How Good Managers Help Their Employees Save Time and Increase Productivity Managers should preserve and increase the productivity of their employees. The ultimate goals are to avoid time waste, streamline efficiency so tasks can be handled in less time, and get...

Managers should preserve and increase the productivity of their employees. The ultimate goals are to avoid time waste, streamline efficiency so tasks can be handled in less time, and get more done with fewer resource expenditures. However, many managers approach this incorrectly, compromising morale in pursuit of numerical productivity gains.

What habits do good managers use to boost employee productivity?

The Right and Wrong Ways to Save Time

Businesses exist to make money. If you save time and increase productivity, your business will make more money. Therefore, anything you do to save time and increase productivity is acceptable, right?

Not exactly. There are right and wrong ways to save time. If you, as a manager, implement certain habits and practices designed to help employees save time or work harder, those changes could have a detrimental impact on employee morale or other aspects of your business, ultimately compromising their ability to help your business become more profitable in the long term.

As an easy example, imagine that one of your employees is prone to distractions, disallowing them from doing their best work on the clock. Your solution to this is to aggressively yell at them every time you catch them being distracted and making passive aggressive comments about them to other employees when they're not around.

Hopefully, it's obvious why this is problematic. Even ignoring the possibility of a harassment lawsuit, the employee subject to your disciplinary action will likely become less productive over time. Not only will they suffer a decline in morale, but they will also come to resent their work, their workplace environment, and the business itself.

If you want to help employees increase productivity and save time the right way, you need to consider the following:

Morale

Unsurprisingly, positive work cultures benefit from higher morale – and therefore benefit from increased productivity. When your workers are happier about where they are and what they're doing, they're naturally going to save more time and get more done. Every action you take must be weighed in consideration with morale. This tactic may be capable of saving time, but what kind of impact will it have on employee dispositions? Granted, in the course of managing a team, it's important to occasionally make decisions that employees don't like. However, not every unpalatable decision is going to be one that negatively impacts morale in the long run. Learn to recognize the difference.

Autonomy

It's also important to focus on employee autonomy. In other words, you want to give employees as much individual freedom and flexibility as possible. It's shown that higher employee autonomy is associated with lower employee retention and higher employee happiness. But an additional benefit of autonomy is that employees can learn how to optimize their work environment to increase their own productivity. Each person is unique in terms of working preferences, strengths, and weaknesses. A one-size-fits-all approach isn't going to work.

Engagement

You also need to find ways to get your employees engaged with the work they're doing. Even if your employees have all the fancy productivity tools and a streamlined workflow to follow, they're not going to reach peak productivity if they're not fully engaged. Engagement is a tricky topic since employees are sometimes engaged by different things, but you can support employee engagement by carefully considering the purpose, challenge level, and dynamics of the responsibilities you assign.

Mastery

Finally, you need to think about mastery. Employee productivity isn't just a matter of working hard, staying focused, or cutting out waste. It's also a matter of employees being good at what they do. In some positions, this can come through practice alone. However, in others, ongoing training and education is better. In any case, you'll need to think carefully about the skill levels of your employees.

With these principles in mind, there are a few broad categories of strategies you can use to keep your productivity boosting actions on the right track.

Overarching Systems

One of the broadest categories you'll need to consider is the overarching systems controlling your organization. What high-level hierarchies and infrastructures are in place? What are your guiding workplace philosophies and core values?

For example, with Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) infrastructure, businesses can streamline IT infrastructure and keep it simpler to manage. This system reduces the number of tasks and responsibilities your employees have to take on, naturally cutting out waste and encouraging more employee engagement. Adopting an agile, collaborative system for productive work is advantageous for many businesses as well, encouraging more flexibility and fluidity in development.

There are no right or wrong answers here. What's important is that you find systems and philosophies that naturally fit with your team.

Tools and Resources

There are tons of tools and resources that can help your employees save time and increase productivity, but you need to be cautious in how you choose and implement them.

Select tools carefully.

You need to be discerning in how you select tools and how you implement them. Not every productivity tool is worth using in your organization, and not every tool is going to be useful to every employee. Don't add tools and resources for their own sake.

Allow employees some degree of autonomy.

Not all employees are going to benefit from all tools and resources, so it's important to give them some degree of flexibility and independence in choosing them. It's reasonable to have centralized platforms for collaboration and data organization, but you should give employees a choice whenever you can.

Provide education and support.

Don't assume that every employee at your business knows which tools and resources are available to them, or know how to use them properly to increase productivity. It's your responsibility to provide education and support so they can take full advantage of these modules.

Education and Training

Your approach to education and training can similarly have a big impact on how efficiently and consistently employees work.

Focus on microlearning.

Microlearning is a relatively new approach to training that focuses on relatively short, concentrated educational sessions. It's designed to eliminate or at least reduce employee fatigue while increasing long-term retention. Consider building your education and training systems with microlearning as the foundation.

Hire and utilize better trainers.

The quality of your trainers makes a huge impact on your eventual success. Hire, recruit, and train your trainers to be as effective as possible when teaching new employees.

Find the right fit.

Keep in mind that all of your employees will have unique learning preferences and distinctive learning styles. Some may prefer learning totally independently, while others may need more hand-holding; some will prefer visual learning, while others prefer to learn through practice. What's important is that you find the right fit for each person on your team.

Provide continuous opportunities.

The training is never done. It's important for you to provide your employees with continuous opportunities for education, training, and development. Many employees will see these on their own, but in some cases, mandatory continuous learning may be advisable.

Get feedback.

Finally, get feedback from employees you've educated and trained. Pay close attention to what works and what doesn't, and implement ideas from this feedback to make future educational efforts even more effective.

Guidance and Support

As a manager, you'll be responsible for providing ongoing guidance and support to your employees. These are some of the best strategies to make the most of it:

Be flexible with your managerial style.

There are many different management styles worth considering in your business. Some people swear by one or another, but the best approach is probably to be somewhat flexible with your managerial style. What works for one employee may not necessarily work for another, even if your organization attempts to preserve similar core values across the entire team. Don't be afraid to switch things up if your current approach isn't working.

Praise in public, discipline in private.

Time waste and inefficiency do need to be addressed, but it's important to address these sensitive matters in private. When employees engage in productive habits and find new ways to save time, make sure you praise them in public.

Avoid micromanaging.

One management style you should avoid is micromanaging (if it even counts as a management style in its own right). Some managers like to control even the tiniest details of how their employees work, but this is usually counterproductive. Not only does it have a minimal impact on overall productivity, but it also fosters negative morale and resentment in the employee exposed to it.

Act as a coach.

Consider yourself a coach to your employees. Your job is to motivate, encourage, and work together to help each individual bring their best performance to the team environment.

Focus on systems first, individuals second.

As a manager, it's a good idea to focus on systems first and individuals second. If there are egregious flaws in your workflow or the tools you've set up for your organization, they need to be corrected before you start teaching employees how to utilize them.

Collaborate.

Consider working with your employees to find new solutions to your issues. In a positive workplace environment, your employees also want the business to succeed and they'll be willing to volunteer ideas for how to make it happen.

Productivity is not a simple topic. It's even more complex when considering the individual and team dynamics within your business. But if you're willing to make a concentrated effort to preserve and enhance morale, autonomy, engagement, and mastery, you'll be in a much better position to help employees save time and increase productivity the right way.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Ivan Samkov; Pexels; Thank you.

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