Every business owner wants his workforce to be productive. After all, your workforce is the lifeblood of your organization and if one department falls behind, then others will have to pick up the baggage. While incentives are certainly great for driving your employees to put in maximum effort, but there are other techniques too that can help build a productive team.
Let’s have a look at the top six tips:
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Know each team member’s skills
If a team member is performing some task that he isn’t good at, of course, he is going to mess up and waste the time of the company. As an entrepreneur, you need to understand that each individual member of your team is good at something different than the other and they are contributing differently to your business.
Knowing the skill set of each member can help you develop a productive team. Next time you need to assign a task, assign it according to what they are good at. Take some time out of each week and talk to your team members one on one. You can even talk to the managers of respective teams to find out who is good at what since they work closely with their subordinates.
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Micromanage when necessary
You may be against micromanaging as it actually frustrates employees but sometimes it is necessary, particularly when some employees are slacking off for a long time or you got a new project and that needs your attention.
In that case, you will have to track Gmail emails of your employees, track the progress of the tasks assigned, identify problems, if any and design a whole workflow just to make sure everything is done perfectly. For this purpose, a Gmail spying app would prove quite beneficial. Xnspy is one such Gmail spying app that can help.
You can install it on all the company-owned phones to remotely view the emails of your employees. With Xnspy, you can view sent and received emails and never miss on any update even if you are away from the office.
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Streamline the workflow
Streamlining the workflow means eliminating the tasks that are not necessary. Any task that does not add value should be out of the workflow.
This practice keeps the employee momentum moving forward, making them more responsive to customers. Streaming also calls for taking suggestions from the team on the task at hand to simplify things.
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Track the tasks
Just like you would track Gmail emails in case of micromanaging, you need track each task too. You need a system to manage your tasks to make sure nobody is off the schedule. This system would tell how much time each task needs, when can an employee take a break, which task is a priority and which not.
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Give your workers strong direction
It is easy to talk about aspirations but as a leader, you need to come down from the mountain and interact with your people. If you don’t really come to the ground and connect with your employees, they would think that you don’t understand the day to day complexities of their roles and hence you can never understand what kills their productivity.
You can only build a great team through frequent and focused interaction. If your workers don’t even know what goal their boss wants them to meet this week, they are likely to underperform.
This problem can be solved with specific techniques. You can use collaborative tools, conduct short meetings, or maybe even use graphical portrayals of timelines for certain task. As long as you giving them the right directions, the goal will be achieved.
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Manage conflicts constructively
Don’t be afraid of group conflict. Take them as different opinions that can produce constructive ideas and improve group performance. Here are some ways you can resolve conflicts between your team:
- Make sure your team members get the chance to explain the problem when they see it.
- Establish ground rules so that all members get the opportunity to express their opinion without being mocked or interrupted.
- Encourage the members to resolve their mutual conflicts within before taking it to the leader.
There is no one-size fit for promoting team productivity. Depending on the type of business you are running, with a Gmail spying app and these tips, you can go a long way.
