Boosting employee productivity is crucial for the ongoing success of your company. The more productive your workforce is, the more your company will succeed. Productive employees focus on the right aspects of their roles at the right time to achieve your company goals. Employee productivity is directly linked with better performance and talent retention.
Several factors, such as work environment, work processes, career development opportunities, pay structure, and employee wellness, affect employees’ productivity in the workplace. By investing in the right strategies, you can cater to the employees’ needs and increase your workforce’s productivity.
In this blog, we shall learn the top 5 tips for boosting employee productivity levels at your workplace.
1. Make Work Fun with Gamification
Employees can sometimes feel that their work is becoming monotonous. This could lead to low productivity, disinterest in work, and even burnout. Gamification of work processes can take away boredom and introduce fun elements to work, making it more exciting and rewarding. In fact, a study by Zippia revealed that around 90% of employees felt gamification has made them more productive at work.
Here are a few gamification techniques that you can implement in your organization for boosting employee productivity and engagement.
- Game-based employee training – Make your employee training sessions more interactive and engaging by introducing points-based quizzes to test the employee’s knowledge and spot areas for improvement.
- Point-based leaderboards – Create an interactive leaderboard to reward employees who complete their tasks on time. Depending on the number of points accumulated, the employees can take out a prize, such as a discount voucher, gift card, and more.
- Badge recognition – Present badges to the employees who go out of their way to do their jobs. For example, you can give badges to the employees who contributed posts to the company blog or to employees who organized an event or workshop for the team.
- Spin-to-win boards – Set up a board online or in your office during certain events or festivities to give exciting gifts to employees.
- Incentives and rewards – Offer tangible incentives or rewards to the employees who consistently deliver their best to meet your company goals.
2. Invest in Employee Training
Most employees want to work with a company that provides opportunities to learn new things and improve their skills. In fact, 70% of employees would leave their current jobs to take up a new job in organizations that invest in employee development and training. Hence, investing in employee training is crucial for the success of your company.
A strong employee training and development program offers numerous benefits to the employees and your company. It increases employee engagement, encourages creative thinking, builds their skills, prepares them for new challenges, and fosters employee retention. You are indirectly boosting employee productivity by preparing your team for their jobs.
These tips will help you make an effort to become an organization that promotes learning and prioritizes employee development.
- Conduct a skill gap analysis to identify your training needs. It will assess your team’s strengths and weaknesses and help you decide the topics you must include in your training program. You can ask your employees what they wish to learn to improve your program.
- Ensure that your training programs focus on the employees’ professional and personal development. Pay adequate attention to including soft skill training besides hard skill training in your programs.
- Experiment with different training formats such as microlearning, eLearning, video training, instructor-led training, group discussions, gamified learning, and more to make learning more accessible and effective for your employees.
- Create mentorship programs where an existing employee guides the new joiners in their roles with the help of on-the-job training, coaching, and mentoring. This helps new joiners reach out to someone if they are struggling with their tasks without fear of judgment and helps them learn and excel.
- Provide your employees with the right tools and software that can speed up their work without losing focus on the task at hand.
- Offer employees a yearly or monthly allowance that they can spend on learning new things that would help them in their jobs. For example, developers could purchase ebooks that help them polish their programming skills.
Register now for our latest webinar on “Making Enterprise Gamification Work.”
3. Avoid Micromanagement
Displaying excessive control over your employees and monitoring their every move can be terrible for their morale. Employees may feel demotivated, humiliated, and frustrated, thereby experiencing mental health issues such as stress, anxiety, depression, and more. This can certainly hamper their performance at work and affect their productivity.
Micromanaging is a form of bullying that decreases the self-confidence among employees, kills their creativity, and creates a hostile work environment, ultimately leading to high employee turnover rates.
82% of workers revealed that they would quit their jobs because of their manager’s poor behavior, which includes micromanaging and disrespecting personal time. Trust your employees to take responsibility for their tasks and build strong workplace relationships to avoid this damage.
Remember, your way of doing the task is not the only way. Look at the bigger picture.
4. Introduce an Employee Wellness Program
Having sound mental and physical health is crucial for performing at work. Healthy employees demonstrate more productivity, take fewer leaves, and are less likely to feel mental burnout and stress at work. No wonder employee health has become one of the significant priorities for most companies today.
Improve your employees’ overall health and well-being by developing a company-wide wellness program. Cultivate a workplace that improves employee health, promotes employee engagement, and builds a strong and productive team.
Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to implementing a wellness program at your workplace. Identify your employees’ needs to chalk out a program that works for your organization. These ideas will certainly help in boosting employee productivity.
- Start by revamping your office to make room for breakout zones, meditation rooms, game areas, and more.
- Send out surveys to your employees to learn what wellness activities they would be the most interested in. This will help you create a wellness program that your employees value and appreciate.
- Partner with local gyms or yoga centers to offer employees discounts on monthly membership fees.
- Avoid sending work emails and scheduling meetings or phone calls outside work hours, on weekends, and on other holidays. Encourage a culture that supports work-life balance when they are not on the job, thereby promoting an excellent work-life balance.
- Devise assistance programs to support employees with personal issues, such as substance abuse, anxiety, and depression. These programs must help them achieve peace of mind and boost their confidence to perform to the best of their abilities.
5. Build a Positive Work Environment
A positive work environment is essential to create a good workplace culture where the employees thrive. It boosts employee morale, skyrockets productivity, and contributes significantly to employee retention.
You do not have to go overboard to create a positive environment at work. In fact, the simplest things that support the employees physically and emotionally can help you build an atmosphere that makes employees feel that they are valued members of your company.
Following are a few ways to cultivate a better work environment for your employees to keep them engaged and happy.
- Encourage team collaboration to ensure that the employees feel included. Communicate with them regularly, as a lack of information may cause misunderstandings leading to decreased motivation and productivity.
- Promote diversity at your workplace and build a team of professionals from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
- Express gratitude to your team members and recognize the team’s hard work. After project delivery, a simple ‘thank you,’ or ‘good job’ can brighten your team’s day and make them feel special.
Register now for our latest webinar on “Making Enterprise Gamification Work.”
Summing Up
Happy and motivated employees are the key to building productive and successful workplaces. To boost employee productivity, offer ways to develop their knowledge and reward them for their hard work. Build a positive work environment that focuses on their health and promotes work-life balance.
Motivate and engage your employees by following the tips mentioned in this blog and skyrocket your employees’ productivity.
About the Author
Aanya Rachel
Aanya Rachel is the Content Manager at The Address, a coworking space in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge, experience, and extensive research in this field. She writes on a wide range of topics related to coworking, the growth of remote workers, startups, and real estate.
Follow @upshot_ai