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Do you remember that first day of work? First day as a manager? How about the first day you opened your small business with high hopes of what you and your small troop of employees could do? You were likely seeking what all other managers do: a profitable company with happy, successful employees and satisfied customers. And if you are still managing or running a business, chances are that is still your primary goal.
Consider the following formula:
Satisfied Customers + Productive Employees = A Happier You!
It makes sense. Let’s focus on one fundamental part of the formula: Productive Employees. Without productive employees, customers cannot be satisfied and the rest of the equation is void. In this article we will touch on four basic principles that improve employee productivity not only at work, but throughout their lives.
Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations.
Mindfulness gives us the ability to see where we are at, what we need to do now, and face our challenges in stride. We don’t necessarily need to have a 15 minute
meditation break for all our employees. That doesn’t work for everyone. Matthew E. May in The New York Times suggests that when stress arises we can practice mindfulness using self-distancing techniques to put a situation in a clearer perspective. For example: a stressful situation comes up at work such as a change in positions, an employee leaving, etc. If your initial reaction is negative, being mindful of those feelings and choosing to redirect your response is necessary to maintain a positive work experience. For example, tell yourself three reasons the change won’t be bad. Then you need to give yourself three reasons why, if the change does cause bad things to happen, good things will also happen. This way an individual is still responsive to a situation but not reactive.
Training employees about mindfulness and practicing it at work and personal life makes employees, business owners, and everyone in general, much better respondents and actors, rather than reactors, in their responsibilities.
Set Goals
“Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there” said Bo Jackson. We’ve all heard the praise of goal-setting countless times but that’s because it’s valid. However, we can’t throw down any ole’ “goal” and call it good. We need SMART goals!
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Trackable
Give your employees SMART goals, encourage them to set their own, and then continue the conversation about where you’re at in reaching them.
Write down your goals. Increase accountability by having each employee or team member write a goal or two on a white board or bulletin board. Motivation is key. Are your employees excited about the goals? What creative ways can be used to aid in motivating the achievements of goals? Consider friendly competition, food incentives if everyone meets their goals, small bonuses, etc.
A useful tool for achieving tools is creating a to-do list. Break down large goals into bite size pieces (I’ve never heard of anyone who ate an elephant in one bite. Have you?). When creating your to-do list for the day, include tasks that you know you can realistically accomplish but that will still push you. Then prioritize your list. Ask yourself: “what are the most important things on this list?” Then focus on those.
Take Steve Jobs as an example of creating a focused to-do list. Each year he took his “top 100” people on a retreat. At the end of the retreat they went through all their goals and to-do’s for the next year. Everyone eagerly chimed in to get their ideas on the board and all of them were written (the dumb ones Jobs crossed out). They then decided what the top 10 priorities were. Once they were listed and prioritized, Jobs crossed out the bottom seven and said “We can only do three.” As Jobs put it, “deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.”
Focus on what is most important and everything else falls into place. Delegate tasks to people you know you can trust and focus on what you need to do.
Find Balance
Employees burn out if they don’t have balance in their lives. Help your employees keep a healthy work-life balance where, if possible, they can work hard in the office and go home, leaving work at work. Just like Google has gone to great extent to supply employee benefits to ensure they are as well cared for as possible, managers need to do all they can to ensure their employees feel happy and cared for with a balanced life. It is not required to match Google’s set of benefits but apply the principles in to-scale ways like allowing a reasonable number of breaks, encouraging exercise, eating well, and getting enough sleep. To complete a balance in life, eating well and sleeping enough improve productivity because individuals who get enough sleep are less likely to make mistakes that you and your employees have to handle. Set an example for eating well with your own breakfast and lunch. Perhaps provide breakfast options for employees in the morning, and make sure you don’t overload your employees so that when they are home they can be stress-free and get better sleep.. Employees who eat and sleep well have the energy to jump into work to lift their fair share of the load.
Also, promote balance at their desk. Productivity is not measured by the number of hours spent at the desk. It’s measured by how much you can accomplish while you are at your desk. Sitting for several hours straight with little movement and no breaks slows blood flow, slows the mind, and makes focusing well nearly impossible (trust me, as a working, full-time college student I’ve learned that sitting for several hours straight lowers productivity).
Be Optimistic
Oscar Wilde remarked “The optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole.” Just as you cannot productively act on (eat), get energy from, and enjoy a something that’s not there, being pessimistic and depressed cannot lead to productive action, energy, and enjoyment at work. While a small level of pessimism is appropriate in some situations to be realistic, remaining pessimistic leads to depression, skepticism, and negative atmospheres. Talk about putting a damper on things!
In the famous research study conducted by Marcial Locada and Emily Heaphy in 2004, high performing teams were observed to have a positive to negative comment ratio of 5.625 throughout conversations versus a low performing team with a ratio of .365 positive to negative comments.
In your office you can practice optimism to lighten and strengthen the office culture by using the 3-to-1 rule. 3 positive comments to 1 negative comment. Take the lead in your office, setting the example, by making that conscience effort to increase your positive comments. Try setting goals as teams to help one another out. Who knows, it could turn into a game. As your employees become more optimistic you’ll be able to watch a transformation in the connectivity between coworkers and the productivity of the business significantly improves.
In Conclusion
These four principles will help you and your troop of employees reach your primary goal that you started out with and that is still going: running a profitable business. Practicing mindfulness, setting goals, finding balance, and being optimistic changes the minds of the employees and changes the culture of your company. Productive employees lead to happy customers which makes your job worth it.