Help your employees to be more productive

Keeping your employees happy and productive can feel like an uphill struggle for managers. On the one hand, monitoring your team every second of the working day can help to see where there is room for growth but it could also have a negative impact on employees who may feel pressured or discouraged. Vice versa, giving your employees too much independence could lead to people taking advantage and letting the team down.

Increasing productivity isn’t a set process you can follow step-by-step and what works for one business may not be helpful for yours. That’s why we’ve put together a list of a few different ways you can encourage your employees to be more productive and engaged.

Give them the knowledge they need

Training isn’t just for the first week or two on the job, ongoing training and support can help employees by preventing small mistakes or errors. This’ll help you by increasing their confidence and making sure the work is done the right way, first time. You can also use these training sessions to keep your team aware of company policies like sickness cover and holiday time, which can help employees to prevent burnout and unnecessary time off.

Equipment

It may not seem that important at first, but ensuring your employees have good quality equipment can be one of the quickest ways to increase productivity. If your team is constantly on hold to IT, it’s going to have an impact on your business and a slow computer could end up leading to dozens of working hours wasted. You wouldn’t give a plumber a rusty wrench, so why would we expect Sharon from HR to work on a PC older than her children? Sure, everything works fine right now but imagine how much more your team could do with better tools. Your employees time is more valuable than the money you’ve saved on office upgrades or software.

Help them be healthy

Healthy staff members take fewer sick days. It’s really that simple! By putting your employees physical (And mental) health front and centre, you’re creating a healthier and more productive corporate culture. One where your employees are happier, healthier and more focused. For more tips on how you can keep your team healthy, check out our blog “Help Your Employees Stay Healthy” here.

Make them feel valued

Keep your employees motivated and invested in the business by offering incentives or bonuses. These will help keep employees focused on the end goal and encourage them put it in more work. If bonuses or incentives aren’t an option, we’d recommend laying out a clear career progression so your staff can see where all their hard work will lead them. Career progression could also help keep good employees from considering opportunities elsewhere by rewarding them for their loyalty.

What methods do you use?

Now, we want to hear from you!

What are your thoughts?

If you have any other recommendations or tips, let us know in the comments below!

Visit our FAQ for more information on the Bike 2 Work scheme and how your business can take advantage of the government's tax-free cycle scheme.