The Best Techniques for Running a Productive Workplace

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Productive Workplace|The Best Techniques for Running a Productive WorkplaceThe importance of consistent productivity in the workplace cannot be understated. While some small talk over a morning cup of coffee is fine, you want to make sure your staff are making the most of their time every single day. Otherwise, the business loses money. You don’t need ten staff members putting in the collective effort of five!

To make sure the business runs smoothly and makes the most amount of profit, use these techniques for running a productive workplace.

Encourage Additional Learning and Training

Your staff always have room to grow, whether that’s into a leadership role or something a little more specialized. Allow them to flourish by encouraging and providing additional learning and training opportunities. There are lots of options for training in the workplace, or you could opt for online courses. One that everyone should get on board with is first aid training, as it makes the workplace safer while teaching everyone something new.

Create a Mood-boosting Workspace

It’s hard to be productive in a cramped, poorly decorated workspace, which is why you should prioritize a mood-boosting environment. Lighting is a great contributor to this – use layered lighting mixed with enough natural light, and you will create a far more comfortable and mood-boosting space. On top of that, think carefully about your choice of furniture, color, and how much space you provide each employee.

Set a Great Example

Whether you are the business owner or manager, you must set a great example by being productive each day. After all, if you’re not putting your best foot forward, why should your team? By setting a great example, staff will be encouraged to follow suit.

Hire Passionate People

Hiring is a crucial step when it comes to running a productive workplace. No matter how excellent your leadership skills are, it’s hard to encourage great work from an unenthusiastic employee. So, to make sure you’re not stuck with people who perform poorly, focus on passion during the hiring process. Even if someone doesn’t have much experience, you can always train them, but you cannot teach someone to be passionate!

Set Achievable Goals

It’s hard to be productive when goals are difficult to reach. Likewise, you can’t put all your best efforts in if there aren’t enough challenging goals to reach. For this reason, you should set achievable goals for your team. You could put them into three sections – goals to reach for the month, goals for the week, and goals for the day. When your staff have something to work toward, they are more likely to focus.

Understand Employee Strengths

If you want a workplace full of uninterrupted productivity, you must understand each employee’s strengths so you can make the most out of it. There’s no point in putting a logical team member into a creative project when there’s another with far more imaginative ideas! Get to know each member on an individual level to get better at delegating, which, in turn, will help boost productivity.

Turn That Frown Upside Down: Top Tips For Happier Employees

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Employees Article | Turn That Frown Upside Down: Top Tips For Happier Employees

While there are many different ways you can set out to future-proof your business, maintaining employee satisfaction is one of them. This is because employees serve as the ‘face’ of your company, interacting with your clients day in, day out. This means that they are responsible for how others perceive your brand. Furthemore, studies suggest that when we are happier – we are often more productive. This means that by focusing on employee wellbeing, you can also improve your workplace efficiency – which is another step towards success.

That being said, employee satisfaction can be difficult to monitor from an employer’s perspective. This is because while employees may voice their dissatisfaction with their peers – they are likely to do so directly to their boss through fear of being reprimanded. However, this does not mean that their happiness should not be a priority – especially if you are relying on them to help kickstart your entrepreneurial ambitions.

With that in mind, here are some top tips that you can use to guarantee employee happiness in the workplace.

  • Delegate work fairly. One of the biggest complaints that many employees have within the workplace is being overworked and under-compensated. As a result, you should strive to ensure that the amount of work they are tasked with each week is fair and reasonable. You can do this by making the most of the services available to you and your company that can take some of the responsibility off your shoulders. For example, if your company does a lot of deliveries – looking into additional trucking services means that your drivers only have to make one stop instead of 5-6, lightening their workload significantly.
  • Put together a workplace wellbeing program. There are many different reasons why your employees may be unhappy at work – some of which even relate to their personal lives. This is due to the fact that it is sometimes impossible to stop your mood from impacting your work. However, you can combat these issues by placing a real emphasis on wellbeing in the workplace. For example, you could offer support to your staff by providing them with free access to therapy or counselling services. Alternatively, you can promote good workplace wellbeing by encouraging them to reach out for support as and when they need it – whether they want to reduce their hours or take time off.
  • Be responsive to complaints. If you want to create a better workplace for your employees, you need to figure out what you are doing wrong in the first place. The easiest way to do this is to ask. However, as mentioned previously, they might feel reluctant to speak up directly to you. Thankfully, there are various ways in which you can combat this. For example, you could set up an anonymous feedback submission box. Alternatively, you could ask them to elect a member of staff to take on their complaints and discuss them with you privately and anonymously. However, while taking these steps show your employees that you truly care about them – listening is not enough. You then need to make actionable change that shows you have taken on their feedback,

How to Improve Employee Wellbeing in the Workplace

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article ||How to Improve Employee Wellbeing in the WorkplaceEvery successful business depends on employees who work hard and perform their roles to the best of their ability. But, as every employer knows, finding team members that are hardworking and reliable can be challenging. So, when you find the best stuff for your business, you need to be sure that you keep hold of them. Improving staff retention rates is something that many companies struggle with, so focusing on ways to increase retention is essential. One effective way to make your employees love working for your company is to look at ways to improve staff wellbeing at work. The workplace itself has a heavy influence on your team’s productivity levels and feelings about their job, so it is worth focusing attention on improvements. Here are some ideas to help increase employee wellbeing in the workplace and boost your team’s morale and productivity levels:

Introduce More Natural Light

Introducing more natural light into your office can provide many benefits. Allowing more sunlight into your building rather than relying on artificial light can be an effective way to boost mood, reduce eyestrain, and decrease headaches among staff. So, if it is possible to increase natural light in the workplace, this is definitely something worth considering to gain wellbeing benefits.

Get an Office Pet

Introducing an office pet is an excellent way to improve staff morale and reduce your team’s stress levels. Having an office pet can bring a calming influence into the office and bring many benefits for your employees. Allowing your team to bring their own pets to work is one option, and is seen as a significant benefit by many employees. If you do decide to allow pets in your office, it could be an excellent idea to offer your employee’s First Aid Certification for Dogs and Cats alongside regular first aid training.

Increase Comfort

Making your work setup more comfortable can help to drive up productivity and may even reduce the number of sick days employees take. Introducing ergonomically designed office furniture and equipment will help your team work comfortably and make it easier for them to work to their full potential. Having ergonomic office equipment can reduce the chances of your team experiencing back and neck pain and could even help to lower the likelihood of repetitive strain injuries. Back pain can be a significant cause of long-term staff sickness, so providing equipment that reduces your employee’s chances of experiencing back pain is really beneficial.

Improve Air Quality

Keeping up with general maintenance in your building is crucial to providing your employees with an environment that improves their wellbeing rather than harms them. Maintenance tasks such as air conditioning system and air duct inspections are vital to ensure your building’s indoor air quality remains at a healthy level. A reduction in the quality of air in your office can lead to employees feeling unwell while at work. So, taking care of your air quality is an essential task to keep your team healthy and improve their wellbeing.

How to keep your employees happy

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Keep your employees happy|How to keep your employees happyThere’s no doubt that happy employees make a business better. Recent research shows that employees who are satisfied with their job are more motivated, work harder, and build stronger bonds with their employers if they feel they are being well taken care of at work. With that in mind, here are some easy and effective ways to keep employees happy by improving their morale and driving performance.

Communicate your expectations

It is important to communicate your expectations to your employees. If you expect them to be at work by 9am, you need to make this clear. Employees are more likely to keep their commitments if they know exactly what’s expected of them.

You will need to find out what your employees want and need. Try to find out what motivates them and give it to them. You can ask your employees about their ideal work hours, the flexibility that they desire from their job, and how many hours they would like to work each day. Be clear with rules and policies while being considerate of your employees.

Organize social outings

Team building is important. Employees feel more satisfied when they have a strong bond with their teammates and co-workers. Organize regular events that allow employees to interact outside of the office, such as team lunches or group outings. This will boost camaraderie and strengthen ties between employees, which can translate to better productivity in the office.

Recognize good work

Rewarding employees for their good work will motivate them to keep up the good work. After all, employee recognition is absolutely integral in building a happy and healthy workplace environment. This can take various forms such as a lunch with your boss or a monetary bonus.

You may also consider organizing contests that keep employees engaged in their work.

Offer benefits

Offering benefits that your employees want, such as flexible work hours or a company car for a new mom who needs to drive to work, will go a long way in keeping them happy.

Offer perks such as extended holiday leave, more flexible work hours, and maternity/paternity leave. These are things that employees want and will help to boost morale while making your business more competitive too.

Trust your staff

It’s important to realize that as an employer, you need to trust your employees. If you have stated a commitment to creating work hours between 9am and 5pm, don’t contact them outside of those hours unless there is a very good reason for the intrusion. Employees who feel like their employers mistrust them will lose motivation to put in their best effort at work.

Give them the right tools

Employees need to feel like they have everything they need to do their jobs well. Giving employees access to state-of-the-art equipment and ensuring that software is updated regularly will reduce frustrations that can impact performance negatively.

To keep your employees happy, you need to communicate your expectations to them, offer benefits and perks that they value, trust them, and give them the tools they need to do their job well. If you follow this simple formula for keeping your employees engaged, satisfied, loyal, and productive; chances are that your company will enjoy strong growth in the future.

You Need HR Services – Here’s Why

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |HR Services|You Need HR Services - Here's WhyDid you know that there are over 30 million businesses in the US right now that hire almost 60 million people? Small businesses are popping up all over the place and those small businesses are employing people to work within their walls. While large enterprises are still sweeping through and making a name for themselves, it’s smaller businesses that need some help with human resource issues as they crop up.

Small businesses are facing some of the biggest challenges in-house than bigger businesses, and they are often on a very steep learning curve. Outsourcing issues you might have with contracts and employee separation agreements is important and you will find that HR issues like payroll disputes are often better left to experts. An outsourced agency could be the support you need, and understanding what they can do for you will help. If you are operating a small business, the best thing that you could do is to check out whether you need outsourced HR services in the first place. You might not even think that you need a human resources department, but if you’re hiring people, you need someone to manage them. You’re the owner and you should be considering keeping up with your regular business practices.

The last thing that you want to do is leave things up to chance. Your employees can be your best asset and below, we’ve got a list of reasons you need to have HR services to help your business.

    1. Reducing your overheads. Did you know that a HR department can help you to reduce your overheads? HR departments often increase your staff, which means that you have to have more desks, more technology and more space for documents. If you outsource your HR services, you’re going to save on this and still get an excellent service. Great HR departments outside your business are going to help you to save money in the long term. The costs can vary when you pay an agency, so shop around and get the right one.
    2. Attracting employees. A big red flag for the best talent out there is a business that has no regular processes in place to make sure they are protected. A HR department is one that will ensure that your staff are happy, protected and able to continue their work. If you’re not experienced in recruitment, you don’t have to be. You can have the experts doing the job for you and this will help you to attract the best talent. Their onboarding processes are going to be targeted, too, which will help you to bring on the best people.
    3. Training. You know that your business works with you at the helm; it’s why you’re the owner. If you want to ensure that your business training and education works well with your employees, contact a HR agency outside the business. Training may not even be a huge part of your business but it also doesn’t have to be. It can pay to outsource this as training isn’t cheap!
    4. Policy development. It’s not easy to develop a range of employee policies, especially if you’re not aware of the law. You can hire an expert to do this for you, though, and they can work with you to come up with employee separation agreements and working contracts that will be used across all departments. The right HR services can help you to develop policies that suit your business and what you need.
    5. Coping with risks. There are some things that can be a liability in businesses and you might not know all of them. It’s okay if you don’t; that’s why you have external HR resources to help. You might not know much about labor laws, but your HR expert will. There are plenty of laws like this that are out there and these change all of the time. The best thing to do here is to have a trained professional handle it all for you and keep up with them – so you don’t have to.
    6. Payroll issues. One of the biggest HR issues is payroll! People not getting paid, people not getting the right perks and benefits and trying to get what they are contracted to get is important. Your HR service can handle this for you because you don’t need to let this slip through the cracks. You have to stop what you’re doing so that you can deal with difficult issues, but if you hire a HR expert, you’re going to be able to avoid this and let someone else handle it. There’s nothing wrong with stepping aside and asking someone else to take over; you just have to be brave enough to ask for help!
    7. Health insurance. A HR service is going to be the best place to look for the best health plans out there and with the right service, you’re going to be able to offer your employees the best. Going with an outside HR company will help you to have access to a range of benefits that you wouldn’t normally get, too. These are the benefits you want to look for for your staff.
    8. Insurance management. Did you know that your human resource department can work with you to set up the right insurances? There are so many different types of insurance out there that you have to understand, and there are HR experts to handle it all. There are liability insurances and workers’ compensation insurances, professional liability and commercial insurance. It’s a lot, but you are one person and you don’t have to worry about understanding it all.

Human resource experts are out there looking after businesses. You will never have to worry about your business being without an expert in people if you hire a great HR service to work with you. Your whole business is going to be built on the people who work for you – make sure that they are as looked after as possible and don’t skimp on this expense.