How to Foster Productivity in the Workplace

Just because a worker clocks eight hours in a shift, it doesn't necessarily mean that he or she was productive for all eight hours. It's not uncommon for workers to become distracted or otherwise perform poorly. When this happens, it can hurt your business's overall workflow. But there are ways to foster productivity in the workplace, including the strategies mentioned here.

Consider an Open Office Design

The way in which your workplace is designed will affect workers' productivity levels. Studies show, for instance, than an open office design -- one without cubicles or other partitioned spaces -- promotes higher productivity levels. The general idea with an open office design is to create a collaborative workplace in which workers can easily share their opinions with each other.

Eliminate Distractions

Of course, eliminating distractions can improve workers' productivity levels. From social media and gossip to smoke breaks and loud noise, the average workplace is riddled with distractions. It's oftentimes difficult to eliminate all distractions from the workplace. However, you can still remove some of them -- and that's often enough to have a positive impact on productivity levels.

Protect Workers From Injury

Conventional wisdom should tell you that workers can't perform their job if they are injured. Regardless of your business's industry, you should take steps to protect workers from injury. This includes providing workers with the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), while also establishing workplace safety guidelines. Neglecting to create a safe environment is a serious mistake that can leave workers susceptible to injury. And when that occurs, productivity levels will plummet.

Avoid Downtime

If workers are allowed to sit idle with nothing to do, they won't produce very much work (if any). Therefore, you should assign multiple tasks to workers so that they always have something to do. When a worker completes a task, he or she can move on to the next task. Workers should never be without work; there should always be something for them to do.

Train

Finally, be sure to train your workers so that they know what to do and how to do it. You can't expect a worker to automatically know how to perform a job. Granted, their existing skillset may help, but training helps to reinforce the correct way to perform a job while promoting higher productivity levels in the process.

Don't let low productivity levels hurt your business. Follow these tips to promote increased productivity in your workplace.