5 Ways to Improve Staff Productivity in the Office

Productivity can be a tricky thing to address in the office environment. Part of establishing good practices for productivity is about creating a relaxed, happy atmosphere where your staff feel self-motivated to be productive and meet their goals and targets. At the same time, however, sometimes there are changes that must be made in order to address consistently low productivity levels.

We’re going to look at some of the key causes of poor productivity and what you can do to address the problems. Some solutions are surprisingly simple—it might be that all you need is an office coffee machine to replace that old vending machine making sure your team feel valued right from the start.

Poor productivity isn’t just going to be a problem for the bottom line. It’s going to have a knock-on effect on how your team functions overall. It can have a snowball effect where its own consequences make it worse, lowering workplace morale, stifling creativity, and ultimately lowering employee engagement.

What causes low staff productivity?

There is never going to be just one factor that causes poor productivity in the workplace. It’s important to have an idea of all the key potential root causes of the reduced productivity in your office.

1. Leadership

Fundamentally, it has to start at the top. Lack of leadership can lead to countless problems for the workplace as a whole, not just in terms of productivity. All of your staff need to have clear goals and direction; they always need to be completely clear about what their long- and short-term targets are.

It’s important that those at the helm lead by example. As we mentioned earlier, this starts with creating a relaxed atmosphere in which people feel free to speak their minds. Providing ongoing training is also vital, and the leadership is able to target that training where it’s most needed.

Day-to-day operations, like tracking workload and continuously charting employee engagement and performance, are also crucial parts of leadership that shouldn’t be overlooked.

2. Communication

Maintaining healthy communication is another key part of keeping productivity levels up and another key responsibility of those in leadership. This is both about how managers communicate directly to the team, but also how they facilitate good communication within the team. For example, if there are slow responses from the managers or between certain team members, progress will slow down and not enough information for a given task will be provided at the outset.

Everyone needs clarity on what their particular roles and responsibilities are, with clear expectations for what they should achieve within a given time frame.

3. Time Management

It’s very common to think of time management as entirely down to an employee. It’s certainly true that they need to be able to comfortably manage their time and tasks in order to achieve everything that’s expected of them but, at the same time, the leadership is also responsible for setting realistic timeframes and deadlines for them to work towards in the first place.

If your employees are under a constant, overwhelming workload, then they will be stressed and the pressure will stifle their concentration. In an average workday, studies have shown that workers are actually productive for around three hours. Managing time properly to get the most out of their active hours while at work is essential.

4. Resources

Having an idea of just what is holding your staff back is the starting point for addressing any issue with productivity. Workplace productivity can skyrocket by as much as 8.5% when employees have hardwearing, reliable technology and resources that don’t break down or perform slowly. It’s not even simply the fact of the slow responses of a given piece of equipment or software—it’s the frustrating effect it will have on employee morale as they try to complete their tasks.

Outdated equipment will hold your team back—and that will cost you more than it would to upgrade and get up to date.

5. Distractions

Finally, one of the biggest factors: distractions. Interruptions and disruptions can take many forms, some of them easier to correct than others: excessive noise near the office, for instance. But other distractions, like interruptions from colleagues, or just a generally unfocused team scrolling through social media, is something that can be directly addressed.

But your employees are human beings, and so they can’t just sit at their desks every second of the day. The kitchen, nonetheless, can be a distraction in its own way. Think about all the cumulative time that is spent waiting for the kettle to boil when you could have a coffee machine that is kept topped up at all times. Indeed, in one survey, almost three-quarters of office staff said a stocked kitchen would make them happier at work!

There are some simple changes you can make to start off with, and replacing your kettle with a coffee machine is a fantastic place to start to improve staff morale and productivity. Naturally, though, the issues are going to run deeper than that if you are having serious problems with productivity, but you always need to have a clear starting point. Zoom out and see what simple fixes can be made to improve productivity, and then take note of what long-term fixes can be done on a more minute level to address problems.