– Contributed content –
22 February 2017. It’s hard to keep employees productive in the business world, whatever your industry. Repeating the same tasks day in and out, which ends up happening no matter how “unique” or “fun” the style of business may be, is enough to drive anyone insane. At the end of the day, whilst your employees are the workforce which keeps your business ticking over nicely, they’re not lifeless, robotic machines who can always operate like clockwork. Sometimes productivity may slip.
Of course, the last thing you should do in such an incident is belittle employees or demonstrate frustration, as this will merely have the effect of further agitating them and decreasing their motivation or productivity. The key to lifting the spirits of your workforce and ensuring they are all treated like people with wants and needs is to get to the bottom of what’s affecting their productivity, which could be different for each worker. Here are some steps to help your employees aspire towards success once more and help lift the image of your inspiring company at the same time.
Challenge your workers.
Maybe this is the opposite solution to anything you were expecting, but it makes total sense. People aren’t always lazy. They don’t always want the easy route. We might think we do until we’re faced with a dull and monotonous job which requires no real thinking power and no real opportunity to challenge our skill set or potential to grow and improve. It’s your job as the employer to put challenges in the road for your employees and reignite that spark behind their eyes once more. Simply asking your employees to take on new projects or invent a new marketing strategy for the company could be enough to jolt them into action and convince them that the job role doesn’t just require mundane, repetitive tasks day in and out. Give them a challenge, and watch as they start to work hard again.
Ease their workload.
You might be overworking your employees. Whilst I mentioned that it is important to challenge your workers, there’s a breaking point for everyone, and we all need to take a break and recover at some point. As I said, nobody is a machine. For example, your company could consider IT support to help relieve the workload of some employees who are putting in endless additional hours to keep company data secure. You might be putting people in way over their heads, and they didn’t want to say anything because they felt they should meet your expectation as the employer.
On top of that, you shouldn’t be turning your employees into workaholics because, ironically, workaholics don’t always work as well. If you drain every new employee of all their potential and eagerness, they’ll quickly tire of your company. Encourage real breaks, and build a more social atmosphere around the office. Even installing a pool table in the break room could be enough to remind employees that they are valued as people and allowed a little free time to recharge here and there.
Value employees for their work.
This is another big one. Much as I mentioned earlier, employees become stagnant and uninspired when they feel their job role entering a rut. You need to be reminding them that their work is important because people want to make a difference; they don’t always want to merge in with the crowd and simply pick up their paycheck at the end of the day. You’ve employed people with real potential, and you should be valuing them when they show it. Additionally, inspiring your best workers to grow and improve with the promise of a promotion won’t only improve their work, but the work of other employees who crave that promotion.
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