02 Jul 6 tips to boost your team’s productivity
Do you feel that your team is doing more and more work and yet still not achieving the desired results? 🤔
In such a competitive world, it’s common to see company employees working harder and harder but producing less and less. This is because there is a big difference between working harder and working smarter! A company’s productivity is fundamental to its successful operation and the well-being of its employees.
So how can you improve your team’s productivity? 😉
1️⃣ Set goals and objectives
Creating goals and objectives is essential so that your employees know what needs to be achieved and work towards it, so that everyone is working on the same thing.
The tip is to set SMART goals:
✅ Specific (that are clear and not too broad);
✅ Measurable (that can be measured);
✅ Achievable (that are realistic and possible to realise);
✅ Relevant (that are really important and appropriate);
✅ Time-bound (that are easy to set a time for achieving).
For example, a SMART goal would be: “to increase sales of a new product through the online shop by 10% in 2 months”.
It’s also important to talk about strategic objectives. A widely used methodology is the OKR (Objectives and Key Results), which is a goal management model focussed on results. Objectives are where you want to get to, and Key Results are how you get there. For example, if my Objective is to increase sales of the new product by 10% via the online shop in 2 months, I should also define some Key Results, such as posting about the product on social media every week.
2️⃣ Invest in education
At first it may seem more like an expense than an investment, but increasing your team’s productivity can also depend a lot on their skills.
Investing in education and training for your company will undoubtedly improve your employees’ performance, because no employee will be productive if they aren’t prepared for the job proposed to him.
3️⃣ Improve internal communication
One of the biggest barriers to productivity is a lack of communication between leaders and teams, and between team members.
Miscommunication leads to more dissatisfied and, consequently, less productive employees. A leader who doesn’t share his goals and objectives with the team is unlikely to get his employees to know what to do.
A lack of communication within a team will also lead to everyone going their own way and there being no common goals.
Therefore, having a regular face-to-face and/or online communication will consequently bring more productivity.
4️⃣ Create Action Plans
There’s no point in setting SMART goals if you don’t then define an action plan: who’s going to do what, in what timeline, etc.
An ideal tool to help with this is the Action Plan, which allows you to draw up a timeline of actions that must answer the questions known as 5W2H:
❓ WHAT (What will be done?)
❓ WHY (Why will it be done?)
❓ WHERE (Where will it be done?)
❓ WHEN (When will it be done?)
❓ WHO (By whom will it be done?)
❓ HOW (How will it be done?)
❓ HOW MUCH (How much will it cost?)
5️⃣ Recognise your employees
There’s no way to increase a team’s productivity without working on motivation. We all like to hear positive feedback on our work, a compliment and even a reward. That’s why thinking of a way to recognise the company or a particular team, for the results obtained and objectives achieved, will certainly make employees more productive. In the end, don’t forget to show your team how important they are to the company.
6️⃣ Manage time well
The search for more productivity obviously goes hand in hand with time management. Organising and planning the time spent on each task will make it easier to reach the final goal. In addition, an employee with their tasks defined and the time stipulated for each one will be more productive and have fewer errors and delays.
Essentially, understanding how to keep a team motivated is fundamental to maintaining a company’s productivity and, consequently, achieving good results.