6 Creative Ways to Increase Employee Productivity in the Workplace

Productivity is always a struggle to get right in business. It doesn't matter if you run a large or small business. Reports show that employees, on average, are productive for close to three hours per day.

With so much wasted time, you need to do everything possible to increase employee productivity. Use the six creative tips below to improve employee performance at your company.

1. Provide Positive Feedback

It's easy to offer negative feedback when someone doesn't do the job right. After all, you hired your employees expecting that they know how to handle the job. You don't think about what happens when they make a mistake.

However, mistakes happen all the time. If all you do is scold people about not doing things right, you're going to hurt their confidence and make it harder for them to stay productive.

It's wise to let people know when they do things right too. If someone knows they're doing good work, it builds their confidence and the ability to work quickly on tasks. People won't spend time second-guessing themselves.

2. Offer Training and Advancement Opportunities

It's hard to find someone content with where they are in their career. Most people want to improve their standing in life and advance to better positions. If you don't offer this chance to everyone on your team, motivating them to stay productive is hard.

The first place to start the process is with training. Give your team the chance to learn new skills and take on new responsibilities in your company. This chance for growth will help them learn and grow into new positions.

It also pays to let people branch out to higher positions. Let your employees work with higher-ups and take on some of the work. Instead of hiring people for upper-level jobs from out of the company, offer the positions to people already working for you.

That gives people a reason to work hard and stay loyal to your company.

3. Don't Micromanage People

It's hard to be productive when someone is hovering over your shoulder during the day. For many people, it's a sign of mistrust. Your employer doesn't trust you know what you're doing and aren't doing your job correctly.

This feeling is a massive demotivator for people. That leads to less productivity during the day.

You hired your team because you believed they could handle the job. It's in your best interest to behave like your employees can and trust them to do their work.

However, you don't have to provide zero oversight and not check in on your team. Hold regular meetings to keep everyone updated and ensure everyone is on the right track. Just don't go overboard and make it seem like you're spying on everyone.

4. Add Employee Incentives

People don't respond the best if all they can expect for their hard work is a small pay raise every year. If that's the case, people are much better off doing the minimum they can at your organization and jumping ship for more pay as soon as possible.

If you want to improve employee productivity and retain your employees, it makes sense to reward employees for hard work. You can do this in many ways:

• Team getaways
• Bonuses
• Extra pay raises
• Profit-sharing
• Extra time off
• Option to work from home

The more you draw your team into your company culture and make it beneficial to produce more work, the better. It keeps your team invested in your company and willing to help make it succeed.

5. Invest in Tools

It's hard to manage employees effectively when you do everything by hand. You have endless email threads and constant meetings to keep everyone updated. To make things easier, invest in tools for your team.

Tools like project management software and group chat programs provide a central place for your team to handle work tasks. You can set up projects, assign tasks, and post information that helps people get work done.

Many management tools are specific to certain industries. Look at your options to see which software meets all your company's needs. Check all the details you can when you invest in task management tools and sign up for trials to see how each option works.

6. Create Performance Metrics

While some productivity tasks are hard to track, that isn't the case for most things. You can create many performance metrics for your employees to figure out how productive people are.

Create a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) and gather data. Once you have enough data, you can create guidelines for your team and set measurable goals they need to meet.

Of course, don't focus solely on overworking your team to meet those goals. Try to create systems that streamline your employees' environment to let them get more done and meet your KPI goals.

The more you do to raise your team up, the better your company will be.

Don't Stop Trying to Increase Employee Productivity

You only have so much time in the day to get work done, so you can't afford to waste time on unproductive work and not focus on the most critical tasks. Luckily, there are several things you can do to increase employee productivity and improve your company's output. Use the tips above to move the productivity needle at your business.

Of course, productivity isn't the only thing you need to work on to create a conducive work environment. Read more posts on the blog to learn how to create an efficient workplace.