Increasing a team’s productivity can be very important when it comes to successfully completing a task or a campaign you’re working to deliver. No matter how productive and effective your team is, there are always ways for you to help them become even better. Being dictatorial and demanding work from your team won’t help as you would not have built a relationship with them.
The best way to encourage your team to work harder is by demonstrating how much you care about your common goals as well as their well-being. Here are some tips on how you can help increase your team’s productivity.
Establish good communication
The very first thing you should do if you wish to help your team become more productive is to be certain that you can all communicate with one another. If any problems arise, your team should be able to talk about them. The best way to achieve that is by making sure they feel comfortable with you as well as each other. Encouraging meetings between team members and taking the time to be available when they need you will lay the foundations to the start of a trusting relationship between you and your team.
Know their strengths and weaknesses
Knowing your team’s strengths and weaknesses will come from experience. With this understanding, you’ll be in a position to assign tasks you know your team will be able to handle. Recognizing skills within your team will also allow you to pair them with other individuals and teams, where together they are able to achieve more and overcome challenges they may not have been able to address individually.
Reward their efforts
When someone from your team achieves a goal you had set or delivers something before a deadline, you should reward their efforts and make them feel appreciated. There’s no better way to encourage productivity in your team than to acknowledge the hard work they’ve put in.
Set realistic goals and define them clearly
A problem many teams face is not knowing exactly what it is they need to do. One may be able to get away with minimal direction on smaller projects but for projects that involve many tasks, regular communication with team members is critical.
You should have one on ones with each resource to make sure they understand what it is they need to do. Not only will you develop a further understanding of their strengths and weaknesses but you will also be able to keep track of their performance.
Regularly connecting with your team will give insight into their abilities and will also help your team be confident in their approach. In the long run such exercises will always keep your team on their toes and will also push them to improve and develop skills on the job in order to perform better and achieve the goals you set.
Be the good example
There is no better way to motivate your team into being productive than taking the lead and showing them how its done. Showing up on time, never missing a deadline, and always starting every project with a positive attitude will help you be a great example for your team.
If you regularly motivate your team and lead by example, there’s no reason why your team won’t bring their A-game and do the same.
Don’t let your meetings last forever
Team meetings should not be scheduled every day. Keeping this in mind, one must always consider the answers to three questions before scheduling a meeting
- Is a meeting absolutely necessary?
- Who really needs to be there?
- How can we ensure the meeting is focused?
A study by Bain & Company pointed out that on average, most senior executives were spending close to 2 days a week in meetings.
However, meeting with your team one-on-one for 10-15 minutes everyday to discuss progress and challenges will do wonders for productivity. Connecting with each individual will allow for them to open up about issues they’ve faced, the help they require, and in many cases, gain clarity on what the exact requirements are (something they may not do in front of the team).
Provide your team with the tools they need
Working without the right technologies and tools can make life difficult for any team. There are a wide variety of affordable tools which can help increase productivity and efficiency.
Part of leading a team involves making sure they have the best tools for the job. Maintaining a lean yet effective stack of productivity and communication tools will help your team optimize their existing output while ensuring everyone is always on the same page.
Encourage feedback
Giving feedback to your team is very important. It is also very important to encourage the resources within your team to provide feedback to each other, especially if they’re working on similar tasks.
This exercise can help individuals within a team get a better understanding of what they’re working on and can really motivate them to work harder and be more productive.
Start the day with a motivational message
One of those little tricks that can help kick start your team is to begin the day with something motivational. This could be a brief talk with your team or a quote you’d like to share. You don’t have to deliver a speech every single day; instead, you can ask them to bring in their favorite quote for each day or to talk about something that inspired them.
There are many ways to achieve this but the central idea behind it is to help your team start their day on a positive note and with a clear focus on their goals.
Engage in team activities
Last but not least, a great way to help your team connect and work well together is to collectively overcome challenges outside of the workplace. Some tried and tested team building exercises are outdoor activities such as paintball, go-karting, rock climbing and kayaking. Additionally, if you’re looking for something more impromptu you could get together for a game of basketball, volleyball or even ping pong. The goal is to connect with one another and work together for a win!
Finding the tips that work best for you
Each team is different and not everything will work perfectly for everyone. It is always important though to make sure that your team feels comfortable with one another and that they can trust you to make things work.
These tips offer some simple and easy ways to increase your team’s productivity and to have a close knit team that will always work towards a common goal.