If you are keen to fire up your business in this pandemic world, you need to consider how you can increase the productivity of your staff. As the boss, you need to facilitate opportunities to be productive. Just because you pay a decent wage doesn’t mean that your workforce buys into your venture’s vision or care about their role in any meaningful way. To do this, you must show your team how valued they are. Go out of your way to create a cohesive and happy team of employees.
Take a look at how you can forge a happy and productive team.
Environment
It may sound a little shallow but the office, warehouse, or outdoor environment that you provide for your staff to work in is vital to enhancing their happiness.
If your team is forced to sit in wobbly chairs at old individual desktop booths with paint peeling off the walls in a drab office, they will not be productive. Instead, whip out the white paint, ensure you add touches of greenery to bring the outside in, and ensure the old booths are swapped for collaborative working pods.
You need your team to feel respected so give them what they need to work productively.
If you work in a warehouse, consider a new storage facility fitout. This enhanced working environment for your warehouse staff means that they might now be able to enjoy air conditioning in the heat of summer and they may have forklift trucks rather than just their feet to traverse the square footage of your facility.
Communication
As a boss, you need to ensure that you don’t stay within the four walls of your office never to make contact with your staff. You need to be present and get to know the people who are working for you. Have a staff briefing at the beginning of every week to communicate targets and financial forecasts. Get staff feedback on initiatives and ask them to suggest their own.
By listening and acting upon their ideas, you are showing that you value their contributions. Send out an email every Friday afternoon praising those individuals who have exceeded their targets or achieved something pretty special that week. This engages your staff and makes them care more about their work.
Which makes them more productive because they are happier.
Perks
While you may be a young startup and you cannot pay the wages that a large conglomerate can offer, you can make up for this in your ethos and vibe. As a young business, consider ways that you can show your staff how valued they are.
Give them their birthday off, have social days every quarter where you get to know everyone on a personal, rather than professional level. Consider doing team orienteering rather than boring team away days in the conference hall of a hotel. Offer professional development and invest in your team. This isn’t just great for the individual working for you, but these new skills and working methods will feed into your startup, making your business more profitable.
If you want a productive team, follow this guide, and help your staff to become happy and content.
