Many believe that a company’s success depends on methodically promoting its brand and services to attract new clients, retain current customers, and build lasting relationships with them. However, many do not consider employee productivity.

Nonetheless, as an entrepreneur, it’s best to remember that your business’s success isn’t solely measured by the number of customers and sales you get. It can also be influenced by your employees’ drive, productivity, and motivation.

Non-engaged personnel can spell disaster for your enterprise. Low productivity figures, high turnover rates, and widespread dissatisfaction among workers will negatively affect your business’s bottom line.

How do you promote overall workplace productivity? Start by assessing your current company conditions and operations. Look for areas that need improvement and formulate solutions to address them quickly. Being aware of your management gaffes and rectifying them immediately will avert the worst-case scenario.

To help you out, here are five mistakes you might be making that can bring down your employees’ productivity:

Insufficient Communication

One cause of low employee productivity and motivation is the lack of proper communication. Failure to effectively communicate with your team members will cause them to unnecessarily worry about what’s happening with the company or their current work performance.

As a business owner/manager, you should exert the time and effort to reach out to your employees, update them about the latest company developments, and ask them how they’re doing with their work. If your staff members have difficulty opening up to you, this may be an excellent opportunity to organize team-building activities.

Team building activities encourage your employees to communicate with each other to resolve problems or complete tasks. So, if you or your employees have difficulty opening up to each other, then host unusual indoor team-building activities. Exciting and unique team-building exercises will also put them in a fun and relaxing environment, further improving their productivity and motivation.

Scheduling Too Many Meetings

Although meetings are essential to maintaining workplace communication, too many meetings can disrupt your employees’ productivity. For instance, if you keep calling obligatory meetings every day, you’re pulling your workers out of their workstations, forcing them to leave their unfinished tasks.

Limit your meetings to once a week or once a month or if they’re really urgent and necessary. Plus, give your employees the ‘right to decline’ some unnecessary meetings, especially if they have valid reasons.

Ignoring Employees’ Ideas

A company with a healthy work environment should be open to its team members’ suggestions and ideas. Otherwise, expressing ignorance towards creative ideas from personnel can diminish their productivity and morale. Eventually, this will hinder the growth of your staff and your firm, affecting your business in the long run.

To ensure your employees remain productive and empowered, be open and learn to listen to their ideas. Ask them about their suggestions or insights that can help improve your business or its processes. Additionally, you can conduct a survey or distribute a feedback form to your employees so they can freely write down their ideas. Remember, creativity is one of the essential factors to keep your business thriving.

Not Providing Adequate Tools To Your Teams

It’s hard to complete tasks and get any work done with insufficient tools. Without the complete equipment, your workers will be forced to go down the traditional route, which is doing things manually. Eventually, it’ll take them much longer to complete their tasks than necessary.

On the other hand, some may start bringing their own tools, such as laptops. While this is okay, allowing your personnel to use their personal laptops to work could disrupt their focus. There’s a risk that they’ll get distracted and resort to watching a movie, browsing their social media accounts, or doing other distractions.

It’s your responsibility to provide your employees with the complete tools they need to remain productive and focused on their jobs. Ensure you have enough computers, work laptops, printers, and other office essentials to help them finish their work quicker and better.

5. Failure To Recognize Or Reward Employee Accomplishments

Unfortunately, many employers fail to realize the significant impact of recognizing their staff’s efforts and accomplishments. Some believe organizing a recognition or rewards program can waste time and money.

Recognizing your employees and their accomplishments is one of the best ways to boost their morale and productivity. It makes them feel seen and appreciated. Hence, you can organize a recognition program every month to reward your employees who have shown the best output. You may also reward employees with zero absences and tardiness. Acknowledge long-staying personnel, too.

Your rewards can either be in the form of money, food, items, or others, such as:

  • Gift cards;
  • Cake;
  • Gift baskets;
  • Increased sick days and paid time off (PTO), and
  • Flexible work schedules.

An employee recognition program will keep your employees productive and motivated to do better for next month’s rewards.

Conclusion

Business owners should get out of their way to help their workers stay motivated and productive. As they say, when employees feel uninspired by their jobs long enough, they leave their employers, not the company itself. So, watch out for these mistakes and help your employees grow. Soon, you’ll be surprised how much your highly productive workforce can accomplish.

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Samantha is an HR practitioner who has worked with several companies to help them improve their HR practices. Samantha has gained decades of experience in handling all HR facets that include managerial relations, labour relations, training and development, recruitment, and compensation and benefits.

When Samantha is not busy at work, she writes articles about the importance of effective HR practices and why startups should always prioritize this area of the business.