Businesses and corporations are constantly challenged to do more, compete more, and achieve more. For employees, the workplace can prove to be a stressful environment, and the figures from the American Institute of Stress, estimate that a million people per day are absent from work due to work-related stress. So, if you are a business owner or manager, what can you do to increase workflow without it negatively affecting the wellbeing of your team?
Encourage employees to schedule time for specific tasks and projects; although you must stress that this is not a way for you to monitor their time management. Rather, it will encourage people to stop multi-tasking and devote time to specific tasks. Working on multiple tasks at the same time is not productive, but more importantly, it can overload the brain by switching between tasks and cause errors and mistakes.
By having a self-set schedule to work to, your employees will be able to prioritize their workload according to the day’s requirements. Priority should be decided by deadlines, but also by difficulty. Encourage the team to tackle the trickier tasks first so that the rest of the day will be a breeze.
Good communication skills are essential for business; however, it can be commonplace for businesses to focus on how they communicate with prospects and existing customers and clients rather than their employees.
Communication is critical for increasing workflow. If your colleagues don’t fully understand the objectives and goals that are working towards, how can they complete their role successfully? Misunderstanding instructions, requests or orders stalls workflow, so ensure that your team know precisely what they need to do, and if they are unsure, they need to know who and where to get more information from.
It is important that the work environment is one that encourages open and transparent communication. If your employees can approach you with suggestions and recommendations, you will find that bottlenecks in workflow and challenges are swiftly overcome.
An employee who has not been provided with the resources and materials that they need for their job, will be unable to achieve a satisfactory workflow. You need to ensure that you provide them with the tools that they need. This may be the CircuitStudio PCB design tool for your designers, or it may be forklift trucks for your warehouse operatives. If you cut corners by not providing adequate equipment, you are restricting both workflow and profit. Sometimes you need to speculate to accumulate.
Providing your employees with the correct professional tools for their job not only boosts efficiency but makes them feel motivated and a valued member of the team and they will be more inclined to go the extra mile on behalf of the business.
Business success does not have to be at the expense of your employee’s sense of wellbeing. A happy workforce is an efficient, productive one and loyal one. Not only will efficiency and workflow increase, but so will customer satisfaction and ultimately the bottom line.
