The links between successful business and staff productivity are simple to make. If your staff is motivated to work hard and achieve for your company, then your profit line will benefit. Your customers will be happier, more will get done – and the word of mouth testimonials will be stunning.
39% of workers surveyed by a provider of workplace incentives said they would work harder if they were happier in their role. So, you cannot just tell your workers to work hard to get these stunning benefits. For your company to reap the reward, your employers must choose to work hard for the intrinsic benefits of feeling good at a job they love.
Improving discretionary effort through staff happiness is a challenge. Here are some essential tips to help you improve your company profits through the productivity of your staff.
1. Matching tasks to skills
To feel good at work and understand how you can do more, the job you are given needs to match your skills. Therefore, if you want your team to work harder and produce more, then you need to delegate well. Learn about your staff and work out what they are good at and then capitalise on this. The skills required are sometimes hard to define. They are not the soft skills of selling or networking. These are the qualities that makes someone unique – success will need you to really know your people.
It is not always possible to perfectly match up the tasks to the skillset of people. However, this is why most highly successful companies have a continuing professional development policy within the HR department. They help to move the people towards the skills you need to improve productivity.
2. Training matched to their schedule
Now you know that training is essential for staff happiness and from there productivity, you need to offer a program that improves the right skills in the right people. You also need to show some flexibility. If you want your employees to work harder and learn more, you are going to have to find a way of giving them the time they need to do both. It is up to the employer to find the time and space in the employer’s schedule, working with them, to ensure this continuing professional development works.
Online courses are an excellent option. These courses can offer the flexibility of learning and an accredited outcome. If you invest in these courses for your employees, offering them additional qualifications, then you will increase their sense of self-worth and your value to them.
3. Set clear and focused goals
If you want the employee to be more productive, make sure they know what you want them to produce. This sounds simple. However, being clear on your goals must be a conscious act of reflection on your part.
You need to be focused on your intended outcomes for your staff. The message you communicate cannot be ambiguous. Not only will ambiguity result in reduced productivity but it will also make the team feel demotivated.
4. Understand delegation
Staff productivity is linked to the fine art of delegation. It is essential to delegate if you want to make the most out of your employees. You need to find the balance between palming your work off on your team members and offering them the chance to shine with the trust of added responsibility. With a little bit of courageous delegation, you can boost the morale of your workforce.
How do you do this? It is about being discerning with the tasks you choose to delegate. If it is a dull task, repetitive and menial, you will damage motivation. You will communicate to this person that they are merely a workhorse and you want them to carry your load of the monotonous tasks.
You need to find those exciting projects that you have initiated and manage a colleague towards the realisation of this project – and then allow them the credit for its success. When they succeed in exciting projects that move the company forward, they will want to experience this again. We are all only one step away from the gold star from the headteacher.
5. Finally, communicate
Ending with communication is a purposeful choice – it is the most difficult to get right but the most important to staff productivity and morale. Emails may be a quick way to fire off tasks – but they are the place of miscommunications and misread signals about the tone of voice and intentions. Going through your inbox can be a chore. Maybe, for the sake of staff morale, you need to go old school sometimes and speak to people face-to-face.
Now over to you…
Any additional tips you’d want to share? Please do so in the comment section!