Originally posted on January 13, 2010 on emeryroad.wordpress.com
Productivity is always important when it comes to operating a business. When employees don’t work at their best, your company suffers as a result.
When employees don’t feel that they make a difference or are a valuable contributor to the company, they won’t have the motivation necessary to perform at their best. Why should they? All they have to do is provide some mediocre work and they’ll still get paid.
How do you improve employee productivity levels then?
Keeping It Professional
The employee/employer relationship is a business arrangement; the employee provides a service and the employer provides a payment. Developing good professional working relationships with your employees will help encourage higher productivity levels.
Getting Personal
Studies have shown that encouraging your employees to create their own personal spaces at their work stations is one effective way to improve productivity levels.
Working Together
Giving your employees a stake in the company and encouraging them to provide input on how to make the company better can help give them a sense of belonging and a reason to do well and to work efficiently. Your company’s success greatly depends on their success. Make sure they understand that everyone needs to work together to make the business a successful one.
Making Them Accountable
How do you ensure that your employees perform at their best?
One way to do that is to have each employee create a weekly executive summary and discuss them at meetings. This way, you can get an idea of how much they’re accomplishing on a weekly basis and can give direction for improvement or suggest other areas to focus on to achieve results.
What should the executive summary look like?
The executive summary should include the individual’s:
- weekly business purpose
- weekly improvement goal
- overall monthly goals
- recap of goals for the week
- summary of daily activities
- accomplishments for the week
- failures for the week
- plan for the coming week
- goals for the coming week
- signature
The executive summary will give your employees a plan for each week and will help them be more accountable for their actions and successes at your company.
About the Author: Jody Calkins is a freelance business writer who writes about business development, risk management, security protection, and business standards. Visit www.emeryroad.com for more information and samples.
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