6 Steps to Help Increase Employee Productivity

To build a thriving business, you need productive employees. In an ideal world the whole staff would be highly engaged and productive. However, that is is not always the case, and employees who are not engaged can slow down progress and have less than desirable impact on your business. 

There’s good news, though - there are strategies for increasing workers' pace of execution to boost employee productivity. When you follow these steps, you may also get better quality work and more employee engagement, too.

1. Determine Why Your Employees Are Slow

How do you tell an employee to be faster? Just simply ask. Explain that you’ve noticed their speed isn’t meeting expectations and ask what’s slowing them down. They might be confused. They might be so detail-oriented that they’re getting caught up in particulars that may not require so much attention. They may even know their performance needs improvement and be glad you asked.

In any case, a number of things may be causing employees to work slower than you’d like, and the first step to helping improve employee productivity and identifying the underlying cause is through listening to what they have to say and open communication. 

2. Team Up With Them

Upon getting such feedback, an employees may feel defensive – and that’s the opposite of what you want. It may help to make it clear you’re on their team and there to support them.

Employees who are not engaged can slow down progress and have less than desirable impact on your business.

Ask, “What can we do to improve this situation?” or “How can I help?” Sometimes the answer to better employee engagement and productivity is there, you just have to ask the question.

3. Give Clear Deadlines With Priorities

You know which tasks are most important, but do your employees? While it’s great to give your staff to-do lists, it may help them to prioritize tasks if you set clear and specific expectations. Otherwise, you may run the risk of your employees taking care of the least demanding and important tasks first.

And don’t forget about Parkinson’s Law, that work expands to fill the time we allot for it. Don’t be afraid to give your staff demanding deadlines. You won’t increase employee productivity and know how quickly they can turn projects around unless you push them outside of their comfort zone from time to time.

4. Maximize Employee Productivity: Limiting Distractions

Employees who feel overwhelmed may end up accomplishing very little, but if you feed them tasks a few at a time, they may be able to knock out phenomenal amounts of work. You might try to find ways to eliminate roadblocks and hurdles in your employees’ environments and give them the chance to succeed.

Keep in mind that we are all distracted by different things too. For example, it can be distracting to have email up and running when trying to complete a complex task by a deadline, as you may get sidetracked by client questions. Determine what tends to get team members off-task and try to address those issues to improve employee productivity.

5. Increase Employee Engagement and Productivity: Discover Their Interests

When you take the time to explore the tasks that make your staff feel fulfilled, you’re really trying to find out what they’re good at. While you can’t assign everyone only the tasks they enjoy, it often helps to work to your employees’ strengths.

If you can balance jobs to include a few tasks that they love, your employees may be happier, more engaged, and more productive. 

6. Give Regular Feedback

So you meet with your employees, find out what the problems are, and develop a plan to speed up their work completion. The critical last step to boosting employee productivity is to follow up and create a feedback loop. Consider planning a series of meetings to discuss their performance and progress and decide how things are going. It may also be important to set incremental goals.

During employee evaluations, keep in mind that rewarding incremental progress may help you keep the tone positive, while still working toward your end goal. Constructive criticism and a focus on what they’ve accomplished may make the meeting a positive one, rather than something they’ll dread.

An added benefit to addressing employees' speed in a pragmatic fashion is that you’re demonstrating a growth mindset - the idea that performance challenges can be opportunities for improvement. This can help your staff to see that, although you have high expectations, you don’t expect perfection.

Looking for more tips on how you can raise the bar on productivity in your business? Learning how to hack your working week could be key.

A version of this article was originally published on November 6, 2015.

Photo: Getty Images