If you want to boost your productivity at work and amp up your entire team’s work performance, you’ve come to the correct place.
However, keep in mind that this is a collaborative effort that is best led from the top down.
Why?
Because defining basic, repeatable procedures and workflows and leading by example allows your talent to achieve better. It also improves business morale and fosters an accountability culture. Contractors, specific divisions, and entire organisations all fall within this category.
High-performing teams, on the other hand, do not appear by chance. Boosting performance necessitates a concerted effort on the part of management, as well as certain tried-and-true adjustments to your workplace.
We’ve broken down nine practical and concrete approaches for your entire team to increase work effectiveness. These suggestions can help you to bring out the best in your employees without having to micromanage them.
1. Make your goals, deadlines, and milestones clearly clear.
This is the first, and perhaps the most crucial step towards gaining more from your employees.
Workers are more likely to focus and stay on task when they have expectations and goals to strive toward.
That’s why kanban boards and collaborative calendars are indispensable in today’s workplace. These tools make it easy to know what’s coming up, what’s in progress, what needs to be reviewed, who’s responsible at each stage, and so on by highlighting deadlines and goals.
Collaboration software, however, develops a team mentality, which is possibly more vital. It’s all the more reason to surpass expectations and step up when employees are held accountable and recognise that their teammates rely on their efforts.
This is where tools such as RisePath PlanCentral can help. Our collaboration software enables teams and businesses to keep track of project progress and collaborate back and forth.
A collaborative calendar, at the very least, guarantees that projects don’t drag on and that workers complete their jobs on time. This, in and of itself, stimulates improved performance.
Note: When it comes to deadlines and goals, don’t be scared to be flexible! Setting a realistic timeline gets a lot easier as you get to know your team and build a workflow.
2. Keep your teammates up to date on performance statistics on a regular basis.
Let’s be clear about what we’re talking about: performance vs. productivity.
Although these concepts are interchangeable, keep in mind that performance is linked to results (versus just getting things done).
And, yes, effective employees are usually high-achievers. However, there’s a distinction to be made between being “productive” (hint: “busy”) and having your activities related to actual outcomes.
It is entirely up to your team to determine whether those results are winning deals, closing tickets, or finishing projects. What important is that your employees are aware of their performance and understand what constitutes “excellent” performance.
Unfortunately, only one-fifth of employees believe they have control over the performance metrics against which they are evaluated.
That’s sad because no one can expect to enhance their performance if they are unaware of predetermined expectations and consequences. This emphasises the necessity of being open about performance statistics and offering comments on a regular basis.
Rather than depending on annual reviews (or, even worse, waiting until you’re completely dissatisfied with someone’s performance), make it a point to:
- Not to silo data but share performance milestones and outcomes with your team on a regular basis (whether in weekly 1:1s, monthly meetings, or quarterly evaluations).
- Empower teams and departments to share data among themselves and with other teams—this may take the form of a monthly organization-wide gathering where each team presents its statistics, or it could take the form of an internal team message.
- Recognize and reward employees that go above and beyond—the link between employee recognition and engagement is well-established.
With RisePath PlanCentral, it’s simple to update certain teams and create an area for essential alerts.
3. Provide your employees with much-needed flexibility and autonomy.
When we’re in “the zone,” or a cognitive “flow state,” we tend to do our best work.
However, the characteristics that contribute to a sense of focus and productivity differ from one person to the next.
Give your team members some flexibility and liberty to ensure they have the space they need to get into the zone at their own speed. Why not allow an employee to hunker down, unplug, or take some extra time to accomplish their best work if it won’t have a detrimental influence on the project?
This necessitates both structure and a positive corporate culture. It will only work if your staff understands that they cannot forgo quality or performance in the process of combining self-care with professional responsibilities, similar to “unlimited vacation.”
Good policy, excellent training, and a culture of mutual respect are the greatest ways to support this delicate balancing act.
Rather than incessantly interrupting individuals with notifications all day, every day, make it a point to arrange a time for focused work in their schedules. This way, they know they don’t have to check business email and other asynchronous communications on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.
This, of course, necessitates your trust and their capacity to handle their own. But, given that micromanaging is known to have bad consequences, it’s well worth it.
We’ve witnessed personally how people who are in charge of their own schedules are more productive at work. According to research, remote workers also achieve better results as a result of their productivity.
If your staff are achieving or exceeding your performance standards, don’t be scared to give them the reins. Oh, and workaholic culture should be avoided at all costs.
Assume someone needs to enter “do not disturb” mode in order to complete a work sprint. Awesome! They shouldn’t be chastised for it.
4. Reduce the number of interruptions in your team as much as feasible.
Unfun fact: During any given workday, 40% of workers face at least 10 interruptions.
This may seem self-evident, but it truly emphasises the previous argument. The more you can do to create a productive workplace where your co-workers can get down to business, the better your work performance will be. This entails:
- Not imposing last-minute meetings or projects on employees
- Reducing the number of time-consuming and onerous jobs that could be automated by apps (think: scheduling, time-logging)
- Educating your employees on the need for scheduling breaks and discouraging round-the-clock labour
Interruptions are inevitable. Managers and other co-workers, on the other hand, should not be at the centre of them.
Continuous notifications and obnoxious email chains must become extinct.
Team chat apps, on the other hand, give a simple, real-time channel for communicating with your co-workers without interfering with each other’s schedules. As a result, bottlenecks are reduced, and a more collaborative culture emerges.
In brief, co-workers are encouraged to assist and support one another, but with the flexibility to mute notifications, set do not disturb statuses, and more through chat.
6. Recognize performance issues before they become a major issue.
Missed deadlines and mediocre projects are red flags that a worker requires assistance.
However, many organisations wait until there’s a bigger problem before intervening with “underperforming” personnel.
Companies should ideally be able to detect such concerns before they become performance-related difficulties. To do so, you’ll need to have a transparent business culture and check in with staff on a frequent basis.
If you don’t have the necessary tools, spotting bottlenecks in projects might be difficult. Fortunately, team management software such as RisePath PlanCentral was created to assist managers in identifying and resolving issues as promptly as feasible.
7. Make sure your teams’ workloads are reasonable and manageable.
There are no surprises here. Workers that are overworked and overloaded are unable to perform.
Go-getters, on the other hand, should not be assigned “busy work” or monotonous jobs that do not allow them to use their skills.
It’s a balancing act to come up with an adequate workload. Because everyone’s skill sets are unique, establishing equity may involve some trial and error.
You can better grasp what to expect in terms of performance and what your employees can realistically accomplish by tracking tasks and treating them as data points.
8. Provide your staff with resources so they may receive help whenever they need it.
Although this is one of the most time-consuming workplace improvement suggestions, it is well worth the effort in the long term.
In summary, giving your teammates the resources they need to execute their jobs is a big part of preventing slowdowns and ensuring they stay on task. This could involve the following:
- A full-service help desk
- A collection of resource documents, training videos, and other materials
- Staff that are designated to supervise and support employees as needed
These items are especially important for new employees who may have a lot of questions or are hesitant to seek support after they’ve been onboarded. Again, having a supportive, team-oriented culture is a game-changer in this situation.
9. Encourage teammates to spell out their top priorities.
Simply put, employees should be able to respond to the question “What do I need to be working on?” at any time.
We understand how easy it is to get lost in the weeds of your daily responsibilities. The ability to clearly lay out your important duties, on the other hand, makes it much easier to not just focus but also prioritise your schedule for optimal performance.
Spelling out what you’ve achieved and what’s ahead, whether after a meeting or on your kanban board, helps you stay on track. Here’s an example from our project collaboration guide that shows how chat tools can automatically summarise notes from stand-up meetings to help workers stay on track.
You can tame your calendar and urge your team to do the same by using a task management and prioritised to-do lists.
So, how do you intend to boost your team’s productivity?
Simply put, getting higher performance from your staff involves giving them more power.
Creating a positive work environment. Providing a productive workplace for them. And, of course, equipping them with the tools they require to perform their duties effectively.
The techniques outlined above, as well as programmes like RisePath PlanCentral, are essential for establishing a close-knit, high-performing team that excels at completing projects.
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