The productivity of an employee usually deteriorates as the day goes by that they get to a point where they are fully exhausted. Therefore, as an employer, it is essential to have various tactics that help improve productivity at your workplace. Here are unconventional ways to improve workplace productivity.
Give them their Freedom
Many employers think that being strict and having a “no cellphone rule” is enough to improve workplace productivity. However, reports have shown that freedom enhances the productivity of employees. Your employees should respect you, and not fear you.
When you come up with rules to ensure that work is done, remember to involve them. This will help you create laws that guarantee completion of work, and employees will feel like they are working according to their rules.
If you come up with unfair rules, employees will feel like hostages. They should have the freedom to interact for five minutes after working for an hour. They can stand up, go to a friend’s desk or meditate. Do not make your employees feel like they are trapped in your home.
Introduce Care Programs
Care programs help employees manage their personal and professional lives. If an employee has a family problem, he or she will be less productive. Therefore, introduce care programs in your company where employees are trained on how to deal with the needs of life. They can also form groups and talk to each other about their problems.
It is vital to be interested in the lives of your employees because it will assure them that you care about their lives outside work. If an employee just came back from maternity or paternity leave, he or she should be trained on childcare and how to balance that with work.
Some of the major topics to be taught in these programs are taking care of aging parents, managing anger, caring for pets, and raising teenage children, among others. This program has a significant impact on the productivity of employees.
Being Comfortable in the Office
An employee who is always tired due to sitting in an uncomfortable chair will not be productive for long. It is vital to have comfortable chairs and tables for your employees. They should not strain while working. Being comfortable also includes having a massage chair in one of the rooms for employees to use when they need to relax.
A massage chair will help reduce the chances of being exhausted in the office. It is also important to have a recliner for a backrest. The recliner is controlled by remote, and it has various exciting features, including speakers. Comfortable furniture helps to improve productivity in the office because employees can get rid of tiredness.
Have a Nap Room
It has been reported that taking naps significantly improves productivity. Successful people attest that they usually sleep for about 30 minutes in the afternoon before carrying on with the day’s activities. Therefore, it is important to have a nap room where employees can have 20-minute naps. You can come with a policy where an employee gets to have, at most, two naps. The nap room should be relaxing with pillows and sheets.
Introduce Humor
As an employer, you need to be approachable by smiling and laughing at people’s jokes. As long as a person is not attacked personally, jokes should be encouraged on the floor. You can do this by having nicknames, hiring a funny motivational speaker, or talking about comedy. This will make your employees laugh, and they will love being at work. Such a strategy will improve their productivity because they will be working in an office full of laughter and love.
Play Games
Your employees work hard throughout the week. Therefore, it is important to take one hour in one of the days to play games. This hour can be the last hour on a Friday evening when they do not need to wake up early on a Saturday to go to work. Table tennis, word press, and darts are some of the most interesting games played in offices.
Video games are also good, and they have been reported to reduce stress at work and create friendships. Also, you can form teams that will compete against each other. The employees will learn to be competitive in a friendly manner.
Also, games help employees love their work and appreciate each other’s efforts. Additionally, they can participate in the games during their daily breaks provided they are back to work on time.
Reward Them When They Achieve Results
If your employees give you desirable results, it is important to reward them. If they close a deal, buy a cake, take one afternoon and eat it as a family. Also, if an employee makes a huge difference for the company, for example, making the highest sales, that employee should get a holiday or a commission. Do not make your employees feel like they are not doing anything great in the company.
You should tell them when they are performing well daily. Give them positive messages as this will help improve their productivity. However, you should be specific with your compliment. This will help them understand what they did specifically that helped to close the deal and they can work on improving on that tactic.
Reduce the Hours of Meetings
Meetings are important because they help everyone in the company work towards one goal. However, if you keep employees for two hours in the boardroom and then send them to the floor, you are punishing them. They might be tired such that they can’t be productive enough. You should have short meetings with direct messages to help save time and prevent fatigue.
Productivity in the workplace is essential in all companies, but it is normal to lack motivation to work. The tactics mentioned above help improve the productivity of employees, in turn leading to company success. You should not make your employees feel guilty for low performance, train them to use these ways to improve their productivity.
Resources – Entrepreneur, FoxBusiness, Continuum