When it comes to running a successful business, the number of productive hours in a day is crucial for growth. Often times trying to dissect the issue within your company can make the problem even more complex than it should be. The fact is that fixing this issue is often simpler than one would think. Therefore, the following list includes some of the best ways to increase productivity within your business.
Have a Clear Goal
One of the most common misconceptions about a lack of productivity in the office is that employees are simply lazy. One lazy person might be possible but writing off an entire office as lazy is ridiculous. Instead, stop and ask yourself why your employees don’t seem to be motivated to work hard for you and the company. You will often find that they simply don’t have a clear goal to work toward. As a leader, it is your responsibility to communicate effectively to your employees about the goals of the company, department, and team. This should include weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals. Afterward, make sure that those goals are being looked at and updated regularly.
Involve Employees
A common cause of low productivity within an office is its own policies and procedures. You, as a business leader, must sit down and attempt to figure out what areas can be improved on or eliminate entirely. Sometimes technology can even be integrated to remove redundant tasks. When it comes to organization, employees are a valuable resource, as they are the ones who are actually participating in the workflow. Getting the input of the people who are actually doing the work is key. A great strategy to implement is a town hall meeting. This is where employees are encouraged to voice their concerns and suggestions. Your job here is to listen and act after the matter. It is important that if you do make changes based on the feedback that you receive, that you let people know what the changes are and why. Often, if you don’t let people know that you made the change based on what you heard from them, they may not connect the dots and may still feel like they weren’t listened to.
Introduce Incentives
Introducing incentives in the workplace can help boost productivity. You don’t have to promise large sums of money or promotion, but you can offer smaller incentives that your employees are sure to still love. One of the best things you can offer are additional vacation days, who doesn’t love more vacation days? You could even offer longer breaks or work-from-home days. Get to know what incentives motivate your employees. Leaders should know what drives each and every person on their team.
Every business leader understands the importance of having a productive staff. However, not every leader understands how to fix this very serious issue. I recommend that business leaders take a look at list above to begin laying down the foundation of a strong and productive business.
With online communication getting even faster and technology becoming more a part of every workplace, the need for having employees all in the same place at once has dramatically diminished. If you’re looking to hire remote employees, you need to make sure you understand everything that goes into managing people who are on your team but could be located hundreds of miles away from you. This guide will give you a quick rundown about remote employees.
Will It Be Helpful?
Having remote employees just because you can might cause problems. Think about whether your business will be able to run smoothly if multiple people don’t work in the same building. You might try testing the waters by opening up a remote worker program on a temporary basis. Take note of both the positives and negatives of this experiment, and see if the positives are great enough to justify continuing and if the negatives are small or manageable enough not to be an issue.
Managing From Afar
Managing remote employees can take some getting used to, but it’s no big deal as long as you’re aware of the differences. As a manager, you should send out clear instructions to your remote employees with definitive deadlines. You also need to have guidelines in place for turning in work, which is very easy to do if you’ve set up the right collaboration tools beforehand.
The Equipment
In order to be up to speed, remote employees need to either be given the right equipment or directed about what to get. While it’s more costly to provide it yourself, it can definitely make it easier to do it that way. When giving out equipment to remote employees, you can mark them with asset tags to monitor and track them. Keep it clear that any equipment you give out is company property and that it must be treated properly as well as returned if they leave the company.
Time Zone Differences
One barrier to hiring someone to work remotely is time zone differences. Should someone live on the same coast, you’ll have similar or identical time zones. However, an employee could be going to bed when you’re waking up due to the severe difference in time zones. If you have various people on-call at various times, you can make this work, and the different time zones of your workers can be an asset. But, when posting a job listing, you should be specific about when you’ll need people to be available.
Opening the Candidate Pool
Someone could be perfect for your team but have geographic restrictions. However, this doesn’t have to mean they can’t work for you. By hiring them to work remotely, you can have them on your team even if your communication is restricted to webcams and emails. This will allow you to cast a wider net when you are recruiting top talent.
Leadership Mindset
As someone pointed out to me recently, having the right leadership mindset is critical to any remote worker program. Leaders need to understand that micromanaging and strict oversight is near impossible when you are managing someone virtually. Remote employees want to be treated fairly, just like every other employee. Having leaders who understand and accept that is important. When managing remote teams, building a culture that values trust and autonomy is extremely important.
Are you ready to step into this decade and open your organization up to have a remote workforce? If you still need some prep, that’s what we’re here for.
Having your own business might be the goal you’ve been working toward throughout your career. It could even be something that you want to try even if your resumé doesn’t show that you have the precise experience that you think you’ll need. Every first-time business owner has had to put a bit of faith in their decision. This guide will help you get your business started, regardless of your experience.
Partner With Someone Who Does
Businesses don’t get to be successful through one person’s ambition. While you might have a great idea for a business, you still need others’ input, especially from people who’ve started their own businesses or helped get businesses off the ground. Get in touch with people who you believe would understand your business and be able to help it grow. They should show their qualifications through educational credentials as well as proof of other businesses that have been successful due in part to their input.
Start a Franchise
An empire can be created through franchising, much like fast food giants have done. You can create a brand and help it spread by entrusting others with your product and its likeness. Franchises require varying amounts of cash to begin your investment. Try to keep your franchise regional when you first start and then gradually let it trickle out to other areas based on how well it’s received. You could also get started by joining an existing franchise to learn what you need to know for success. You can enjoy the independence of owning a business without having to worry about creating its infrastructure from scratch. There are many successful franchise owners that you can talk to that will tell you how they got where they are today.
Start Small
Starting any kind of business is a risk, but that risk can be reduced by starting small. You don’t need to sink unfathomable amounts of capital into a startup in an effort to prove that you’re serious about it. You don’t need a huge team, and your headquarters can be modest when you’re starting out. When things take off, you can beef up your staff and make your business’ dwellings more luxurious.
Overall, it’s good to keep your goals practical so that you don’t get in over your head. You don’t need to have mounds of experience to start a business, but you do need to realize that the less experience you have, the more careful you’ll have to be. It takes gumption to start a business, and it takes discipline to keep it going. Every day adds to your experience, and so does every challenge that you face.
If you’re looking for ways to make your company eco-friendlier, it all starts with your employees. Whether you want to cut down on overall waste, or you’d like to implement better recycling practices, there are numerous tactics you can implement to encourage your employees to be more eco-conscious as a whole. How can you get started improving the eco-consciousness around your office? Take a look below for a few helpful tips.
Cut Down on Resources
Anything you can do to reduce the amount of waste in your company’s trash cans will encourage your employees to be more eco-friendly. If you currently use straws or Styrofoam coffee cups in your break room, get rid of them. You can also cut down on paper usage by shifting toward a heavier reliance on electronic communications. If you can improve processes and go paperless, even better! Try implementing an incentivized recycling program in which you divide your employees into teams. Encourage employees to toss recyclable items in team-designated bins around the office, and have team members collect and weigh recycling each day. At the end of the month, you can deliver a prize to the team with the most collected recycling.
Reduce Car Dependence
One of the most effective and appreciated eco-conscious practices is implementing a remote work policy. Of course, your company doesn’t have to go fully remote, even implementing a few telecommuting days per week can drastically cut down on environmental fuel emissions. Moreover, telecommuting can have a lot of pros beyond taking cars off the road. Remote workers tend to be significantly more productive than their office counterparts, and according to many remote employees, telecommuting also improves their morale and work quality.
Implement Natural Lighting
Encouraging your employees to be more eco-conscious can be as simple as turning down the lights. If your office has plenty of windows, your employees may actually prefer to work in natural lighting. The blue light spectrum that electronics emit can contribute to headaches and eye strain, which can cut down on employee productivity. By turning off the lights, you not only encourage an eco-friendly environment, but you may also contribute to increased employee output. If turning down the lights during working hours isn’t feasible, you can still implement environmentally friendly practices by turning off all the lights and electronics at the end of the workday. Make sure you notify employees of your new policy and encourage them to shut down all electronic devices before leaving their desks for the day.
Creating a company that is more eco-friendly isn’t difficult; it just takes diligence and consistency. As a leader, it’s your job to set the example for your employees. Make sure you’re implementing eco-consciousness in your own day-to-day practices, and your employees are sure to follow suit.
Hiring the best talent to have your team is not enough to make your company a success. After the interviews have concluded and everyone’s settled in, the real work begins. As a leader, it’s not enough to just guide your staff to success. You have to take an active part in shaping the company’s culture. Whether that turns out to be a negative or positive one is up to you. In order to lend you a helping hand, we’ve compiled some of the best techniques to create a positive work environment. We hope that you implement some of them.
Show Employees They Are Valued
Contrary to popular belief, most people don’t stay at jobs solely because of good pay and benefits. Most employees are truly prepared to work hard for your company, and they actually want to. However, according to Edujay, when they don’t see that same passion reflected back at them by their leader, they can become discouraged. Showing your employees that they are valued is an absolute must. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to remind them that you approve of the work that they’re doing. A simple email or positive comment in the course of the day goes a long way towards letting them know that.
Engage With Your Employees
Creating a positive company culture involves more than merely laying out a program. You must participate in it yourself. Forget about being awkward; that’s probably inevitable. The end goal is what’s most important here. One of the best ways to form a positive work environment is to interact directly with your team. According to Davinci, engaging with employees helps them feel more connected to both company leaders and the company itself in addition to making both more relatable. It also allows you to build trust and makes your employees understand that a line of communication with you is always open. Remember, this isn’t about you, it’s about your team.
Invest in Group Activities
According to Volunteer Match, one of the best ways to make your staff feel like family is to participate in activities where you and your team can give back to the community. This method allows everyone to remove themselves from the day-to-day grind and focus together on an alternative positive effort. This strategy gets coworkers involved and encourages them to communicate about something other than work. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.
As the leader of a business, it is your job to create a positive work environment. This begins by taking action and executing a well-crafted strategy to the best of your ability. Build on concepts outlined above to begin laying down the foundation for a strong and happy company culture.
