A workplace is an interactive environment where employees and employers work together to achieve company goals. Employees are a company’s greatest assets – they are the ones who work day and night for your business. If you want to attract and retain the best, provide them with the best and make them feel that they are an integral part of your company’s mission. When leaders in a company take an active and genuine interest in people they manage, when they invest in real-time to understand their employees at the fundamental level, they create an environment for a more productive bunch of employees and of course for greater growth! This article guides you through some of the common mistakes to avoid and how to treat your employees right for better productivity.
If you take care of your employees they will take care of your customers and your business will take care of itself.
– J W Marriott
Common mistakes
Most of the mistakes made by a company in this regard can be easily avoided. When you make a mistake, your best employees are the first ones to leave the company. The reason is quite simple: they have a lot of other options. Here are some of the common mistakes that must be avoided to retain your best employees.
1. Make a lot of unnecessary rules
Companies must have some set of rules, but not a set of stupid rules. Many of the companies make unnecessary rules. They think these rules will increase productivity, but the result often will be just the opposite. There are companies that have an overzealous attendance policy that could hamper the morale of employees. Even a couple of such unnecessary rules can drive people crazy. When good employees feel this as a burden, they look for some other options.
2. Treat everyone equally
Some companies treat everyone equally. These tactics only work with school children. While in a company, things are different. If you start treating everyone equally, that shows your top performers that ‘no matter how you perform, you will be treated as workhorses. This feeling can convert your top-performing employees into laggards.
3. Don’t consider hikes
Retaining the employee’s interest in their work is very important for improved productivity. Providing salary hikes are considered important to retain your best employees. It helps them to be more interested in their work as they feel that their company is paying them for their work. Some companies increase the workload eventually and pay the same amount as many of their employees hesitate to ask for a hike.
4. Don’t recognize accomplishments
Everyone likes appreciations. Many of the managers forget or don’t appreciate the top performers. Rewarding individual accomplishments shows that you are paying attention. This can keep the employees motivated. It doesn’t need much time and effort to say a ‘Well done’. With top performers, this will happen frequently if you are doing it right.
5. Don’t let people pursue their passion
Talented employees are always passionate. Providing opportunities for them to pursue their passions improves their productivity and job satisfaction, but many managers want people to work within a little box. These managers fear that productivity will decrease if they let people expand their focus and pursue their passions.
6. Not allow employees to have fun at work
If your employees are not having fun at work, then you are not doing it right. If you want your employees to give their best they should have some fun. The companies which are considered as the best workplaces know the importance of having fun at work. Google, for example, does everything to make work fun. They provide free meals, fitness classes, bowling alleys, etc. The overall idea is simple if the work is fun, you will hang around the office for long and will have a mindset to work better.
Let’s sum it up
The managers blame everything under the sun for reduced turnover and decreased productivity. Employees don’t leave jobs, they leave managers who treat them as workhorses.
Best ways to improve employee productivity
Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
– Stephen R. Covey
Employees are the valuable assets of an organization. The key to your business success lies in customer satisfaction. Employees are the internal customers of any organization. Making them feel good and motivating them has a higher probability of making significant contributions to the organization. Here are some ways to improve employee productivity.
1. Provide flexible work timings
Employees desire flexible work timings for a number of reasons. Maintaining a better work-life balance is one among them. Every employee will be different in productivity rhythms. Some of them will be comfortable in working early morning hours since everyone else will be offline. So no emails and messages to interrupt. Morning times are good for work that require creativity and attention to detail.
An overwhelming number of studies, surveys and polls reveal that flexible working is the key to retain productive employees. In a recent survey by Glassdoor, it shows that 80% of people choose benefits such as flexible work timings over pay scale and other factors. Not only that, those companies providing flexible work timings have a financial edge over companies with the traditional work culture.
In addition to flexible timings, you can provide Paid Time Off (or PTO). You can strategize a PTO policy that benefits both you and your employees. A solid PTO policy would make your employees happy and would eventually help you retain the right talent for your organization.
2. Respect employees
Give Respect, Take Respect
Respect your employees and treat them as if they are eventually going to be better than you. As an employer, you should be with your employees if they have any concerns and try to solve those promptly. Collecting frequent feedback is also a good practice.
Giving respect to your employees motivates them and they will be having a good relationship with you and your company. Thus increasing productivity too.
3. Show them what real business is
This means to expose them to tough choices and situations of business that will really mold them to start a business of their own. Share ownership and responsibilities with them. Show them the importance of delivering quality products and services to customers.
Be a role model for your employees. Make them better than you. They may leave you once but they will look back and appreciate you for what you did for them.
4. Hire the best
Hire your employees based on their attitude more than their ability. It is better to have an employee with a good attitude than one with good skills and an uncooperative attitude. No training can change an employee with a bad attitude. So better you err on the side of caution while making hiring decision.
Maybe an interviewer cannot always judge the attitude of an employer based a few hours of the interview. So if you notice anyone in your company with an attitude that doesn’t suit your company, don’t hesitate to take corrective actions. Otherwise, it might be a bigger issue later.
5. Provide opportunities
Every organization needs to consider employee growth along with company growth. Create special projects, divide them into groups and try to involve every employee and give them the opportunity. This will help them in improving their skills.
Work with your vendors to bring in training sessions for your employees, which can improve their product knowledge. So providing more opportunities helps in the overall improvement in productivity.
6. Seek feedback
No one is 100% perfect. It is a good practice to ask frequent feedback from your employees on how can you do better to improve your business. This might give you many new strategies.
Feedback can also be related to the issues that your employees face. If you give them an opportunity to share their concerns, you can help in resolving them.
7. Communicate often
As with any organizational change, communication must be of high priority. Employees need to have regular communication with their peers in order to feel like a part of the team. Also, they need regular contact with their managers, who will help guide them, keep them on track, and give them the much-needed support. A number of online communication tools can help you with this.
Communicating often with your employees helps you to know your employees closely. Not only that you can know their abilities more clearly and assign them to works in which they are most interested in. Also, communicating and asking opinions to your employees makes them feel important. They realize how important they are for the company.
8. Make them fearless
It is your responsibility to make sure that your employees are not distracted or paralyzed by any kind of fear, notably about job security. They should know that if something comes up, the management will be with them. You must coach them in such a way that if something went wrong in the firm, they will still have the job. That builds a certain positive fearlessness, which could be an asset to your company.
9. Be bold and transparent
Nowadays everyone carries a camera in their pocket. Social media allows people to say whatever they want to a larger audience. Information about your company will come out, so don’t fight it. Be transparent to everyone as much as possible. Be clear about your company policies and stay bold in situations that are not so good for you.
10. Unite your employees
Coordination among employees is one of the most important factors to the growth of any organization. Bringing everyone together and uniting them can do wonders. Many of the managers say employees are like family and act in a different way. This should not be the case with your company if you want your employees to be productive.
11. TimeCamp
One of the ways to encourage flexibility in the workplace and make employees feel appreciated is to implement employee hours tracker. It can work as a motivator but also allow team members to understand how they work. A good work hours app helps to streamline and limit administrative processes to a minimum. Timesheet approvals or attendance management make it easy to flexibly and effectively allocate resources. Many tools track time offline and are compliant with DOL regulations. Time tracking software can help your team better organize time, learn what activities are unproductive, and help to proactively address obstacles.
Concluding note
Employees are the greatest asset of any organization. Creating an approach to manage your employees requires the expertise of a human resources leader and the support of your company. Whether you consider your employees as treasured members of the family or just as an extra pair of hands, their performance likely has a bigger impact on your business than you may think.
As the managers follow these tips and constantly work toward an effective method of treating your employees better, they’ll be rewarded with employees who are happier, more loyal, and more productive than ever.
Overall we can sum up the question ‘How to Treat your Employees for Better Productivity?’ with just one point. The idea is simple, Treat them as you treat your most important customers.
We hope this article was useful and will help you improve your productivity. If you have more points that can help in improving employee productivity, feel free to share in the comment section below.
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