Productivity is a core competitive advantage in today’s volatile business environment, and now is the best time to learn about improving the productivity of your business.
If you are an employee, increasing productivity is an important factor in helping you advance in your career. If you are a leader, increasing business productivity can help improve business results and help businesses stay ahead, predict business ups and downs better than other businesses. Whoever you are, productivity is the top issue you need to take care of if you want to achieve your long-term goals in work and life.
In the article below, we will suggest to you 21 simple ways to effectively improve your productivity, not only for yourself but also for your business.
1. Start with yourself
If you want to increase the productivity of your business, start with your own workday first. Striving to make yourself productive will not only help boost company productivity, but it will also help you know what the right approach is for you to apply to your employees.
2. Set a deadline and tell everyone about it
With open tasks or projects that don’t have a clear end date, give yourself a deadline to motivate yourself to work harder. When you notify others of your self-imposed deadline, you will be more responsible for meeting the deadline.
3. Work for about 90 minutes
Humans are different from machines: Machines work in a linear fashion, while humans operate in cycles. To have a productive day and function according to human nature, you need to keep an eye on the Ultradian cycles.
Studies have shown that: The human brain can focus on any task for about 90 – 120 minutes. After 90 minutes, productivity will start to drop, we need a break of about 20 minutes to restore energy and ensure high performance in the next working session. To maximize productivity, divide your workday into 4-5 90-minute sessions, each completing a certain number of tasks.
4. Rest more often
Studies show that taking short breaks helps maintain better concentration and prevents decline in performance. Taking a break from focusing on a task for 1-2 minutes, about 2-3 times an hour, helps you focus better throughout the long working day.
Besides, exercise at least once a day, whether it’s just a few push-ups or exercise in place, they also help to be more productive at work.
5. Follow the 2 minute rule
If a task or task takes only 2 minutes to complete, do it immediately. You will spend less time on it, compared to coming back to finish it later. Here’s a simple rule from the book “Getting Things Done” by David Irish. Most of the things you procrastinate aren’t hard to do, you can afford to do them, you’re just avoiding starting for some reason. The 2-minute rule helps you overcome procrastination, laziness, with 2 principles:
- If your task takes less than 2 minutes, do it now: There are many things to do in less than 2 minutes, but because of the habit of procrastinating, your work is gradually piling up. Get into the habit of doing small things right away, it only takes you less than 2 minutes.
- To create a new habit, start working for 2 minutes. You can’t get everything done in 2 minutes, but to get started – just 2 minutes.
6. Take advantage of the free time while waiting
Responding to emails, reviewing to-do lists, brainstorming, rereading pre-meeting documents are all things you can take advantage of when you’re taking advantage of the wait, for example, when you’re sitting in a taxi on the way to your seat. do, or wait in the doctor’s waiting room.
7. Done is better than perfect
Everything you do should be done as quickly as possible, and then receive feedback to edit, rather than wasting time trying to make it perfect. You’ll find you can complete projects much faster if you do them in four or five “drafts” instead of trying to finish the project the first time.
Step 2: Increase employee productivity
8. Apply the productivity methods you use to yourself
Once you have successfully applied the methods to increase productivity for yourself, you can choose the methods that are right for you and apply it to the HR apparatus.
- There are short breaks during the workday: you can create activities such as happy birthday, weekly group activity, weekly lunch…
- Set rules for working with email. If employees want an immediate response, they should call each other or visit each other’s offices. Expecting emails to be read immediately leads to the habit of constantly checking emails, which is a waste of time.
- Set deadlines. Whether it’s a long-term project or an open-ended project (unlimited), your employees will be more motivated to work if you set clear goals and deadlines for them to achieve in the process.
- Granting employees access to the gym: Having a gym in the office or giving employees a membership card at a nearby gym can increase their productivity.
9. Allow employees to work remotely and flexible hours
Where and when the work is done is not as important as how long it takes to get the job done. A Gallup study found that employees who are allowed to work remotely are more engaged with the company and work longer hours. Allow your employees to work flexibly when and where they feel they work best.
However, the form of remote work is most suitable if your company has a clear process, employees know their tasks and goals to achieve. For start-up companies that are in the process of building systems, processes, and organizational structures, working together will be a better form to help limit distractions, ensure Maintain discipline to achieve higher efficiency in work.
10. Show respect and acknowledge employees’ achievements
When employees feel recognized for their work, they are more motivated and more productive. Praise them in the meeting, reward them if they have good work results. If your employees work overtime, acknowledge their efforts. If you fail to reward your employees for their hard work, they won’t work as hard as you would like.
11. Create a Responsible Work Culture
When employees are given autonomy in their work and know they will receive feedback to improve, they work more meticulously. Giving accountability also means giving employees a clear direction on the company’s growth path, how their work contributes to that growth. If employees understand what their work means, instead of just a small snail in a giant machine, they will work harder.
Hint: Offering a decent financial reward that corresponds to a clear goal is a great way to increase employee engagement with your company, while improving your business performance.
12. Teamwork
Teamwork can improve work results, because a job is viewed from many different angles. This method will make employees work more carefully, they do not want the whole team to be affected or they are inferior compared to the people in the team. In addition, teamwork also prevents feelings of isolation when employees feel ignored and unimportant.
Productivity is a core competitive advantage in today’s volatile business environment, and now is the best time to learn about improving the productivity of your business.
Step 3: Increase employee productivity (continued)
13. Create conditions for employees to do diverse jobs
Doing a repetitive job can bore your employees. Diversifying the type of work, the way of working (e.g. independent work/teamwork) can make the work more fresh, help improve the skills of personnel, and give them a better perspective. Comprehensive overview of the company when being rotated to many different positions.
14. Invest in employee training
Internal training not only helps to improve the quality of the human resources system, but also gives employees a feeling of wanting to “repay” to the company. Pay more attention to mid-level managers, they are the key people who lead the team to make the business vision come true, so leadership training sessions for the management team will be face-to-face. improve company productivity.
15. Committed to organizational improvements
To improve productivity, leaders need to commit to change in organizational processes. The steps for this improvement are as follows:
- Set a baseline: If you are a service provider, what is your total revenue per hour worked? What are the basic services you provide and how long do they usually take? If you are a manufacturing business, how long does it take to produce the product? Are your inputs in excess, do you have inventory? What is the percentage of products that are defective on first production?
- Identify areas for improvement : For example, you want to reduce the number of defective products by increasing the number of employees, or streamlining the production process. You want to increase the size of your business, starting from changing the departmental structure… Identify specific areas that need improvement, to gradually achieve long-term goals.
- Establish a change process and define success metrics: This process can take months or even years. You will need to test new processes to see if they are improving the metrics they set.
- Training the management team: For a process to work, you will need to train your managers first, because they are the ones who directly manage the employees implementing it.
Step 4: Let the technology work with you
16. Invest in technology products that save time and effort
The purpose of technology is to increase efficiency and save business time, so if it takes a full-time staff to maintain the technology, or your employees are constantly having problems, then that technology product is not right for your business. Therefore, when choosing technology solutions, choose solutions that take the least time and effort of personnel.
17. Equipping new employees with computers
Old computers can save money, but every second spent on booting up or waiting to load… clearly reduces staff productivity. So investing in a new computer can both save your business time and show your employees what their leaders want them to do with the best tools. They will pay you with their best work.
18. Provide a technology platform for employees to work from anywhere
Some studies show that employees who are allowed to work remotely are more productive, you can boost employee productivity by giving them the opportunity to “take advantage” to work while waiting. To do that, your employees need to be supported by technology products such as:
- Laptop: Laptop is a minimal tool to help employees work remotely, but only if it is synchronized with the company’s computer and program.
- Smartphones and tablets: allow employees to check mail and edit documents while on the go.
- Programs can sync between different devices : Everything on an employee’s desktop needs to be available on their laptop, smartphone, and tablet. This creates a flexible, connected HR apparatus. If employees can only access the program at their desks, they will lose flexibility and find it difficult to work overtime.
- Collaborative technology platforms: for example, social networks Jive or Yammer, communication tools like Skype or Google Hangouts, help employees stay connected even when they do not meet in person.
- Cloud platform: Cloud-based work storage and collaboration makes it easier for everyone to work, your employees can access the system and work from anywhere.
19. Use online job tracking software
Think about the time your employees spend tracking, checking a job is done, or discussing progress in a meeting. Progress tracking software like Flow, Producteev or Wework allows employees to update project progress from anywhere. This results in shorter meetings, fewer emails going back and forth, and of course increases productivity many times over.
20. Encourage employees to use reminder apps, to-do list
To-do list apps allow you to prioritize tasks based on due dates or other metrics, thereby ensuring projects are completed on time. You can refer to Wework task management software , the To-do list interface helps managers see to-do lists not only of individuals, but also of all employees in each specific project.
21. Invest in more software that serves a specific purpose, rather than one that does everything
Software designed for a specific purpose, such as customer relationship management software or intra-team collaboration software, will be more specialized and easier to use for a specific purpose, than general programs like ERP, then your employees will easily get acquainted with the working tools and improve their productivity better.
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