Productivity is a volatile thing in the office. It comes and goes. Just like there are ups and downs in life, some days are more rewarding than others at the workplace too. There will be times when your team would get in a slump and you will have to jumpstart them back to life.
Being the leader, you have to make sure that your team remains in high spirits while managing these ups and downs. This is where having the right management tips and tricks up your sleeve can be just perfect.
Over the years I have put into motion strategies of my own to get out of slumps like these. And, I am going to share them with you in this post.
Regain Productivity of the Office in These 5 Easy Steps
My concoction for maximum productivity comes from 5 ingredients pertaining to:
- Being goal-oriented.
- Visualizing a clear success path.
- Making work more manageable.
- Creating effective communication.
- Promoting a seamless information flow.
Let’s take an in-depth look at these steps, one by one -
Set Goals And Milestones
I have witnessed in my time as a manager that being goal-oriented is not just a quality people should have, it is something people need to have to have to remain insanely productive. Remember, even a collaborated team effort comes from the feeling of “shared goals”.
Having a purpose is a natural driving force- the most organic way to regrow productivity in your team. Which is why I think these might be the best steps you can take to make goals the front and center of your operation:
- Visualize goals so that your team has their agenda right in front of them.
- Set them into achievable milestones with feasible deadlines.
- Help them track their progress with a tracking management software platform.
Break Down The Projects
As we talked about earlier, it is necessary to break projects into more manageable pieces when you want to jumpstart the productivity engine. I have seen that while using automation tools, you can easily break projects into tasks and tasks into subtasks. But that isn’t all that it’s about.
Creating a timetable to follow, a routine to stick to, can bring a delightful change of pace at the office. And the best part is setting a workflow i.e. a sequence of steps your team follows sequentially to accomplish a certain task.
Here are all the things you need to keep in mind while establishing a workflow:
- Discuss with team members to define the stages for a workflow
- Use a task management tool so that it becomes easier for everyone in the team to be on the same page
- Set clearly defined stages in the workflow so that there’s no confusion
Side note: Not only do workflows help you stay organized and time-efficient, but they also eliminate the room for error and the need for constant communication.
Make Reporting Easier
With everything now starting to come together, there are still some loose ends that need to be taken care of. Some confusions, some miscommunications may disrupt the flow of work at any moment. Reporting takes up most of the communication time at the office.
Informing the superiors, updating the team members about updates, newly found data, or progress, all the reporting stuff takes up a lot of time. This is why I feel we can make communication easier by untangling the web of this reporting issue by:
- Making a workflow would leave no space for doubts or any room for error.
- Get your team a tool to deliver files, documents, and reports.
- Invest in an automation tool that keeps everyone up to speed and helps send updates to multiple people or departments at once.
- Make reporting a regular thing. End-of-the-reports can keep everyone on the same page without even speaking to one another.
Deal With The Recurring Tasks
Here at our workplace, we believe in doing the easy things first. Recurring tasks are familiar and can be done in a relatively short time frame. Since these are like chores that don’t require thinking, it is wise to attempt them first in the list of the day’s tasks.
Just like the saying “if it takes you less than 2 minutes to do a certain task, do it first”, we follow this rule of attempting recurring tasks as soon as possible our establishment and it has shown us great results.
This can be done with ease once you:
- Have a functional workflow for these recurring tasks.
- A record of files and information to store your progress in.
- And, a tool to submit, organize and store your work for the day.
Change The Dynamic
By now we have set goals and milestones, established deadlines, made workflows, and set communication channels. Now we have a little fun. In my years as a manager, I have seen that change is a release for people, it’s a process of renewal.
This is why I constantly change things like:
- The furniture
- The paint on the walls.
- The seating arrangement.
- The workflow.
You will see that these subtle, or sometimes drastic changes, can bring in more focus from your employees and heightened team spirit. This is my favorite way to step up productivity at the office.
To Conclude
There are many ways to get your team out of a slump. God knows no one is safe from falling under the spell of one. But productivity comes from change, and even the smallest changes can help you make the biggest ripples.