6 Ways to Help Employees Enhance Their Productivity
If you are a business owner, an HR (Human Resources Executive), a team leader or a manager, then one of the principle functions or activities that you must focus upon and subsequently implement is the art and ability to enhance or propel the performance of each one of your team members, subordinates or juniors.
I have conceptualised six important and yet easy ways to make this happen and have stated them below.
1. CREATION OF THE PTM
One of the significant actions you must take is to create what I call a ‘PRIORITY TASK MAP’ or ‘PTM’. This map is basically the creation of a path of the most, the less and finally the least important or critical tasks or actions that the person must focus upon and simultaneously start working upon as well.
For example, you may create the ‘priority task map’ for one of your team members where you have helped him identify or recognise five areas related to his work, namely the development of specific knowledge about certain products, learning how to interact with external customers, price negotiating skills, becoming better at communication over the phone and thinking creatively to therefore come up with new and ‘innovative ideas’. Once the tasks have been set it is extremely critical to set the priorities with respect to each task or action based upon the levels of importance or criticality assigned to it. What I have stated is an example of what you as a manager, a team leader, a business owner or an HR person can and must try and do for each one of your team members. You must intelligently invest time to sit with your team member or junior and constructively create the priority task map as soon as possible.
2. GAP-FILLING INITIATIVES
You must make it a weekly habit to make an observation and a subsequent analysis of those gaps or weaknesses or more effectively known as ‘areas of development’ of each one of your team members. Just as it is important to make the Map of Prioritised Tasks, it is as important if not more to ascertain those weaknesses or gaps which could become barriers to the person’s accomplishment of those tasks.
Your role as a manager or team leader is therefore to help and guide the person to getter better in those areas where he is lacking. It could be that he is poor in spoken communication and if that is something high on the Priority Map then you must start helping him to fill that gap as quickly as possible.
This process of filling the gaps or improving upon the weaknesses will surely help in the enhancement of the person’s productivity and his overall performance.
3. BUILD OPTIMISM AND NOT PESSIMISM
An important responsibility of a manager or leader is to be able to develop an attitude of positivity and optimism within the team members.
Rather than joining him in getting or feeling fearful and negative about a particular situation or even about a failure, you must make that person look at the half glass of water as half-full and not half-empty!
Not only you but also, all your team members must learn and understand that ‘FAILING IS NOT ‘FAILURE’ BUT GIVING UP IS’
4. INSTILL THE EMOTION OF ‘PASSION’
Just being positive is, in today’s world of tough competition not enough. What we all need to have and more importantly feel is the emotion of PASSION.
This emotion is a deep and an intense desire and determination to achieve your short-term, mediumterm and long-term goals, those that you have set for him through the PTM process.
One of the best ways to awaken a feeling of passion within him towards his work is through regular acts of motivation and this can be done in many ways some of which are to appreciate his success and also acknowledge his efforts even though he may have failed.
Motivating your team member is also the way to intensify his passion to work harder and smarter, whereas if you were to show your disinterest in motivating him then even the most passionate team member of yours will start getting dispassionate and de-motivated about achieving his future goals.
5. BE A MENTOR
Mentoring is about being there for the person in all situations to help and enhance his performance.
As a manager or leader or as an executive in the Human Resources department it is your prerogative to give the feeling to your team member or subordinate that you are there for him whenever and wherever required.
This feeling of having a mentor to help in his improvement and development can be an excellently positive and re-assuring emotion which will surely make him start working more passionately and with the highest levels of determination.
Motivating your team member is also the way to intensify his passion to work harder and smarter, whereas if you were to show your disinterest in motivating him then even the most passionate team member of yours will start getting dispassionate and de-motivated about achieving his future goals.
6. THEY ARE THE ‘FUTURE LEADERS’
At the end all I wish to say to all you managers, business owners, HR people and leaders is that just like you, each one of your juniors or subordinates in your teams must be encouraged to feel that they have the potential to become leaders of the future and for this to happen you need to ignite that feeling in them and keep re-kindling it constantly.
A great team leader is one who not only enhances the performance of his team members but also creates more ‘future-leaders!