SUMMARY
This article is a short handbook for all the CEOs and people in senior managerial positions, this article is also a good read for the employees to avoid distraction and establish a path to more efficiency and productivity.
This articles also caters to the emerging trend in Pakistan, which is the culture of Start-ups and how these young entrepreneurs should ace their multi-dimensional race against time-resources-management. How they can effectively manage all by eliminating things are not so important in nature which can be delayed and handled by a sub-ordinate which can be spent on other things.
There are multiple tips for the CEOs to accommodate and increase their organization productivity by encouraging employees to take ownership, to be responsible for the task-assigned, how a little thank-you and appreciation can go a long way to keep the company thriving. Apart from that just all organizations and their bosses need to understand that SMALL THINGS CAN HAVE REALLY BIG IMPACT!
A Company means any company has only one matchless role: the role of chief executive officer. We all understand the responsibilities and power this tittle carries, but as goes one of the very important quotes: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
The true talent of the CEO: Match talent to value
So we understand that It’s the most authoritative and sought-after title in business, it is far more exciting, fulfilling, and significant than any other. We all know how and what the CEO controls, he has the authority to control and govern the company’s biggest moves and his performance accounts for 45 per cent of a company’s performance.
Despite the lustre of the role, serving as a CEO can be all-consuming, lonely, and nerve-wracking. According to a study, just three out of five recently appointed CEOs live up to performance expectations in their first 18 months on the job. The high standards principles and expansive expectations of directors, stockholders, clients, and employees create an environment of unrelenting scrutiny in which one move can affect the CEOs performance and the person must learn on the job, and they must learn while every stakeholder is watching and perform as required.
If you ask any successful investors what they look for in portfolio companies, and many will tell you they’d rather put money on an average strategy in the hands of great talent than on a great strategy in the hands of average talent.
The CEO’s job is like no other in the organization. We also need to understand the consequences of each decision made and its infinite impact. Senior executives are, by definition, ultimately responsible for every decision and action of every member of the company on board. Including some of those decisions and actions of which they are not even aware.
CEOs even the newly appointed ones are allowed a few mistakes. Not surprisingly, research shows that between 35% and 50% of all CEOs are replaced within five years. Looking at the stats it seems like it is a costly proposition for any organization, as no company can lose its front-runner without losing some sense, even temporarily, of its identity and direction. Any such activity can make or break even an accomplished career.
For all the scrutiny and analysis of the CEO’s role, though, little is solidly understood about what CEOs do to excel. Some of the things they are doing regularly are to “set the strategy,” “shape the culture,” and “get the right team.” Perhaps that’s not surprising industry contexts differ, as do leadership preferences but it illustrates that fellow CEOs don’t necessarily make reliable guides.
With this article, we set out to show which mindsets and practices are proven to make CEOs most effective. What does it take to make a great CEO, how one reaches that position? Is it short term or it is the fruit of a long-running effort?
We need to determine how closely they adhere to the mindsets and practices that are closely associated with superior CEO performance. Our hope and anticipation are that all CEOs, new or long-tenured, can use these tools to better apply their scarce time and energy.
Six main elements of the CEO’s job are
• Setting the overall and corporate strategy,
• Aligning the organization,
• Leading the top team
• Working with the board,
• Being the face of the company to external stakeholders,
• Managing one’s own time and energy.
• The allocation of capital.
What Makes a Great CEO
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is one of the most misinterpreted roles in a company. The position is accountable for holding the dominions of the company, leading everybody toward business success.
Thousands of ambitious young entrepreneurs start new companies each year, meaning more people than ever are functioning as leaders. What about a great CEO? How are they? How do they operate? They’re a much rarer breed. Many of us accept as true that a CEO is some kind of all-powerful, highly competent mortal; probably built by robots, something Alien not from amongst us. Yet, it’s often the human aspects that set great CEOs apart from the rest of the lost.
What are the roles and duties of the CEO?
The classic job description of a Chief Executive Officer includes the following duties;
• Set a company’s direction and create a strategy
• Decide and model upon the set and agreed values, behaviour, and culture of the business
• Structure and lead the C-suite department, so other employees in the respective department could follow the suit
• Assign budget and resources to different priorities within the business, based on corporate objectives.
Business leaders might get some assistance on these tasks, but don’t let that fool you. It takes hard work, dedication, and a thick skin to take on the role. That being said, sometimes someone of this position can forget the traits, behaviours, and attitudes of what made their most-admired CEOs so brilliant.
In this section of the article, we have explored the qualities of what we believe to be successful leaders in business.
Inspire, engage, and energize
The most notable and the first is, a great CEO knows how to get the most out the productivity of their staff. They create an encouraging corporate culture which empowers the workforce to be effective while adhering to the company’s overall mission and higher values.
They make their teams lives easier
An insightful CEO should always strive to boost staff productivity and improve efficiency and proficiency within the business. CEO provides them room to perform effectively; they should also ensure that every task allocated is essential. Nobody should be compiling endless reports for no eminent reason, filling out unwarranted and needless forms or holding long, drawn-out meetings unless they’re genuinely useful.
They’re not afraid to unsettle old traditions
It’s easy for companies to consume processes and habits without questioning whether it’s still the most effective means of operating and working. Strong and efficient leaders can recognize when methods have become tired and require innovation. Outstanding change can insert life into an organization and quicken the pace of its growth and development. At the same time, good and seasoned leaders need to know and understand how to take calculated risks when it comes to driving innovation. They’re careful and cautious and at all means avoid leading the company into troubled waters.
They understand mistakes happen
A true leader and CEO in order not to suppress creativity, make employees believe that they are free to take risks and try out new things without the fear of punishment and retribution. Any mistake they make does not make them a lesser performer as a CEO understand no matter how strong of a performer a staff member is, they’re still human and likely to make mistakes. A good CEO can distinguish between errors that are made out of negligence or not. They also take suitable action to provide better sustenance and ensure the mistake isn’t repeated.
They’re excellent communicators and even better listeners
Effective communication is vital in any business and every phase of life, and a strong leader must possess those skills. They should have the ability to be consistently explicit, whether it’s setting the deadlines, expressing company needs or displaying teams how things are done. It also helps with employee encouragement and boosting morale. Good CEOs are dedicated to paying attention to their team members, customers, and shareholders. We need to comprehend that they are humans too and they’re not experts at everything! They recognize this, and also identify that they will have a more successful business by getting advice and insight from their teams.
They invest in learning and development
No matter the industry you are working in, the change is constant. All industries are dynamic and on top of this, year after year, we’re welcoming a new generation into the jobs market complete with next-generational updated skillsets. It doesn’t matter whether an employee has no experience or whether they have 50 years long experience under their belt, a strong business leader can make out that every employee within their company should be granted with the required training and be updated with the tools to keep their skillsets relevant. In return, the business will benefit from all these skills. It would at the same time create goodwill and loyalty amongst the workers as well.
They don’t micro-manage
The quickest and the most irritating and disgruntled staff is to constantly tell them how to do their job, monitor and observe their every move. If the staff feels their self-worth and value is being challenged, they find it more difficult to get on board and feel aligned with company goals. While guidance and support can encourage innovation, intervening and interfering kills productivity and creativity. A good CEO knows that employees should be given independence, trust and space to succeed. Tell employees what you expect as an outcome and its role in the company’s bigger picture but leave it in their basket to decide how to achieve the desired objective.
They instil a healthy work-life balance
Seasoned Leaders give the utmost importance to their employees’ physical health and mental well-being. Part of this includes having a healthy mind. Excessive overtime should be monitored, and only be allowed under special circumstances and on absolute essential times. It should especially be looked into if it is being carried out on days off. Plans and deadlines should always consider the number of hours genuinely required to be put in to get the results, being careful not to depend too much on extra office hours. When projects mandate more time than allotted to a normal workday, a strong and robust Lead stays behind with his team. Nothing builds bitterness amongst employees than when the CEO regularly leaves the office promptly and the team is anticipated to continue work during their leisure time.
Gives praise for good work
One of the traits of a respected CEO is that he will always recognize employees for their successes and achievements. He will never take credit for their work. Not only does it give employees endorsement that they’re doing their work correctly, but it also motivates them to keep working hard and striving for more. It costs nothing to the business, only takes a minute, and upsurges office morale. So, it’s important to not only reward and acknowledge your employee’s hard work but is recommended to encourage them to take time off and take well-deserved breaks when they’ve worked hard and achieved something great. They will come back to work feeling recharged, refreshed, and ready for another sprint of efficiency.
Well, we have been seeing in Pakistan there has been a lot of START-UPS coming into the limelight, there is a whole budding culture of entrepreneurs who are coming into the market with some brilliant ideas to upgrade our lifestyles and solutions to make our lives simpler. But at the same time being new in the field and creating something new they might feel overwhelmed and overburdened at the same time, we have enlisted productivity Techniques for Busy Start-ups CEOS.
Managing the Hierarchy….
The best CEOs take a systematic approach of matching talent with roles which can create the most value for the company. The first important step is discovering which roles matter most. Careful analysis typically produces findings that surprise even the sassiest CEOs.
Out of the 50 most value-creating roles in any given organization, only 10 per cent normally report to the CEO directly. Sixty per cent are two levels below that level, and more 20 per cent sit farther down the line of delegation.
Most astonishing of all is that the remaining 10 per cent are roles that don’t even exist. Once these roles are acknowledged, the CEO can work with other executives to see that these roles are managed with increased rigour and are occupied by the right people.
Productivity Techniques for Busy Start-up Business CEOs
According to the literature we have and the examples we use of Tim Cook emailing Apple employees at 4 am, or Mark Cuban not taking a vacation for seven years, we have all heard of CEOs’ legendary work ethic. But one thing that needs to be understood early on is do you need to mimic their peculiar productivity techniques to grow your small business to an empire?
The answer can be probably not. As an entrepreneur, you should know that your “most prized resource is your time.” “Being busy is not always the same as being productive.”
One key challenge for SME leaders is to be able to their time while still guaranteeing that their business thrives. This can be complex and tricky, particularly when you may be working with a small team with the constraint on resources, and often have to pitch in with some of the not linked tasks yourself. In short, you need a strategy to be as productive as possible. So, below we have collected some simple but efficient production techniques that you can use today in your life as a small business decision-maker.
Ready to learn how to be more productive… Let’s go!
Productivity technique 1: Plan your week ahead
This may sound trivial, but once you start the week, it becomes very difficult to plan properly. Every new task takes precedence over another. In a particularly small business, it may seem difficult to create any structure and assembly of things. But how you spend your time greatly impacts the success of your company. So take a little time at the end of each week before you start the new week to reflect on the upcoming week and consider the following:
• Check your meetings for next week
• Identify tasks to be completed
• Block time for each task and plan around them
• Set deadlines for tasks
This simple productivity technique, enlisting everything will prevent less important tasks taking over because you have already set your time aside. You can adopt various productivity techniques which will prove helpful for differentiating between important and less important tasks, and the following two models stand out for this purpose.
Productivity technique 2: Optimize your meetings
According to the Time to transform research report, 50% of all small and medium business CEO thinks that general admin tasks including staff meetings are the single biggest time waster. And to some extent, it stands correct which means one should dare to eliminate unnecessary meetings.
Do the CEOs need to realize that do you need to meet just to hear an update on the status of a project?
You can also do this regularly at an updated Google Doc, Trello or Kanban Board do the job instead? Without wasting the time in a meeting, where it takes time to assemble, sit, discuss and much more time and activities would be incorporated.
• Try and stick to these rules to get the most out of any meetings you hold:
• Set clear goals for every meeting
• Set clear rules for everyone
• Ensure everyone is prepared (and has a role in the meeting – allow people who are not necessarily needed to skip the meeting)
• Impose a limit on meeting time per day
• Experiment with very short stand-up meetings
Don’t set a default meeting time of one full hour maybe you can finish quicker or even program them for a maximum of 30 min per meeting not more than that. Send a follow-up to every individual involved via email stating any decisions made, the required next actions and who is responsible for them right after the meeting to keep everyone on the same page.
Also remember the golden rule: Only meet if you have a clear objective – all else is a waste of time.
Productivity technique 3: Practice good email hygiene
The overflowing email inbox is the nuisance for many entrepreneurs. So, how can you be more productive in answering your emails? Let’s start simple: start with: A sorting system, such as folders, will help to improve the stream of emails as they come in. You can also specify rules that automatically by putting software in place that put emails in the correct folder in your email client. Most email software offers options to sort between important and unimportant messages. Once you have this in place, you can focus on the crucial emails.
Answer emails that will take less than two minutes
One rule-of-thumb about answering emails is if you can answer it in less than two minutes, do it now. If not, send a brief message explaining when you will be able to respond and add it to the list of to-dos.
Check emails in bunches
Another great productivity technique to reduce the constant distraction is to only check emails at certain times of the day and to disable notifications. If you are concerned about missing an urgent message, you can always set up a custom alert for your most important senders.
Use email automation software to induce facilitation
As a small business leader, you may often find yourself following up on your marketing emails to try and convert a lead. Software like ZOHO Marketing Cloud and CRM can automate a lot of your email workflows, including your lead nurturing process.
Productivity technique 4: Automate business processes and workflows with productivity software
There are many great productivity enhancer tools on the market. The main question is: How can you make sure that you choose the best tool for your company’s needs and requirements? And, how can you be more productive if you start using these tools? Often, it’s best to start with recognizing the specific problem you want to solve using the tool.
There is no doubt that productivity tools do increase efficiency. So while there are many excellent productivity tools out there, for a more comprehensive solution, you should consider a full-fledged CRM.
Productivity technique 5: Manage your energy
Recent #TimetoTransform report found that 45% of SME owners had experienced negative effects on their health due to lack of time. Overworking is not only likely to decrease your overall productivity, but it could also cause adverse health issues. So, this productivity technique talks all about taking time to decompress, staying healthy and conserving your energy. Finding time for this is crucial to your success.
Defining Employee Productivity…
“Work is often conceptualized linearly”.
The linear way means that the more hours one puts in any work, it is believed there is more inclination towards the indication that how productive they are. In the present day, we appreciate a more refined and layered definition of productivity by and how the concept has evolved over the last several decades.
We can see productivity in multiple ways and have multiple measures through which the productivity of an employee could be rightly managed.
Matrix of spent V/S Results produced
Productivity through time spent ad results achieved
Let’s step into a time machine and travel back to a rougher and unforgiving industrial time, a time where labour was abundant, cheap, and workers were valued mainly for their net output and the time they spent in factories. During this era, productivity evaluated the absolute output of a worker or a group of workers. And the ultimate goal of business owners was to maximize worker’s productivity or output at all costs. Case in point, it was highly common to find industrial workers working 80-100 hour weeks during this time.
In 1926 Henry Ford popularized the 40-hour workweek after discovering that working an inordinate amount of hours only yielded a small increase in productivity and only for a short period.
So we should all say…Thank you, Mr Ford.
The current actuality…
We now have labour rules and laws in place to protect workers from being exposed and being exploited to such extreme and harsh working conditions. However, even within the 40-hour workweek, many companies still approach productivity from an undeviating perspective.
In the modern context, does working more guarantee higher productivity?
Let’s go back to our college and university days, and recall that have you ever pulled an all-nighter to produce a presentation or essay at the last minute? Perhaps you ended up with multiple pages in a short amount of time great, by all accounts; you were “productive.” Which means the real question is how did that presentation or essay turn out? Would you call that your best work? Maybe and Maybe not, Bottom line: Just because you’ve produced something, doesn’t always mean its high quality or valuable work.
As another case in point, Microsoft Japan recently rolled out a bold initiative to improve work/life balance a 4-day workweek. What Microsoft Japan found when decreasing the number of hours worked in a week; the company’s overall productivity soared, by 40% to be exact! This proves an important and counter-intuitive point: Thoughtful, creative, and intensive work doesn’t always unfold in such a linear way.
In short, today looking at the way the world is working and things happening in a more parallel manner working more hours don’t automatically mean an increase in productivity.
Although argumentatively the industrial sector still exists, and a linear model of production sometimes applies, the total output shouldn’t be the only measure of performance at work. For creative, tech, and a multitude of other industries, the value or quality of that output is just as significant; employee performance and productivity metrics should always reflect that.
Let’s unpack this idea a little further…
How to measure productivity
In our contemporary working environment, the definition of productivity should take into consideration the value and quality of production as well. A traditional model of productivity is limited and doesn’t give us a granular understanding of the total output of one’s work. In sum, a more fitting definition of productivity means producing valuable and quality work in a short amount of time.
Factors Affecting Employee Productivity
Hub-spot conducted a countrywide survey and analysis of more than 2,000 professionals and found interesting statistics regarding barriers to productivity in the workplace:
61% think loud colleagues are the biggest office distraction
89% prefer to work alone to hit maximum productivity
40% consider impromptu meetings from coworkers stopping by their workspace as a major distraction.
The modern-day office is predominant with obstructions to efficiency. For simplicity, they can be reduced to a few all-encompassing themes.
Let’s take in a picture this…it’s 9 am on a Monday.
You have a hot cup of tea and a scrupulous to-do list by your side. That needs to be done today. You crack your knuckles and get ready to start the week off on the right foot with aims high and eye on the trophy.
A few minutes after the beginning of your day and you’re feeling great and all charged with the excitement of work, ideas are unsurprisingly flowing, you think to yourself, and feel that “this is going to be my most productive day.” Suddenly, you’re jerked out of focus by a TINKLE!
All of a sudden you realize so many things happening at once, social media notifications are coming in, and your phone begins to flash and vibrate. Your attention changes away from your work and onto your flashing phone, you suddenly notice a group of colleagues standing near and loudly chatting over a cup of tea and you ask yourself “Were they this noisy before?” you completely shift your focus to that thing and lose your train of thoughts…
Then, your gaze quickly darts to your second screen, you notice a red insignia pop up on your email app. These messages are perhaps not urgent; you’re actively fighting the urge to check them, but it’s still an interruption and disturbance. By now, your concentration is shattered. And before you get time to look at the clock again, it’s almost lunch, and you’ve only produced a portion of what you intended to.
Three main types of productivity obstacles:
1. Environmental
Noise distractions
Visual distractions
Human distractions
2. Organizational
Unrealistic goals
Lack of flexibility
Multitasking
Unclear objectives & mission
Missing/faulty tools
3. Psychological
Lack of communication
Lack of trust and respect
Negativity
Labelling and targeting the obstacles to productivity is important because it will allow you to quickly identify which category needs the most attention in your organization. Moreover, some categories are more manageable to treat than others. That said, by further unpacking these obstacles to productivity, we can reduce them into two main categories: external and internal. Think of these, not as binary categories, but rather living on two ends of a continuum.
External barriers to productivity
Thinking back to the run-of-the-mill workday scenario aforementioned in this article, you can easily paint a picture of what external barriers to productivity look like.
The regular workday is filled with hundreds, if not thousands of these external micro-distractions. These are often palpable components of work such as sounds, visual diversions, digital notifications, loud coworkers, and so on.
But external barriers to productivity just don’t stop there. Other external barriers that are slightly less tangible exists, such as
• Multitasking,
• Missing or faulty tools,
• Murky goals, and
• Being overworked
These barriers can also result from poor organizational practices and expectation management.
Distractions an obstacle to Productivity
Humans can produce exceptional work when they are purposeful, strong-minded, and, most importantly free of distraction.
The difficult thing is distractions are inescapable in our tech-driven world.
You’ve probably faced that dilemma of wanting to start an important task, only to find yourself deep in cat videos an hour later. Distractions fuel procrastination and are the opposite of productivity. Statistics on productivity in the work context support these assumptions. For example, a study by Hubspot found that office workers spend 28% of their day on unnecessary distractions. That’s more than a quarter of the day! Other studies suggest that people are spending only about half the workday on legitimately productive work.
The question which arises is, what are they doing with the other half of the day?
As you can imagine, these daily losses in productivity have a significant impact on a business’s bottom line.
On the other hand, we can’t expect humans to be as productive as machines either. So one thing that we need to ponder on and remains questionable is: Exactly how can a business maximize their human resources, all the while ensuring to treat and recognize their employees humanely and fairly?
Potentially the idea of productivity from a modern perspective is a good place, to begin with, Also, we need to be aware and understanding of both the internal and external barriers to productivity and the ways and means to maximizing productivity in a modern work setting becomes possible.
The bad news which they carry is that: These barriers fuel stalling in work being done and wreak havoc on a worker’s ability to get to work, focus, and focus. The good news that we have here is that, however, is that these barriers to productivity are the most noticeable and actual, therefore they are easier to treat and minimize with proper mediation and mechanism.
Internal barriers to productivity
To comprehend internal barriers to efficiency and productivity, let’s consider a situation as will help to think about the following scenario.
A hardworking and motivated employee feels that his/her hard work is unrecognized in the day-to-day. Managers are strained and anxious, and the business overlooks and undermines regular open and honest communication. As a result, busy supervisors only make time for acknowledgement during the time-period of formal evaluations, which is just a handful of times a year.
Sometimes an employee that works day-in and day out just wishes for a genuine “thank you” or “good job” at the end of a long and tiring week. The weeks and months go by, and this employee continues to put in the same effort in the work done, but a lack of recognition continues. As the simple and basic need for appreciation goes unmet, and then there is a slow decline towards detachment begins. Truancy usually follows. Until eventually, full disengagement occurs. Productivity ultimately suffers.
Internal barriers to productivity, such as
• Lack of communication
• A need for autonomy
• Praise,
They all pose a significant challenge as they are mostly invisible, and as a result, more difficult to identify, measure, and ultimately treat.
Companies need to adopt the Employee Engagement Program comes in to disassemble psychological barriers to productivity by fostering an environment of continuous real-time feedback characterized by mutual respect, trust, appreciation, and, most importantly, recognition. All these things can work as fuel and inject an absolute vigour in the employees to work and perform better.
How to Improve Employee Productivity?
A singular magic one-size-fits-all solution to maximum productivity doesn’t exist. Improving productivity takes the application of a wide variety of tried and true strategies, tips, and research-driven hacks.
Pro tip: Looking at your top performers and their productivity hacks can often help.
That said, a lack of productivity stems from many things: ranging from internal factors such as employees feeling unappreciated to external factors like a noisy office, and everywhere in between.
Many successful organizations have the first-hand experience tackling this issue, and other businesses can benefit from their experiences. Let’s have a look at the top approaches for improving employee productivity.
Limit interruptions & minimize distractions
Management can’t wipe away all distractions, but they can certainly help and provide support to minimize them.
To exemplify, let’s say that a manager works with an “open concept” workplace, mean the employees should know that that if they want to have an extended one-to-one conversation with somebody on the “floor”, they should use the meeting room or lounge area, to not disturb or distract the flow of work of others around them. And for employees, who often have to be on call, a designated area should be created that is closed off from the rest of the group so the member of staff can make a call without troubling or disturbing everyone else.
Management must intercede to ensure the office environment is controlled.
• There should be designated areas set up for deep (and silent) focused work
• spaces for teamwork
• Areas for free socializing
One thing that needs to be ensured is that the employees respectfully follow guidelines and utilize the space effectively; you can help minimize environmental distractions as much as possible and remove those entire barriers that are very common and lead to non-productivity.
Give regular recognition
When immediate rewards and instant gratifications are just an effortless click away, self-control and working hard for distant rewards usually take a back seat. As a result, distractions take over, and efficiency and output suffer.
The object lesson: Ensure clear rewards are always in sight. Organizations should not delay rewards or the importance of praising and appreciating employees should not be reduced to formal evaluations which takes place only a few times a year. Do it time and again. “Celebrating successes (big and small) should always be a top priority for managers”.
A 2019 study conducted by Deloitte called “The Practical Magic of Thank You” found that for their day-to-day work, employees appreciate a verbal and straightforward ‘thank you’ the most. The giving of consistent feedback and recognition can also be facilitated with the help of engagement and reward programs being designed and incorporated in the company SOPs and company book.
Implementing an engagement and rewards program and making all employees aware of all these programs fosters an environment of trust and satisfaction, and workplaces that boast a positive atmosphere based on mutual respect and trust are shown to be more productive and profitable. In addition to recognition and reward, organizational research suggests that taking vacations and breaks is necessary for maintaining mental energy levels and overall productivity. Increase Productivity with an Engagement Program.
Work in intervals & prioritize
If there’s no systematic way to approach work, employees easily fall into the trap of being unsure where to start and feeling overwhelmed often resulting in intense anxiety. Tell and advise them to take a break and leave their position, a few minutes stroll and back on their work would give them a better perspective on work.
One thing that needs to be remembered at this point, inactivity quickly follows. Uncertain, unrealistic goals and a full plate of work can be downright paralyzing. Fueled and fired by the fear of failure, this anxious energy makes people vulnerable to temptations of the instant-gratification variety. Like pointless social media use, for example.
The cure: Managers can help employees with efficiency by ensuring that goals are realistic, actionable, and organized in order of priority.
In short, goals that are broken down into more deliverable and manageable mini-tasks clear up the path to success, and work becomes less daunting as a result because of the complete focus and the confidence which is felt while achieving them. In short, when employees feel supported and reassured, anxiety and pressure slowly subside, and the desire to indulge in procrastinating activities simultaneously diminishes.
Offer Incentives; build Loyalty to reduce turn-over
The productivity and loyalty of an employee can also be enhanced by providing him with the right benefits and sharing some of his financial burdens by providing his/her health insurance for himself and his family, this sharing of burden does not make him risk-free but also provides him mental peace to deal with any unforeseen medical situation that may arise due to increasing uncertainty and health problems. The health insurance for employees can very easily be purchased from Smartchoice.pk under corporate plans and quotes offered by Smartchoice, we get you best rates from all the reputable insurance providers with add-on benefits and cashless claim facilities. We would recommend each organization with a team of as small as 10 members to as big as hundreds and thousands of employees, these benefits acts as a win-win situation for both employee and the employer.
Trust and Productivity go hand-in-hand
Whether you’re an HR or managing professional, you’re probably overseeing and managing groups of educated and mature adults, not children that need constant supervision. Why then would you control and monitor your team as if they were? Always remember in an organization that “Trust and productivity go hand in hand.”
To sum it all up, you need to show your employees and members of the team through your words and actions that you have confidence and trust in them and their abilities, which would encourage them and make them feel complimented and independently fulfil their expectations. Give workers flexibility and ownership over their work and projects and hold them accountable, they will most likely live up to that expectation and even exceed it, because, at the end of the day, people want to see themselves as the wheel contributing on their own, not as a part.
As the saying goes,” Trust fuels productivity”
Stiff and rigid management negatively impacts morale and engagement, and employees may surrender to a self-fulfilling prophecy. In short, if they feel like you can’t trust them, they will act and do untrustworthy things because you don’t trust them to begin with! A 2015 Harvard Business Review report shows that trust helps employees feel less stressed and focus more intensely on their tasks without the constant fear of being fired, reproached, or ridiculed by peers.
Micro-monitoring undermines productivity
When management operates from a place of scepticism and constant worry, it tightens its grip over employees. As a result, managers may monitor (what they consider) productivity closely, or might impose screen monitoring software, they often block access to social media, or prohibit employees to text or take personal calls during work. Although it may seem like a logical solution, tightening and compressing your grip over employees has been shown to erode morale and group trust.
Constantly monitoring and policing the employees to the point where they are practically being persistently under the microscope will undoubtedly affect motivation and undermining engagement and productivity as well. Even if your intentions are in the right place, heavily monitoring productivity through software often produces the opposite of the desired outcome.
Collaboration & Productivity Software
Traditional methods of tracking work progress, productivity, and goals include excel sheets and good old fashioned to-do and priorities lists. Sometimes even manual book-keeping we used to keep track. Now, a multitude of cloud-based applications and software exists to help maximize productivity and generate collaboration between teams.
Here are a few quick tips to help stay focused:
Learn to say “No”
To do this, sometimes you just have to say “no” to non-essential tasks, meetings or requests of your coworkers. That way you don’t waste time by composing a new email or message or spending unnecessary work-time and be confident every time you need to say “no” or they are essential to your work that you need to do at that time.
Do Walk and Talk Meetings…
Try standing desks and walking meetings this would save time. Standing meetings are effective against back pain. Human beings have not been designed to sit for a long time, so try and be active whenever you can. This will increase your energy level throughout the day. Another way to avoid being static and stationery is to take walk-n-talk meetings. Try taking the small meeting to grounds instead of going into the bounded conference room with your colleagues, subordinates and superiors– there is evidence that walking increases creative output by 60 per cent.
Plan a day as per Energy Level
You know yourself the best Plan your day around your activity levels. If you are most productive in the morning, keeping that in perspective you should schedule your most important tasks accordingly. This is a great productivity booster, as you can plan the things that require less energy later in the day.
Final Thoughts
Humans are not specialized task robots or automated mechanized individuals with artificial intelligence who have their own emotions and feelings unlike those unfeeling machines and both are quite the contrary to each other! In the long-run, treating them as machines and just gauging their productivity against the time they have put in and it being the only parameter of efficiency is detrimental to overall employee engagement and in extension, productivity.
At the beginning leaving the employees to dive and swim themselves may feel counter-intuitive, but the more rigid you are with your staff and the more you place restraints and limitations on them, the more productivity will suffer as a result. However, this not means that you let your employees run wild and free and leave them to their device to manage and decide everything. It means acknowledging your human labour and acknowledging them as humans with feelings and emotions.
The key to maximizing overall contribution and output is finding a sweet spot where your organization stays knowledgeable and realistic about the limits of cognitive effort and attention while respecting and trusting employees as autonomous individuals. Also, engage them by providing them with incentives and bonus.
Be the CEO you want to work under, the one you would like to build your loyalty too, the one you would like to stand by for years and years and build your own and company portfolio. Be the team member you own yourself to be! Ensure the Best Practises in your company to decreases employee turnover and increase productivity.
