5 Tips to Improve Employee Productivity in 2024

On average, a single distraction is enough to waste 4.8% of the workday. To be precise, a single distraction can waste a significant portion of an employee’s productivity. Should we learn more on figures, to realize the importance of employee productivity? Ok. On average, merely 23% of the workforce is engaged at work! Hence proved very well, how important is to monitor employee productivity is, in case you want to put your best foot forward in the business.

Speaking from employees’ perspective, engaged employees (hence productive) are said to be 44% less stressed throughout the workday.

So, why not learn candid & effective tips to improve employee productivity, which further improves your business productivity?

What is Employee Productivity?

Employee productivity, also known as workplace productivity is defined as the measure of each employee’s output. It merely cannot be measured on the grounds of how effective an employee is, but efficiency also plays a crucial role in measuring productivity.

As the President of Florida Healthcare Insurance says “ It’s a combination of how efficiently & effectively your team completes tasks that leads to successful outcomes”.

Note: Employee productivity should never be used interchangeably with labor productivity. Labor productivity is the economic output of a company per labor hour.

Tips to Improve Employee Productivity in the Workplace

Don’t worry! I will not leave you with just tips to improve productivity in the workplace, but would happily share my personal experience with methods by which I could exponentially enhance my team’s productivity. Now, let’s check on a few tips whether you are already acing it or there are a few to be added to your to-do-list:

• Upgrade workplace conditions
• Adopt productivity measurement software
• Remove tech distractions
• Avoid micromanagement
• Optimize the frequency of meetings
• Plan better incentives
• Optimize emailing strategy
• Revise employee training methods
• Promote flexible schedules

1. Upgrade Workplace Conditions

There is a clear relationship between workplace conditions & job satisfaction (Cogent Business & Management). Offices should be designed & cultivated to inspire employees (Matt Thomas).

“Since most employees spend eight or more hours a day in the office, it is important for businesses to be aware of how an office setup can influence and inspire their workers.”

Let’s expand on methods how you can upgrade your workplace conditions:

Adding Natural Light

There is a 2% increase in employees’ productivity, in an office environment where there is plenty of natural light. The advantage of natural light is not limited here!

• Decreased fatigue
• Decreased eye strain
• Lessening headaches is more advantage of adding natural light to your office environment.

Embrace Plant Life in the Office

Instead of putting my subjective view here, let’s go through the stats that speak to the importance of adding plant life in the workplace.

• 70% of people believe that plants play an important role in improving the workplace atmosphere.
• 58% of survey participants believe that plants have a calming effect on them.
• Moreover, 31% of them believe that plants are a great source of increasing their concentration.

Repaint Office Walls

Colors have a great effect on our mood. A study called “Office Wall Color” says that red is the worst choice for office wall colors, as the participants find it extremely unpleasant.

Some pleasant options of colors are green & blue for office walls.

Speaking as per stats, White is preferred by 53.2% as a very appropriate option,
White alternatives like Beige is preferred by 14.7% of them, and Gray is chosen by 7.3% of respondents.

Noise Reduction

Office noise impacts negatively to workers’ health & well-being. It impacts the productivity, mood & psychological state of the employees.

• Create official guidelines to outline rules for noise in the workplace.
• Prohibit meetings in common areas
• Fix a specific duration to conduct meetings in common area (in case of sheer necessity)
• Installment of a white noise machine is a great option.

Establishing a Common Area

Let your employees rewind & bond in a definite space, well…you can call that space a ‘common area’. Such a space provides a great change from the working scenery.

“Creating assigned spaces around the office that serve a variety of purposes can help employees break out of their afternoon slump. These specific spaces should also include comfortable pieces of furniture like couches or sitting chairs to help create a cozy and enjoyable space.” (Thomas)

2. Adopt Productivity Measurement Software

Needless to say, how technology has simplified things for humans. The first step in improving employee productivity is to measure workplace productivity. Again, along with our daily tasks, how can we ensure that it is done precisely? So, here I want to share one of the best productivity measurement software, DeskTrack that has worked wonders for my team. Below I am going to elaborate on how the software not only ensures precise measurement of employees’ productivity but carries all the potential to optimize the same:

• Measure Attendance

Being productive starts with making your presence at the workplace, i.e. Attendance. The software ensures robust Attendance Reporting. DeskTrack provides a login-logout report of an employee in the form of an analytical pattern. The software reflects the first login time, last activity time, total time spent on the device, time spent working, idle time, productive time, unproductive time & the overall productivity percentage.

DeskTrack as a solution also measures punctuality in the form of an Attendance report. The report indicates additional parameters like late login, late logout, or full-day working.

• Activity Insights

This feature speaks of the user’s work time behavior. The software keeps a detailed track of all the activity performed online, by an employee during work time. It captures the websites, apps, and URLs visited by the user online. The activity insights are generated in the form of an analytical report wherein one can analyze the productivity delivered by an employee.

• Application Tracking

The feature keeps track of all the applications opened with active & idle time analysis. Also, it shows whether the application accessed was productive or unproductive as shown in the below illustration:

• File Tracking

DeskTrack can not only capture the online activity of a user but it also captures the files accessed offline. It shows the application name, title, total time spent on it, desktop time & idle time.

• Internet Usage

DeskTrack is equipped to extract details on the internet usage behavior by a user. It shows the activity log with parameters like Application name, title (website name), URL/file path, total time spent, etc as shown below in the illustration:

• Project Timesheet

This feature of the software ensures that employees have time set to be spent on a certain project. Also, it gives details on how much time is spent by an employee on a certain project. The illustration below shows the parameters required for an employee’s project timesheet.

• Real-time Screen View

As the name suggests, what can be more explicit in checking data theft than a real-time screen view?

• Manage Productivity

The software is equipped to blacklist & whitelist unproductive & productive websites respectively, as shown in the illustration below:

• Measure Employee Engagement

Apps/browsers have been classified under communication and mailing categories. Such demarcation clearly shows the employee engagement level in an organization.

• Competitiveness

Reward is one of the crucial & effective methods to enhance employee productivity. DeskTrack is very much equipped to generate department comparison reports in such a way that employees’ productivity can clearly be compared, and hence accordingly the employees can be rewarded.

3. Remove Tech Distractions

Do you know the number 1 productivity killer? It’s there in your hand! Your cell phone. (2016 study by CareerBuilder)

Let’s know the stats & realize the fact forever:

• Social media is a distraction for 37% of employees.
• On average, 55% of employees are distracted by their phones.
• 41% of workers are distracted by spending time on the internet.

Hope your belief in how technology distracts you easily, is strong now. Now, let’s dive into the seamless methods of removing tech distractions.

Awareness is the First Step

Before stepping towards the prohibition of cell phones in the workspace, you should be aware of your employees and how the internet, social media & cell phones altogether are eating up their productivity, daily. Moreover, statistics & data validate this fact.

Besides, you can encourage the employees to set a specific duration of checking their phones.

Installing Website Blockers

Installing website blockers is a smart option too. Website blockers blacklist the websites that you choose completely or block access to those websites during a specific duration of the day.

4. Avoid Micromanagement

Micromanagement is a cause of stress. Not only for the employee who is micromanaged but for the employer too. Let’s look at the numbers on it, as per the 2023 Work in American Survey.

• 42% of workers go through micromanagement at their workplace
• There are 28% more chances of an employee feeling stressed due to micromanagement

Let’s learn about its solutions before it creates havoc to your employees’ productivity.

Set & Manage Your Requirements

In case you are looking for a specific requirement, set those expectations in the form of guidelines, and stay confident & rely on the employee you are assigning work to.

Delegate & Leave the Room

“Most employees blossom through greater autonomy. When employees feel empowered to work in a way that suits their preferences and needs, they are more likely to be motivated and perform at their best” (Mona Al-Anazi, Human Resources Director of The City School Saudi).

5. Optimize the Frequency of Meetings

31 hours! Yes, that’s right. This is the amount of time that goes into unproductive meetings (Atlassian survey). The same survey proves that employees believe half of the time in meetings is wasted.

Haselberger says “Most of the time the real work is not done in the meetings and meetings are inefficient. Start by removing all “information only” meetings, like status updates. This type of information can be disseminated asynchronously.”

It’s high time to learn the way out to optimize the frequency of meetings. Isn’t it?

Switch to Emails as an Alternative

What can be a faster and more precise way to communicate with a larger chunk of people? Email. Isn’t it? So, next time you can simply choose to shoot an email, instead of holding countless meetings.

Reduce the Frequency of Meetings & Time Spent on it

• Make it a point that the meetings that you are going to hold are essentials only.
• Fix a duration & stick to it, every time you hold a meeting.

Only Allow Required Attendees

Only send invites to attendees who play some vital role. This would save others’ time & flow of work.

Wrapping Up!

Not only hope, but I am sure by now that you are familiar with all the possible strategies to improve employee productivity.

Especially the one with software as a solution (DeskTrack) would suffice your purpose to a very much extent.

Let me know your feedback in the comment below. Also, any new solution or idea is worth sharing here, always.