Most employers measure productivity based on the output of each employee, but companies should focus more on improving teamwork when thinking about ways to keep your employees as engaged in their jobs as possible.
For instance, an employee incentive program often increases morale and encourage workers to be more productive. Incentives don’t have to be in cash or kind all the time. It could be as simple as offering your workers a chance to work from home once or twice every week. A Stanford University study showed that most employees who work from their homes tend to be 14% more productive than working in an office.
Employee Productivity for Startups
Founders of start-up companies have a more significant reason to foster productivity as a team instead of focusing on individual talents. The small number of employees makes it easier for them to think of ways to inspire and motivate employees. This doesn’t mean, however, that larger companies have a more difficult time with handling productivity concerns.
Whether you are a new business or an established one, make sure to invest in leadership figures within the organization. The Society for Human Resource Management said that almost 60% of surveyed employees attributed poor productivity to incompetent management. Even if a team works like a well-oiled machine, an inept leader or manager can significantly disrupt their performance.
Maintaining Focus at the Workplace
Teamwork-based productivity also relies on minimizing distractions at the workplace. It takes at least two hours for an average employee to recover from a disturbance at work. Unnecessary meetings tend to be a big culprit for reducing their productive hours, and these cause U.S. businesses to lose $37 billion of employee salaries each year, according to Atlassian data.
Limit the frequency and number of meetings to a minimum, preferably once a week when necessary. While this doesn’t apply to all types of businesses, remember that unproductive meetings every month typically take 31 hours of productivity time among employees. Observe your employees during your next scheduled meeting, as Atlassian’s statistics showed that 91% of meeting participants don’t pay attention.
The Cost of Unproductivity
Aside from pointless meetings, the actual cost of unproductivity can also stem from inefficient communication and a stressful work environment. According to Siemens, poor communication in a 100-member company can incur business losses of around $528,000 every year.
Poor communication includes writing or answering unnecessary emails, which cause $1,800 of lost productivity for each employee every year. On the other hand, it’s not surprising that employers with highly stressed employees will spend more on health care coverage every year. Consider an employee incentive program that covers physical exercise as a solution.
It can be challenging to encourage productivity among employees, let alone inspire them to maintain it when there is little to no incentive for doing so. Granted that you pay them a salary to perform their jobs well, their reasons for being motivated have changed and are no longer just based on how much they earn every month.
