Chika Uwazie: How to Increase Workplace Productivity

Wow, it’s another week and instead of seeing happy motivated employees eager to get back to work after the weekend; you see a zombie like crowd just shuffling their way through the doors and into their cubicles. They come to work emotionless, far from motivated and definitely not eager to get back to work. Some even go as far as wearing a T-Shirt that says “I Hate Mondays” (We get it!)

Now, many Nigerian employers do not see that these are the signs of an unmotivated workforce. In case you didn’t know, an unmotivated workforce is an unproductive workforce and an unproductive workforce is the number one killer of business success (we do not want that do we?).

Let us take a quick look at what you can do as an employer to increase productivity in the workplace.

Kill Every Motivation Killer
As an employer, you need to identify the motivation killers in your work environment (and get rid of them forever) in order to increase productivity. “What are these motivation killers?” you might ask.

Here is a list;

• Feeling Unappreciated: It is important to reward and recognize good work because if you don’t, your employees will feel unappreciated. This will discourage them and make them less motivated and unproductive.
• Lack of Communication & Transparency: Lack of communication and transparency causes a lot of tension, poor teamwork and trust issues between the employees and the management.
• Poor Company Culture: When your employees are not comfortable around other employees, this creates a toxic work environment that isn’t conducive for anyone.
• Little or No Training and Professional Development.
• Late Paychecks: There’s nothing worse than a late paycheck! Employees are often demoralized if they always get their paychecks late. It is important to have a properly functioning payroll system that eliminates such issues.

Embrace the Right Technology
Leveraging the right technology in your business could go a long way in increasing workplace productivity. There are different affordable software and tools that significantly increase productivity in the workplace;

Asana: This is an amazing collaborative tool used by many successful startups and company. Asana really comes in handy if you have remote workers because it helps you clearly define your employee’s goals and track their work wherever they are.

HR Software: This is something to invest in if you are looking to go the whole nine yards.

What I mean by “the whole nine yards” is;

• Employee Engagement: An engaged workforce is a productive workforce. HR Software provides different tools that help increase employee engagement, communication and in turn; productivity.
• Employee Rewards
• Payroll Automation
• Collaborative Tools
• Performance Management

All these are factors that contribute to workplace productivity. Therefore, adopting a software or tool that helps achieve them should be prioritized.

Have Clear & Concise Expectations
It’s is quite unfortunate, but some employers tend to overwork their employees and this is completely counterproductive. Stanford Researchers estimate that productivity starts to decline sharply when working hours per week exceed 50 hours.

Employers need to set reasonable goals; goals that are attainable by their employees. If you overwork your employees, not only will they be unproductive, demoralized and exhausted, they will also eventually quit. High turnover is not something your business would benefit from. Your business is not a sweatshop, so don’t treat it like one.
It is not always easy to maintain or increase productivity in the workplace but it is definitely achievable with some minor adjustments. These three tips covers most of what you need to do in order to tackle the issue of productivity.