by Lina Martinez
Your employees are the thing that makes or breaks your business. If they aren’t working to their full potential then your company is never going to move forward. That’s why one of the most important parts of your job as a boss is to keep them motivated and make sure that they’re as productive as they can be. There is plenty of great advice on what you can do to make your employees more productive, but this article is about the opposite. There are a lot of things that you shouldn’t be doing because they damage productivity in the workplace. These are the biggest productivity mistakes that employers make and how you can avoid them.
Skipping Technology Training
Updating business software is a great way to make life easier for your employees and make them more efficient, but often it doesn’t work out that way at all. The mistake that people make is leaving employees to get to grips with that new software on their own, rather than giving them comprehensive training. The thinking is, you’re saving time and money that you would have spent on training. Except you aren’t saving time because they’re not getting anything done for a month while they learn how to use the software. Another reason bosses skip out on this kind of training is that they simply don’t have people qualified to do it. If that’s the case, you need to get an outside consultancy to help you implement that software and properly train your staff in how to use it. Click here to find out more about these companies and what they can do for you. Technology can be a huge asset to your company which massively improves productivity, but only if you train people properly.
Asking Too Much Of People
You might think that giving people a huge to-do list will inspire them to work harder and get more done, but that rarely happens. Instead, people will panic and try to spread themselves too thin, doing bits and bobs throughout the day but never actually finishing a single task. It’s far better to give them one or two projects to work on so they can put all of their attention into that. You’ll find that they get things done quicker and the quality of work is a lot better. Asking people to work longer hours doesn’t work either. Without regular breaks and downtime, people are far less efficient so they might spend longer in the office, but they won’t be getting much done while they’re there.
Micromanaging
This is a pet hate of most employees but bosses often think that they’re helping. If you’re constantly going around telling people exactly how to complete a task, rather than letting them do things their own way, they’ll work a lot slower. Everybody has their own way of working effectively and it’s probably different to yours. Just let them get on with it in the way they feel is most productive and you’ll get far better results.
Avoid these 3 mistakes and you’ll see a huge spike in productivity in no time.