While many companies are still making do with less, keeping productive is still essential for every industry and in any economy. Tackling the problem of how to increase employee productivity requires a multifaceted approach and a commitment to long term rewards rather than short term solutions. These tips can help place your company on the right track to increasing productivity.
Train Your Managers
Managers are on the front-line of productivity and employee morale. When investigating how to increase employee productivity, arming your management team with the tools to properly explain and supervise implementation is essential. Before starting a new program to increase productivity, get all the managers up to speed on what the organization is doing and why. Not only can upper management get great ideas on how to increase employee productivity, but this information can trickle down to lower level employees, helping everyone stay informed.
Get Lean
Lean systems focus on having the right supplies in the right place at the right time and used by the right people. The same philosophy that's helped Toyota produce their cars at a lower cost, and healthcare systems shave hundreds of thousands off their bottom line can be applied to your own company to reduce waste and increase profit margins. A simple string map is a great way to jumpstart getting lean. Attach a small GPS on employees and map their movements throughout the day. Using your string map, find places to improve the process and reduce movement. Getting lean not only increases productivity but reduces repetitive injuries.
Track Your Stats
You can't increase your productivity unless you understand your baseline productivity. Many companies want higher productivity, but don't fully understand what their current productivity is. Using a workforce management system to answer the question of how to increase employee productivity is a step in the right direction. Those same systems can identify excesses in staffing and the best way to eliminate that excess. Putting a workforce management system in place is a great way to increase productivity and get some hard facts about your business.
Build in "Brain Breaks"
Too many managers equate increased productivity with fewer breaks and distractions, but there is a significant benefit to frequent, scheduled breaks. Researchers have found that even a microbreak of 30 seconds to five minutes increases mental acuity by 13 percent. Even if it looks like slacking, they've also found that employees who are allowed to check their social media accounts regularly are 10% more efficient. It doesn't have to be long, but encourage employees to stand up, stretch, and take short social networking breaks regularly throughout the day to get the most productivity during their shift.
Be Specific
A company mission may lead your management team in the right direction, but they don't offer much direction to your hourly worker. One of the keys to how to increase productivity is to create goals for each employee that help the overall company mission. By breaking down the company goals that apply to each employee, employees feel more connected to the company mission and these goals can be tracked and altered to improve productivity.
The question of how to increase employee productivity doesn't have a single answer. Instead, companies need to employ a variety of strategies, from tracking company statistics using a workforce management system to making the overall process simpler and streamlined. Use these tips to increase your company's productivity today.
