10 tips to increase your productivity
Increasing productivity is the goal of any company that seeks success. After all, in short, productivity is the relationship between the use of inputs and the quantity produced.
Thus, increasing productivity is related to producing more with fewer resources. The key issue, though, is to maintain quality and customer satisfaction.
Increasing productivity is essential for positive results in a more and more competitive environment.
Although everyone knows, especially managers, the importance of productivity and better results within the organization, it is not uncommon to come across a completely opposite scenario.
Unproductivity, unfortunately, is a reality in many companies.
Therefore, it is essential to boost it in practice. So, learn how to increase productivity within your company:
1. Set clear and measurable goals
One of the main factors to increase productivity is to establish clear goals and objectives. After all, it is necessary to understand what is expected and the time it takes for its delivery.
Obviously, these goals need to be feasible and aligned between the company and its workforce. Otherwise, a positive result will not be obtained.
From the moment employees are clear about their role in the company and their priorities, there is greater engagement. And, consequently, higher productivity.
To know if your productivity is increasing, you need measurement metrics. In this sense, list a responsible person, to monitor results and analyze whether they are within planned expectations.
2. Develop strategic planning
If the goals need to be aligned with the company’s objectives, it is necessary to know what strategies will be adopted for a certain period of time.
In this way, the elaboration of strategic planning is also a way to increase productivity. But how?
To carry out strategic planning, a detailed study of the entire environment in which the company is involved is necessary. That is the market, the weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats.
Thus, this planning will indicate the organization’s guidelines – which have a full correlation with goals, productivity, and professionals’ performance preparations.
In addition, planning also contributes to the allocation of a monetary percentage for investments that will increase productivity even more.
3. Invest in technology
Undoubtedly, one of the main allies of companies is technology. This resource can organize and improve management, processes, communication, and general performance.
Currently, several platforms and systems guarantee errors, failures, and cost reduction. Including those that are specific to each activity branch.
It is indisputable how digital transformation is capable of generating great gains for businesses. There is greater ease and speed to perform activities and functions, ensuring greater agility, convenience, and operational efficiency.
In addition, many software tools assemble information in reports that facilitate decision-making.
Furthermore, technology has brought mobility, helping managers and professionals to work.
4. Organize the workflow
It may happen that unproductivity arises because there is no consistent workflow. In other words, a professional can be overloaded, or an activity can be acting as a bottleneck that delays the entire task sequence.
In this sense, increasing productivity is related to the best way to carry out activities. And, for that, it is necessary to draw up an action plan, delimiting those responsible, involved, and deadlines.
Having organization and control over the flow of activities allows you to analyze and identify bottlenecks, failures, or rework.
In addition, control allows listing which activities do not need to be carried out at all, and can be performed by technology instead.
5. Automatize your processes
Increasing productivity is directly related to performing activities that are fundamental and strategic in the best possible way.
Therefore, bureaucratic activities that are not part of the company’s core business can be carried out with the help of technology.
In this way, it will be necessary to map the tasks performed daily. This will allow identifying activities that are not connected to strategic objectives and can be automated. Process automatization will allow the activities flow to run faster, better, and with a lower rate of errors.
Thus, all professional efforts will be focused on those activities that can generate competitive differentials.
That is, what is repetitive and bureaucratic can be performed more effectively with software such as BPMS.
6. Include continuous improvement
At this point, you can already see that the activities and the way they are carried out are the keys to increasing productivity.
In this way, the continuous improvement methodology allows analyzing the processes so that they have the best performance and execution.
For this, it is necessary to observe the way it is currently being carried out and its inefficiencies. And then find better, more productive ways to improve them.
This is a cycle that never ends. From the moment the improvements are implemented, it will be necessary to analyze the results obtained and identify new flaws.
Even the automatization of processes contributes to this culture, as it provides performance reports, being, in many cases, the solution to improve procedures.
7. Have good input management
If increasing productivity means doing more with less, managing all the company’s inputs well is essential, especially when considering the resources needed for production.
Ineffective stock management, for example, is capable of stopping the production process due to a lack of inputs. Another issue is the misuse of available resources.
These two points, by themselves, contribute to slowing productivity down.
Adopting technology to ensure available resources are well managed is one of the main alternatives to guarantee that the company will continue to produce more, with less, and with quality.
8. Train your professionals
Potentializing results is linked to making good use of available resources. Therefore, it is necessary that employees develop skills to perform their jobs masterfully.
Offering courses and training increases productivity within the company, even if indirectly.
In addition to being a fundamental part of transforming knowledge into better results, training is a way to demonstrate the importance that each employee has for the company.
In this way, these professionals end up working more motivated and centered, resulting in high performance.
9. Clear and transparent communication
Little of what we say will have any effect if there is not assertive communication, which is the passport to success in all areas of a company.
When people know what is expected of them and are free to express their opinions and provide input, there are extremely positive impacts on relationships.
This sense of belonging and acceptance contributes to increasing productivity, as it strengthens the bonds between professionals.
Therefore, invest in tools that can unify and encourage transparent dialogue with bulletin boards, intranet, and management platforms.
An effective way to contribute to clearer communication is to record and monitor the flow of activities.
Many BPMS tools allow those involved in a process to know who is responsible for each activity. Thus, when a task happens to be stalled or delayed, it is easy to identify who to talk to and resolve the situation.
This objectivity provides not only speeding up execution but a correct and positive approach with the professional involved.
10. Create and cultivate a collaborative culture
Who has never heard the saying that “together we go further”? And, this is a reality in the corporate environment.
When there is a network of mutual collaboration, everyone involved is committed to everyone’s success. After all, it is the sum of the small results that makes it possible to reach the stipulated objective.
In this sense, increasing productivity also involves creating an environment conducive to developing a collaborative culture.
In addition, this culture can be associated with training, where the professionals themselves pass on their knowledge to other colleagues.
Increasing productivity in practice
By following these 10 tips there will be increased productivity. However, like any strategy, this one also requires planning.
Because of that, we suggest that you start slowly and do what you consider to be a priority first.
Then, as you see improvement, include the other tools to increase productivity.
And if you have any questions, or need more information on the subject, just write them here in the comments!