It is very unlikely, or at least happens really very seldom that a person takes up a job with the sole aim to screw up everything. For most employees, their work is the best means of self-realization, and they put in much efforts to achieve good results. However, the lack of willpower, perseverance and patience makes people easy to distract and their desire to work quickly vanishes under certain conditions.
You’ve definitely noticed that some of your employees demonstrate diligence and brilliant work results without any special incentives, while others require constant supervision, extra motivation and sometimes even punishment in order to attend to their direct duties. Practice shows that in most cases employees’ productivity is lower than expected for a reason. So, managing to find it out will help raise the work efficiency not only of one particular employee, but to an extent – of the whole team he/she belongs to.
This is easier said than done since a person may be either unaware or unwilling to tell what holds him/her back. Thanks to time tracker app, it’s easy to keep your hand on the pulse of employee activity during the workday. They record data on how much time people spend working, and provide detailed info on all resources used, whether on the Internet or on their computer, and their duration, as well as all breaks, late attendance etc. This helps discover employees who might need attention by their attendance issues, frequent and lengthy breaks, lots of work time spent surfing the Internet or chatting on social networks etc.
Attention is the right word here, because scolding and fines may give some temporary effect, but in the long run they don’t solve the problem behind such behaviour. So, let’s view the most common reasons of low employee productivity, as this is the first step to dealing with them.
Key obstacles on the way to productivity
1. Heavy workload
Most often, employees feature low efficiency because they are overworked. No matter what’s the motivation – financial reward or self-realization, people who work under strain for too long tend to “burn out”. Even if they work long hours, they still have difficulties with coping with all the tasks. Taking some vacation and reducing the amount of overtimes further on can help such employees revive and get back to work with the new force.
2. Stuck in routine
Staff members who perform the same work day to day with no promotion and few changes finally get bored and start neglecting their duties. Consider involving them in some new activity that will help them open up other sides of their character and serve as a distraction from their major duties.
3. Difficult projects/unsuitable position
Dealing with tasks that are too difficult or which a person simply doesn’t like will sooner or later result in productivity decrease and losing motivation. Often employees would take a lot of coffee breaks, use social networks or procrastinate in some other way, just to put off the engagement with what they don’t feel like doing. Think about redistributing the duties so that the employee got the chance to try him/herself in a new kind of work, and you may not only see how they get more productive, but it is also possible that they will excel in the new activity.
4. “Unproductive” daily agenda
It is also possible that the reason of the low productivity is not the person, but his/her daily schedule. First of all, it should be composed in advance, with some percent of time devoted to urgent tasks. Secondly, it is highly recommended to start the day with the most important assignment. It is quite sensible, since mental activity is in most cases at its peak, and moreover, when this task is done, a big part of the agenda is already complete, so there will be no pressure when working on the remaining tasks. For this reason, it is not the best idea to schedule long business meetings during the first part of the work day.
Analyzing the time tracker app data gives you much scope for improvements in your company, so why put it off? Sign up for Yaware.TimeTracker now and discover all possible gains with zero spendings for 14 days. We don’t even ask for your credit card number, and starting out is easier and quicker than you think.
