8 Ways to Improve Employee Efficiency

group of coworkers laughing and eating pizza

Your staff spends a lot of time at work. How can you increase their efficiency to make sure it’s time well spent?

1. Match Skills to Tasks

Spend some time getting to know your employees and learning what they’re good at. Then, try to assign tasks based on their skills.

For example, if someone is detail-oriented, then consider asking them to help with accounting. Or, have an extroverted team member work directly with your customers.

2. Change How You Communicate

Emails can take up almost 28% of your employees’ time. Look for other ways to communicate that don’t take as much time. For example, consider using an instant messaging system like Slack. With instant message, your staff can have a conversation in real-time and get their questions quickly, instead of waiting for responses to their emails.

Meetings can be even more disruptive. Try to avoid meetings that don’t have clear objectives.

3. Set Clear Goals

When your employees don’t have clear goals, it can be hard for them to determine what they should be working on. But, by setting clear and actionable goals, they’ll always know what they should be working on.

4. Give Incentives

It can be difficult to encourage your team to be more efficient if they don’t think they have a reason to be. Incentives are a great way to show your staff that you appreciate them, so they’ll want to keep working hard.

The incentives you give will depend on your staff and what motivates them. If you need some ideas, consider

  • letting your team leave early on a Friday afternoon for finishing a project ahead of schedule,
  • taking them out to lunch, or
  • sending out an email recognizing their accomplishments.

5. Offer Training

If you currently expect your team to “learn on the job”, then they might be spending more time than necessary trying to figure out what to do. Take some time training your staff so they can do their jobs correctly and efficiently.

You can also consider encouraging your employees to learn new skills outside their current job duties. As they learn new skills, they’ll be able to pick up new responsibilities.

6. Offer Telecommuting

Employees who work from home are 13.5% more productive than those who work in an office.

Because your staff won’t have to commute to work, they won’t have to take time in the morning to settle into work. Instead, they can hit the ground running first thing in the morning.

If your team works from home, they probably won’t take as much time off as they would if they worked in the office. For example, if an employee needs someone to come fix their A/C, they’d handle it differently if they worked in the office versus if they worked from home. If they work in the office, they’ll probably have to take time off to wait for the repairman. But, if they work from home, they can keep working while their A/C is being fixed.

7. Encourage Project Ownership

If your staff takes ownership over what they’re working on, they’ll be more invested in how it turns out. To encourage ownership, you need to give your employees the space to work on their projects without too much interference. Trust that you hired the right people for the job and try not to micromanage them.

8. Hire for Cultural Fit

When you hire people who connect with your company’s mission and fit your culture, they’re more likely to be engaged. And, engaged employees are 17% more productive than the average worker.

Your company culture might also be affecting your team’s productivity. Click here to learn more.

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