A lesser-known (but very powerful) holiday that comes around each year on June 20th is World Productivity Day. Being productive (and continuing to stay productive) is something that many people struggle with whether it be in their personal lives or while working. With countless people having to switch over to working from home in recent months, it might be difficult for your employees to feel like they’re using their time productively.
It’s essential for a growing company to have its employees work as efficiently as possible each and every day (no matter where they’re working from). World Productivity Day is an excellent time to reconnect with your employees, check-in on their productivity, find out where productivity is lacking in the workplace, and use that information to come up with a plan to find where waste can be cut out.
Here’s how you can help your team be more productive while working from home:
Give Your Employees Tools to Help Them Succeed
The first thing you can do to help your team be more productive while working from home is to provide them with the right tools. There are many websites and applications that will help your employees with staying focused and productive (and that are very simple to use). Some of these tools include:
- Asana: A project management system that will help your employees keep track of tasks that need to be completed.
- Slack: A communication tool that gives all of your employees the ease of connecting with you (and each other) with the click of a button.
- Toggl: A time tracking tool that will make sure employees are making the most of their time each day.
Encourage Your Employees to Take Breaks
Though taking a break may not sound very productive, it’s actually an excellent way to boost productivity. According to Connect Solutions, the top 10% of productive employees tend to work, on average, 52 minutes before they take a break and that break that is 17 minutes long on average. That’s almost 30% of their workday! If your employees aren’t sure where to start, you could suggest that they follow the Pomodoro Technique. The Pomodoro Technique works as follows:
- Choose a task that needs to be accomplished.
- Set a timer for 25 minutes.
- Work on that task until the timer goes off and put a check on the paper.
- Take a 5-minute break (this marks the end of the Pomodoro).
- Repeat! Every 4 complete Pomodoros, take a slightly longer break.
Frequently Check-In With Your Employees
The last thing you can do (and maybe the most important) is to frequently check-in with your employees. Take some time out each day to communicate with each of your employees. This will allow you to receive updates on projects they’re working on and to make sure they aren’t overwhelmed. If an employee voices any concerns regarding their workload or feels like they are lacking when it comes to their overall productivity, come up with a gameplan.
For example, maybe your employee is struggling because there’s a lot of distractions around their home during the workday. In this case, you could suggest that they choose a quiet, dedicated spot in their home that will be considered their permanent work-from-home area. Just because your team is working from home, doesn’t mean that the communication has to come to a halt.
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