Every minute of the day matters when running a blog or business of your own. With limited resources, an endless list of chores, and far too many fires to put out, you must make sure that your time counts.
The life of an entrepreneur/blogger can quickly become a blur, with business owners sitting down at eight and finishing work at five having accomplished nothing they intended to.
This makes it impossible to grow your business, which is why, sooner or later, all entrepreneurs decide to hire employees/team members. To see the benefits in your blog business, here are thirteen ways to increase productivity of your whole team.
13 Tips To Maximize Your Team’s Potential
1. Hire The Right People
Hard-working employees are the backbone of any successful business. However, it only takes one bad apple to ruin productivity in your company. When you hire a person that gossips about their coworkers, slacks off work, or breaks company rules, it can affect the entire workforce, including your own effectiveness. By improving your hiring process, you can make sure that you only hire the best of the best. A good salary and/or compensation package will also ensure that open positions attract the right candidates with the right skills.
2. Invest In Skills Development
Employees aren’t supposed to be masters of all trades. While it would certainly help your business, each member of your staff will have their strengths and weaknesses, just as you do. Knowing your employees’ skills is essential for maximizing productivity. When you know what individuals are good at, you can assign them right tasks to match. Encouraging your staff/team to develop their skills will also give your entire team an edge, which will inspire them to greater productivity.
3. Allow Flexible Work Hours
Although most businesses work on the traditional nine to five schedule, yours may benefit from a change. Different people are most productive at various times of the day. Rather than expecting your team to work when you choose, you should ask them to pick their own hours. This can make scheduling a little trickier, but a work schedule maker will help with the process. Giving your employees flexible work hours will mean your team are always working their very hardest. This also allows for hiring virtual assistants in different time zones.
4. Let The Staff Telecommute
Allowing your staff to work from home can seem inefficient. After all, there are no guarantees that your team will be productive unless you’re watching them. Thankfully, the reality is quite often the opposite. When you let your employees telecommute, you allow them to save time they would have otherwise wasted. An employee might be too sick to come into work, for example, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still do their job. With telecommuting, staff can maximize their time from wherever they are.
5. Tidy Up The Office
Clutter can have a serious impact on your own and your employees’ work. While many people don’t realize this, even a small mess can cause stress, impacting productivity, as well as creativity. As the boss, it is your responsibility to provide an adequate space to work. If your office is untidy, you’re not doing your job. Keeping an office tidy can be a difficult task, but there are a few ways to make it easier. Becoming paperless can help, as it means fewer documents will be left lying around.
6. Bring The Outdoors In
The presence of greenery is known to increase employee productivity. While the reason for this is uncertain, there are many ideas about why the effect exists. Some experts believe it’s because green is a calming color, while others suggest that the extra oxygen in the air is the cause. Whatever the real reason, placing live plants around the office can have a positive impact. Just make sure that you water the greenery, as dying plants have the opposite effect.
7. Speak In Effective Ways
Every business owner knows the importance of communication. Unless you talk to your staff and they talk to each other, it’s difficult to get any real work done. Technology makes it much easier to keep in touch with our staff. Just a click of a button can send an important message straight to an employee. However, that doesn’t mean that these methods are efficient. Often a quick phone call is much quicker at settling a matter than hours of back-and-forth messages.
8. Ditch That Multitasking Habit
Most people believe that multitasking is productive. After all, as the name suggests, it involves doing more than one thing at once. The problem is, many studies have shown that multitasking isn’t effective at all. With the exception of a few people, most of us can only focus on one task at a time. When you try to juggle more than one, you usually end up underperforming at both. For this reason, you should ask your employees that they don’t try to multitask while at work.
9. Cut Out The Excess
While employees are there to take the pressure off you, they shouldn’t be wasting their time with unnecessary work. This is especially true when there is a much larger goal that needs achieving. Because of this, you should take a look at your team’s routine. When you do so, see if there are any tasks that you could cut to give the staff more time. Asking your employees to write daily reports for their supervisors, for example, is a waste of time when there isn’t time to read them.
10. Reward The Hard Workers
When you recognize employees for a job well done, it makes them feel appreciated. As well as contributing to a happier workforce, this will increase productivity within the business. The rewards you give your staff must take into account their individual preferences and needs. While certain people enjoy public recognition, others much prefer a quiet “thank you”. There are many different rewards you could try with your team, such as paid time off and small gifts.
11. Plan Fewer Team Meetings
Team meetings can benefit a business in a number of ways. They allow you an opportunity to assign tasks, check in on progress, and ask for feedback. The trouble is, most meetings don’t help at all. In fact, they tend to waste time, as they are usually poorly organized. Rather than plan multiple meetings each day, you should only bring your team together when necessary. If you can fit your point easily in an email, you don’t have to drag your staff away from their workstations.
12. Encourage More Work Breaks
Taking breaks can seem like an unproductive habit. However, it has been shown that even small breaks at regular intervals can improve productivity. This is because, when you’re away from your work for a while, you feel happier and less stressed, which improves morale, as well as focus and critical thinking. If your team tends to work for hours on end, then suggest that they take more regular breaks. Make sure you set a good example for your team by doing so yourself too. Burnout is a very real problem in every blogging business.
13. Give Each Other Feedback
Employees have no hope of improving productivity unless they know that they’re unproductive. This is why performance reviews are so important. Every few months, you should hold individual meetings to let your staff know what they are doing well and what they need to work on. Just remember that increasing employee productivity isn’t all about the employees themselves. Since some of the responsibility falls on you, make sure you ask for reviews too.
Time is a precious resource in the business world. It’s very easy to waste and impossible to get back. Hopefully, with the advice above, you can spend your time more wisely and improve productivity in your business.
