Being a leader requires more than just bossing people around. It requires the enthusiasm to lead and inspire people so they can be their best selves. One of the most critical responsibilities of a manager is encouraging your employees so they can be more productive and efficient while working. It’s a very tricky job. Finding the right balance between continually providing your employees with an inspirational and productive environment while also getting the work done on time is one of the hardest challenges that no one ever mentions in the job description.
Leading people to trust you and do good work under you or independently is an art and a skill that you can learn. While there are no shortcuts or specific ways for you to become “the best of the best that’s ever existed,” there are still a couple of things you can do to ensure that your employees are working to the best of their abilities. Here are ten ways to help increase the productivity of your team.
1. Just Be Yourself
Inspiring people isn’t as easy as saying a couple of motivational quotes and calling it a day. To inspire people, you have to be real with them, and there is no replacement for your authenticity. It’s not going to be a one-time thing. You’re going to have to motivate your employees almost regularly or before every big project. Putting up a façade takes a toll on your mental health, plus people can always spot pretentiousness. Behave in a manner that will remain consistent and also something that you’re comfortable with.
2. Feedback And Transparency Are Essential
For your employees to work at their absolute best, there needs to be a level of trust and transparency. Many managers are afraid of incorporating this, but communicating and accepting where you’re wrong is essential for a good leader. Quite a number of virtual offices in India have worked hard in developing a culture where feedback and constructive criticism are encouraged. To normalize this in an office environment, start with yourself, and set an example for others.
3. Get To Know Your Employees
For you to inspire and encourage your employees to work better, you also need to get to know them not only on a professional level but a little bit on a personal level too. If an employee shares something about an incident with their family or seems slightly down, be involved enough to check up on them at the end of the day. Remembering this proves that you care about your employee and helps develop a strong bond of trust and respect. Once you have a good connection, it won’t be hard for you to determine how to motivate them to do better. Your employees will invest more energy and time in their work if they know that their boss cares about their performance and success.
4. Appreciation Is The Key
Being attentive enough to notice when an employee has done an excellent job is essential. Even a few words of appreciation can go a long way as they can help keep motivation levels high. You’ll be surprised to know how positively people react to a simple “good job” from their boss. It keeps them motivated to do better every day.
5. Upgrade Technology
Many aspects of work-life can be extremely monotonous and indirectly cause a person to get frustrated and lose interest and dread coming to work because of it. Observe such things and see if you can get updated tech and software to finish that task. There’s a solution for almost everything nowadays like this list of office productivity applications that are really helpful. This will make your employees happier and much more productive.
6. Encourage Them To Take Risks
In an environment where failure meets with harsh criticism and punishment, the fear of being fired always prevails. That fear becomes an employee’s source of motivation (for all the wrong reasons), and ultimately their productivity falls because of being anxious all the time. Instill in your employees that if a lead has a chance of success, they should be willing to take risks provided they’ve done their due research and trust their gut. Employees have to deal with decisions like these daily. Encouraging them to take risks makes them more confident and drives them to seek new and innovative steps that are ultimately beneficial for the company and the employee’s personal growth.
7. Use Time Blocks
When you need to multitask and have a ton of work to get through, your mind gets foggy, and you start to panic, thinking you can’t get through all of it in time. A more efficient way to avoid this is by using time blocks. Time blocks are just small periods of the scheduled time, during which you focus on one thing only and block out the rest from your mind. This not only helps employees stay focused but also crossing things off of their to-do list works on getting them more energetic and motivated throughout the day.
8. Give Them The Freedom
If your employees start feeling like they have to be a certain way, dress a certain way or like they can’t be themselves, it won’t keep them happy and certainly not motivated. Talking to your employees about the kind of work they want to do, encouraging them to do it, and giving constructive criticism can help them grow and learn. This will, in turn, create an environment in the office that lets employees enjoy and work on the things they love the way they like.
9. Push People
While you do need to give employees autonomy, you also have to overlook their work and make sure they have a helping hand ready, so they don’t spend an ample amount of time figuring things out when they could be working on them. Push them to think outside the box and challenge themselves every day.
10. Hire The Best
It is a given, but it’s an important reminder that to get the results you want in a professional environment, you have to hire people who are passionate about the work they want to do.
Conclusion
It’s not easy being a leader and keeping an eye on everyone, but if you invest enough time and energy into your employees, it will pay back.
