As a manager or business owner, one of the vital roles you have to play is to inspire your workers to be the best versions of themselves. When done correctly, your employees will not only be more efficient and productive but also content with their jobs. A challenge though, especially for fresh managers, is to balance this positive leadership mindset while still unearthing effective ways to get work done.
Whether you have been supervising others for a long time, or have read hundreds of leadership books, leading a team and empowering them is a skill which can be acquired just like driving a car or sky diving.
While there is no guaranteed approach to becoming the “greatest leader ever,” there are several actionable steps you can follow to ensure your team members are always heading in the right direction.
Below are tips you can utilize to derive the highest levels of productivity from your team.
Give your employees ownership
Experienced managers appreciate the power of ownership in the business landscape. Ownership here means; making employees accountable for their work and letting them make their own decisions.
When you make an employee accountable for his work, it instills a sense of conscientiousness in him regarding his roles. He begins to view his work differently and appreciates that his decisions significantly impact the entire team’s performance.
Let a capable team member lead a project or have a noteworthy responsibility in the workplace – as a way of showing you fully trust his capabilities.
Set reasonable expectations and associated repercussions
Managers must understand what it is they are working towards, to increase the speed at which projects get completed. Coming up with specific goals for your team is crucial to keep everybody prioritized and focused.
Equally, it is vital that ramifications for failing to meet these expectations are set. However, the line between domineering enforcement and lackadaisical leadership must be set in order to enhance productivity while keeping the team motivated.
Consider investing in resource management software
Nowadays, no one can refute the role resource management software plays in improving productivity and teamwork. Here are two factors to mull over:
- Resource modeling and skill utilization
Employees are the most valuable resource you have in your workplace. And as a manager, you know that being able to monitor how resources are spread across projects is essential, especially when it comes to adjusting resource data.
In other words, being in a position to check who is free, who is busy, and who is handling what role, is very important. With such a model in place, your employees will never be underutilized or overburdened. Most importantly, team members will always be put on projects or tasks where they can perform to the best of their capabilities.
There is nothing objectionable than feeling overstrained by work and suffering from burnout. Similarly, it is very unproductive if workers feel underemployed, underworked, or bored from having little to do. For any manager, getting this right is essential.
- Streamline expenses, approvals, and reimbursement
Employee expense reporting is usually a dilemma for both employees and managers. Managers want accurate data when it comes to employee-related expenses; and on the other hand, employees want swift reimbursement. Satisfy everyone using the time and expense tracker feature incorporated in most resource management systems.
Team members can feed their expenses into the system effortlessly. And since modern resource management software are entirely cloud-based, expenses can be entered anytime, and from anywhere. What else can make workers more productive than seeing their expenses are reimbursed quickly and hours worked are compensated fairly?
Conducive work environment
The work environment is a vital contributor to boosting team productivity and efficiency. According to a study published in the Harvard Business Review, the environment affects how employees think, feel, and perform at the workplace.
As a result, many organizations nowadays are keen while designing offices where their employees operate from. For example, they install comfortable furniture, incorporate bright lighting and a touch of nature via the help of flowers and live plants.
Besides the physical setting, the atmosphere portrayed around the office also influences team productivity. Office politics, snobbish employees, and a dominating boss can bring down the overall team morale and productivity in an organization.
Reward your team for good work done
Workers perform well when they are given an incentive to do so – mostly a monetary one. A “virtual part on the back” is good but not good enough. Employees really love to see their efforts being appreciated in a more significant way. Many organizations have realized this and have various incentive programs in place to keep their teams motivated.
According to a study conducted by Genesis Associates, a United Kingdom-based recruitment firm, 85 percent of workers feel more motivated to perform well when an incentive is availed. These incentives can come in the form of free vouchers, extra time off, paid vacations, lunch outings, and cash prizes.
Provide regular feedback to your team
Lastly, introduce a feedback process in your organization. You cannot succeed in boosting your employee’s productivity if at the first place they don’t know how well/bad they are performing. Constructive feedback and performance reviews are, therefore, essential in improving team productivity.
When done providing feedback, always give them an opportunity to air their concerns. Maybe they would need more guidance on specific tasks to help them improve or would prefer more space for creative freedom. This promotes a culture of transparency and open dialogue which makes future collaborations better than before.
In a nutshell
Boosting your team productivity is a process akin to that of baking a cake. Appropriate ingredients (members of your team) need to be carefully assembled. Empowering your members of staff to be at their level best, calls for a well-blend batter of different ingredients.
In other words, there is no distinct approach of making your employees be more productive; instead, with little and consistent strategies, you can set the foundation of an efficient and productive environment. By offering continuous feedback, support, and encouragement to your team members, you will notice a significant rise in the productivity meter.
