October 18, 2023
As a business, it’s important to have employees who are all contributing positively and equally to the company. However, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, it can be a case of a few employees riding on the coattails of others.
Slackers aren’t great for business and they can cause additional problems in the company such as disgruntled workers who are working hard due to a lack of projects meeting deadlines, etc.
With that being said, it’s good to clamp down on slackers and improve employee productivity where possible. Here are a few ways in which you can improve employee productivity in the workplace and avoid slackers this year.
First and foremost, make sure you’re setting expectations on what you and the business expect from all employees. Whether that’s meeting certain deadlines or number of projects delivered, to how employees should go about the business and their work on a daily basis.
Setting expectations means there’s less wiggle room for error or for anyone to take advantage of what might otherwise be a lax environment as a result. Make sure that these expectations are laid out and communicated throughout the company.
They should be enforced by managers and supervisors, all of whom should be setting expectations themselves as role models to their peers.
Staff should have a clear knowledge of how their working hours are laid out each week. Some companies who have gone somewhat remote with their workforce should remind their staff that working hours remain the same, whether they’re in the office or not.
Slackers can start to appear if you’re not reinforcing these rules and checking in on them regularly to ensure they’re not doing other things on company time. Remote working can be harder to track but there are thankfully, plenty of software and tools that you can use as a company to keep an eye on the quality and volume of work each staff member is doing.
If you start to become lax with some employees, then you might find them taking liberties and using work time to run personal errands or take time off while they should be working.
Employee timekeeping is something that can help keep on top of your employees and their whereabouts when it comes to productivity levels. With employee timekeeping best practices, it’s worth investing in timekeeping software.
This type of software is ideal for those who have a growing number of employees, all of whom need monitoring when it comes to their whereabouts and workplace activity.
With this type of employee timekeeping software in place, you do not always have to nag your employees or monitor too closely what they’re doing. As long as they’re complying with the processes surrounding employee timesheets, then you should have no problem with your employees as a result.
Remote working is probably the most difficult and challenging to monitor, especially if you don’t really have any software in place that tracks what your employees are getting up to in the day. Of course, an employee who’s slacking will reveal how little work they’re doing when deadlines aren’t met or certain documents haven’t been submitted or created.
However, that’s often too little too late and puts the business in a bad position when it comes to its clients and customers. It’s better to flag the problem workers before they do too much damage to the company’s growth and success.
Make use of great software that will track the work of your staff wherever they are, but particularly when they are working remotely. Check in regularly over communication tools to ensure they’re doing the work they should be doing and not chilling out somewhere else on company time.
If you’ve identified staff members who are clearly not pulling their weight in the workplace, then it’s important to speak to them. Rather than ignoring their behaviour and letting it continue to impact the work quality and other team members further.
Make sure this is done professionally and without too much direct accusation. A simple warning or understanding of why they might be slacking on the job will likely suffice for most but it’s also a good way to have it officially on record that you’ve done something to highlight a potential issue.
It’s important to review the progress of those who are or were slacking. That official record of you warning them or highlighting a lack of productivity should then be followed up at a later date. That way, you’ll be able to check if the warning they were given was enough to improve their work or whether they’re continuing with the same behaviour.
At the end of the day, an employee who’s not doing their job properly or to the standards you expect as a business should be let go eventually. However, following these protocols will help ensure you’ve done everything possible to save the worker from being fired from the business.
From a legal standpoint, as a business, you’ve followed all the relevant procedures needed so as to not get into trouble further down the line.
Finally, in order to help ensure all staff are working hard and achieving that high level of performance, introduce incentives. Incentives for staff are a great way to motivate them and hopefully achieve great results off the back of these rewards.
Rewarding your staff is highly important, especially when it comes to ensuring they work hard but they are benefiting from going above and beyond for the business. Whatever position they play within the company, be sure to incentivize them where you can.
Improving employee productivity is important. With that being said, make sure you’re using these pointers to keep on top of the slackers and to avoid anyone taking advantage of those who are working hard.
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