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Top Three Ways to Improve Productivity at Work
By Rachel Woods
It goes without saying that productivity is one of the most important objectives that every company has. Employees need to be motivated and focused when they are at work so they can be efficient in completing their tasks. That being said, what are the best ways to improve productivity at work? Here are our top three ways to do it!
1. Define objectives and let the workers figure out how to meet them- An objective is something of actual value to the end customer (the people paying). If it doesn’t hold value to a paying customer, it doesn’t mean much. By creating clear objectives that are tangible to workers, they will feel motivated when they see the direct results of their work and how it effects the customers. The key here is to allow the workers to discover on their own how to meet the objective; this allows them to cognitively think about the best way to complete their work and challenge them to find the most efficient way to do so. Not only will the employees be happier, but they will also be able to think through problems easily and come up with applicable solutions.
2. Encourage actions; praise results- Actions can be defined by using the example of evaluating work flow of the spare part room, but what was the result of doing that task? Actions should include implementing an idea, even if it does not work, that tries to do something and makes it easier on the customer and the other workers. Pay attention to what actually takes up time. This may mean that an employee observes that other workers are spending too much time in the spare part room trying to get screws which are in the very back, so in order to cut that time spent searching the screws are moved to the front of the closet. An action has been turned into a result which can positively affect the company; simply observing the problem does not help anyone, so encourage them to take action and praise them once they have introduced a solution that creates a result.
3. One task at a time- There is no such thing as multitasking; all that is doing is taking multiple tasks and making them last longer than they would. This stresses workers and helps them burn out faster. Multitasking is simply switching back and forth from one project to another and everyone has their limit on how many tasks they can juggle before they become inefficient. This is referred to as a person’s cognitive load and it is important that workers are able to identify and limit themselves based on their cognitive ability. Otherwise overloading projects slows people down and makes a company inefficient. By creating manageable tasks and assigning them one at a time, it may seem counterproductive, but it actually allows workers to complete the project efficiently and without any distractions of other problems and deadlines weighing on them.
Increasing productivity is vital to any company that hopes to continue to grow and make a profit, so use these three tips to help move forward with your employees.

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