4 Ways to Increase Productivity in Your Organization

As a business leader, you want your team to be as productive as possible. Simply put, the more work that gets done, the more your business makes. But it’s also about efficiency too. If you’re paying two people to do a job that can easily be performed by one, you’re wasting money and resources by failing to streamline your business effectively.

There are so many things you can do to make your business work smarter and harder, but it’s important you factor in the quality of work. Simply pushing staff to work beyond their limits is not only unethical and unhealthy, it will also result in a poorer quality of output. The most productive workers are the ones who are happy, valued, and rewarded in their jobs. 

To help you increase your profits and grow your business, here are four ways to increase productivity in your organisation.

Minimize Time Wasters

If you want to focus on efficiency and productivity, you’ll need to cut out anything that wastes time. There are two main offenders in this area.

The first is meetings. How much time does your company waste holding unnecessary meetings to discuss work matters? Many of these interactions could be solved with a simple email or phone call, and they always tend to drag on too long. One easy solution is to shorten all meetings. If you schedule a meeting to last an hour, that’s exactly how long it will last. But if you shorten it to 45 minutes or even half an hour, you will achieve the same result. It’s just that the attendees will be more efficient as they know they have limited time. You could even schedule standing meetings, as people won’t want to hang around when they aren’t sitting in comfy chairs and drinking coffee.

The second offender is email. When you’re engaged in a complicated task that requires intense focus, an email notification popping up can grab your attention and pull you out of what you were doing. You’ll then spend the next hour responding to whatever issue was raised in the email and your hard work on that important sales pitch will be pushed aside. Turn off your email notifications, and set a couple of dedicated times each day for checking them. Apply the same rules to your staff. After all, if anyone needs you urgently they can phone you.

Use Technology

There are so many different technological solutions specifically designed to improve an organization’s productivity. The most forward-thinking companies will embrace any new tool that can help them achieve their objectives more effectively. Tasks management apps like Trello and Basecamp are great for prioritizing objectives, visualizing to-do lists, and managing time more effectively. There are even industry-specific software packages, such as OpsCheck for hedge fund workflow management.

You may find that a tool you choose to adopt is not as effective as you’d hoped. Don’t feel obliged to stick with something that isn’t working just because you’ve invested money into it. It can take some time to find the perfect productivity solutions.

Look After Your Staff

There are a few organizations that are always receiving bad press for the way they treat their workers. Making them work long hours for little pay to achieve impossible targets. This attitude to your staff is only going to foster resentment and a high employee turnover. But if your team actually feels valued and enjoys their work, they are going to be a lot more productive. One way you can achieve this is to look after their health and wellbeing. Offer wellness programs or mental health days to help them avoid stress and burnout. Allow them to work flexibly to maintain their work-life balance and encourage good working practices like not sitting for too long and taking regular breaks.

Reward Good Work

People like their hard work to be appreciated and valued. You don’t have to give cash bonuses or prizes as a reward for making sales, but an encouraging word can make all the difference. Make you celebrate your team’s wins, no matter how big or small. Letting them know their work is making a difference and shouting about their efforts in front of the team will motivate everyone to work to the best of their abilities. 

These are just a few of the ways in which you can increase productivity across your organisation. Just remember that your employees are people and should be treated as such. Look after their health and give them the tools they need, and the benefits will be seen in their work and your business’s profits. 

4 Ways to Increase Productivity in Your Organization