The workday has flown by as you hustled from task to task — but how would you honestly rate your day in terms of productivity? It’s easy to feel busy while accomplishing lots of insignificant tasks and barely touching on what matters most.
Often, the first barrier to employee productivity is a poor understanding of priorities. Employees simply aren’t sure what they should be working on. Setting goals, objectives and priorities must start at the top and then be communicated down the line. The next barrier is typically a lack of adequate planning. Most people don’t fully plan out the week, the next two weeks and the month. The final barrier to productivity — and a byproduct of our always-on world today — is that with all of our wonderful new tools we have also created the potential for continual distraction.
These problems are especially common in organizations where the myth of multitasking persists, despite studies debunking this supposed skill. These four tips help organizations and employees focus and overcome productivity barriers.
- Communicate and reinforce goals, objectives, behaviors and values: When an organization’s leadership doesn’t provide clarity of direction, employees won’t know what to focus on — it’s that simple. Randomness at the top trickles down, and results in organizations and people that lurch from one task to another without really accomplishing anything.If you look at companies that have very distinct cultures, they know who they are, what they should focus on and what they should do. Providing visibility into goals and objectives is a huge advantage in driving employee productivity. Managers also need to support this focus by modeling and reinforcing behaviors and values. Technology plays a key role in this communication, both on a company-wide level and between colleagues. Collaboration tools, instant messaging, email — any of these help employees to clarify what they’re working on or what they need from a supervisor, improving communication and coordination.
- Create productive processes: Once you’ve stated as an organization that focus and prioritization is a strong suit of the company, it’s essential to back that up by putting processes in place that allow people to actually work that way. Useful productivity processes are often simple activities and actions, such as regular schedule planning and weekly one-on-one review sessions designed to constantly realign activities with priorities.
- Implement tools that support productive processes: Managers and employees need a framework that allows them to set priorities and task schedules. They also need to analyze productivity failures together, such as revisiting the prior week to determine what was accomplished and what fell through the cracks, to better understand why the employee became distracted or was otherwise unable to execute on their plan. A task-management tool that facilitates collaboration between a manager and employee brings communication and process together.
- Use technology to minimize distractions: At many organizations, the accepted electronic calendar behavior is for everyone to keep their calendars up-to-date, and to allow others to schedule meetings and other appointments into available time slots. If that’s how your organization behaves, make sure to also block off time to accomplish your priorities, so that you minimize distractions during focused work periods. Plan the time when you’re going to lock yourself away and focus on a task.And in organizations that use presence awareness to indicate where you are and when you’re available, consistency is important to minimize distractions. When you need to focus, mark your status as unavailable on all social tools and instant messaging platforms. If a colleague sends you an instant message despite your “do not disturb” sign, don’t respond to that message until your time is free. Ignoring a message might feel awkward at first, but maintaining this consistency builds a company-wide culture of respect.
Unproductive employees often signal a larger lack of focus, planning and priorities in the organization. Solving these issues requires a consistent collaboration strategy that creates a culture of productivity, and thoughtful implementation of technology and processes.
Learn more about creating a culture of productivity at your organization by contacting Portal Solutions.
