15 Apr Psychological hacks to increase productivity
Psychological hacks to make your office more productive
Productive employees are the cornerstone of any sustainable business. Lost work due to factors like distractions or disengagement costs upwards of $842 billion annually. Companies that can’t close the productivity gap may find themselves in a vicious, expensive cycle as employees become increasingly dissatisfied. Business News Daily explains, “Productivity loss causes a longer workday, which causes stress and frustration, which leads to a lack of engagement.”
Encouragingly, a recent survey suggests worker productivity has actually increased 47% year over year since more employees started working from home.
Want to match or beat these stats? Try implementing the office productivity hacks in this list to maximise output.
Establish your baseline
Before you can get where you want to go, you must first determine where you are. In other words, begin by measuring performance at present, so you can accurately track your productivity growth.
Depending on your goals, you might choose to do a capture of your current sales figures or lead counts. If focused on customer service, gather data for important metrics like ticket resolution time or backlogs.
Doing this pre-work allows you to identify which areas need the most attention and set more realistic and achievable benchmarks for improvement.
Use wearables to optimise performance
Countries like the United Kingdom, Australia and Sweden have already put wearables to work, increasing employee productivity 8.5%, according to a study from Rackspace.
Wearables can increase productivity by 8.5%.
Whether helping decrease the number of sick days or job-related injuries, wearable technology is a dream for corporate wellness programmes. But they’re certainly not limited to health initiatives. Crowdstaffing points out, devices can also “eliminate manual processes, shorten time-consuming tasks, facilitate immediate communication between workers and managers, automate the validation of completed tasks in real time, transmit important details about productivity or fatigue and much more.”
Leverage biometrics
Digital biometrics have been in our homes and on our phones for years. Now, they’re making their way into offices.
Fingerprint biometrics are rapidly replacing outdated security measures and improving timekeeping accuracy to streamline inefficient systems. For instance, employees using biometric time and attendance systems need only scan their finger before starting a shift. These systems replace clunky timecards and eliminate the need for manual input. They also take out multiple steps needed for accounts payable to cut checks based on to-the-minute time calculations.
With biometric access control, your security team can focus on preventing cyber attacks, knowing restricted areas will remain off-limits to unauthorised visitors.
Provide employees with the right technology
You could have the world’s most educated, skilled employee, but without the right tools, their productivity will plummet.
It happens more often than you might imagine. One Global Engagement Study showed 56% of employees feel they’re lacking the technology needed to do their jobs.
56% of employees feel they’re lacking the technology needed to do their jobs.
As more companies look for ways to technologically support a remote or hybrid workforce, up-to-date devices, VPNs and cloud applications will continue to be essential drivers of productivity.
Set goals
It’s difficult to effectively increase output using broad strokes. Setting specific productivity goals helps identify the finer points needed to really move the needle.
Start by talking to your staff and their supervisors. Ask for ideas to get a better sense of the inefficiencies they’re seeing. From there, you can identify the variables you’ll use to measure any productivity increases and the tools you’ll need to get there. Make sure your goals are also time-bound. You’ll want to review progress at set intervals and adjust goals based on the metrics you’re seeing.
If nothing else, goals in and of themselves are self-motivating and can improve productivity as your employees strive to meet them.
Productivity losses and gains can have a massive impact on your bottom line. Once you understand how to hack them, you can help your team work smarter and avoid burnout.
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