will help you achieve a sustainable positive result in this direction. It is important to remember that without motivation, discipline and professionalism, you will not be able to achieve your goals, and these principles should remain the main ones when organizing your work schedule.
