The effect of your company’s success depends on the quality and quantity of your employees’ work. As a manager or an owner, you should be concerned about how to improve the productivity and efficiency of your employees in order to succeed in a competitive environment.
How do some companies do well while others fail? The answer lies in the way they manage their employees’ work. If you have a clear idea about how to manage your employees, you can increase their efficiency and make them more productive in a short time.
Here are six tips to help you improve your employees’ work efficiency:
1. Say no to meetings that don’t matter
Meetings can be a distraction if not run effectively, and your team will thank you for minimizing them. To avoid wasting time, make sure that every meeting has a clear purpose or agenda. This will help you avoid pointless meetings, like the one I attended where everyone simply discussed how excited they were about their upcoming vacations.
Meetings should also be about more than just day-to-day business—they should involve brainstorming and problem solving. If you’re leading the meeting, make sure to include exercises that engage your employees’ creativity and offer them a chance to lead their own conversations. The best meetings are dynamic; there should be minimal talking at employees and maximum interaction with them.
Lastly, try to keep attendees to a minimum. Everyone should have an equal voice in the room—so only invite people who really need to be there!
2. Delegate efficiently
Don’t be afraid to delegate. While it’s true that the quality of a completed project is directly proportional to the effort the creator invests, it’s also true that you can only do so much. Delegating work allows you to complete more tasks in less time while ensuring that they’re done well—but you have to make sure that your workers know how to complete their assigned projects without your supervision.
When delegating work, make sure each employee understands what needs doing and why. If this isn’t clear, ask for feedback about what needs clarification, then provide any necessary context or training. It’s also important for employees to communicate with you about their progress as well as any obstacles they encounter; in order to give them a sense of ownership over their work, listen carefully and consider their suggestions seriously before making decisions. Once your employees are on board with a project and understand its purpose (and by extension, the company’s mission), they’ll be better able to take initiative in getting things done correctly and efficiently—which is exactly what you want!
3. Be smart about training
In addition to putting together a robust onboarding program, you need to be strategic about how and when you offer training.
You may already have an internal training schedule that’s worked well in the past, but don’t let familiarity lead to complacency—take a fresh look at your current classes and ask yourself whether each one is still helping employees work more efficiently. Be sure to consider:
- ● The place: You’ve probably heard of the adage “location, location, location,” but it’s just as important for employee training. An optional class on customer service skills will lose less momentum if held in a conference room than if conducted over digital screens from opposite sides of the country. If possible, make all your required courses local so they don’t interfere with productivity elsewhere.
- The time: When it comes to employee training, timing is everything. During their first week or two on the job, new hires should attend only classes related to their position (and only those relevant to their day-to-day tasks). Afterward, encourage them instead to focus on their own areas of interest or skill development by making offered courses optional or giving employees time off for them during work hours. This will help them feel empowered and become better prepared for the next level within your company’s hierarchy—and may even morph into something resembling professional development in the process!
- The way: Don’t make all training classes mandatory; instead give employees choices based on what they want out of each course—so long as it aligns with your organization’s needs too!
4. Take on a culture of accountability
Accountability means that employees take personal responsibility, both for their own work as well as the quality of their relationships with clients and colleagues.
It might sound like a simple concept, but it’s so crucial to fostering an environment where everyone feels comfortable taking on challenging projects and pursuing continuous learning opportunities. When people feel invested in their work and its impact—on the business, on their team members’ success, and even on the world at large—they’re more likely to achieve amazing results.
There are many things you can do to encourage accountability in your workplace. One of the most effective is using technology solutions like project management software or other tools that will help make your team’s tasks clear and easy to track. Consider taking advantage of programs that involve engagement surveys or regular feedback sessions among team members; these are also great ways to keep everyone focused on important business goals while still allowing them room for improvement and creativity.
It is also important to make your employees feel comfortable in the environment in which they work. The work is stressful, so they need to provide maximum comfort and convenience. The space in which employees stay should be ergonomic workspace design, so that employees are productive and satisfied during the working day.
5. Set goals, and track progress toward them
You should set goals with your employees at the beginning of each quarter and then monitor progress toward those goals throughout the quarter. When you talk about goals, be specific, measurable, realistic and timely.
For example, if your marketing department works to increase the number of newsletter subscribers in a quarter, you might set a goal for them to double their subscriber list from 10,000 to 20,000 over the next 90 days. This goal is specific because it sets out exactly what needs to be accomplished and when. It’s also measurable — either they will have doubled their subscriber list by the end of the quarter or they won’t. It’s also realistic as long as it doesn’t seem like too much work for them based on your knowledge of how much work they can handle and how much time they have available. And it’s timely because 90 days gives them enough time to complete this project while still holding them accountable for getting things done in a reasonable amount of time rather than letting things drag on indefinitely.
6. Create a culture of collaboration
A culture of collaboration means that employees are actively seeking out opportunities to combine their skills, knowledge and experience with others. It doesn’t mean doing everything together; rather it means working together in ways that will allow you to achieve greater results than if you worked independently. A collaborative culture can be created by:
- Encouraging team members to work together.
- Putting people with complementary skills together on projects and initiatives.
- Allowing teams and individuals to talk about ideas outside of the organization as well as within (e.g., with other organizations or clients).
To keep the collaborative ball rolling, encourage teams to continue communicating after projects have been completed. Praise employees when they’re prepared to try new things or take risks by collaborating – even if they haven’t achieved the desired result. Apply these tips and you will see a big difference!