Missed deadlines. Delayed responses. Rushed jobs. These are all signs employee productivity is declining.
Every team experiences some sort of productivity loss at one time or another. The question is: How do you address it?
In this article, we examine several common causes — along with proven strategies for maintaining high levels of productivity year-round.
Potential causes of productivity loss in the workplace
Productivity can dip for all kinds of reasons. And sometimes, there’s not much you can do — such as when someone is sick or has a bad day. But if you see declines across multiple team members, bigger issues are likely at play. Some common causes include:
- A lack of incentives: If you don’t take time to recognize and reward achievements, people will eventually lose motivation to perform their best. Without acknowledgment from leadership, there’s no reason to stick to timelines — let alone go the extra mile.
- Too many time wasters: Time spent in recurring meetings and Slack conversations may seem harmless, but those hours add up fast. They make it difficult to stay focused on critical tasks and important projects.
- A toxic work environment: Does your culture encourage long hours and working weekends? This isn’t just counterproductive. It actually makes employees less efficient.
- Insufficient training: Equipping employees with the skills they need to do their jobs is essential. Without it, people won’t know which software to use or how to follow your processes and procedures.
6 strategies to address workplace productivity loss
All managers know to set clear goals and expectations and to foster open communication. But what if you do all this and productivity still suffers? It’s time to identify and address the root causes. To help, we’ve compiled six tried-and-true strategies. Each one is based on real-world experiences and employee data across the 9,500 organizations that use ActivTrak’s productivity management software.
1. Offer more training and development
For people to stay productive, they need the right skills. Even top-performing employees need ongoing training and development, especially as they’re promoted to new roles and responsibilities. It may sound counterintuitive to devote work hours to online courses or in-person training sessions when productivity is already low. But these are vital to long-term success.
2. Monitor employee well-being
According to Gallup, organizations lose a whopping $322 billion a year to lost productivity caused by burnout. And often, managers don’t even realize it’s happening. Sure, you might agree that work-life balance impacts worker productivity. But how do you make sure employees get enough of it? This is where having the right employee engagement software comes in — the kind that analyzes daily activities to help you continually monitor well-being. Employees might tell you things are going well, but if your data tells a different story — such as excessive overtime caused by unbalanced workloads — you’ll know to take action.
3. Experiment with flexible work
If your organization sticks to a strict in-office, 9-5 schedule — and if your employees could just as easily work remotely — explore different flexible work options. Many employees are more productive when working from home, either because they need fewer distractions and a quiet space to focus or are tired from long commutes. Not sold on remote work? Try a hybrid model, consider rotating schedules or test the four-day workweek to see what works best for your workforce.
4. Provide more incentives
Incentives don’t just impact productivity. They fuel it. It might sound simple, but calling attention to a job well done is a powerful motivator. An astounding 78% of surveyed workers say they’d be more productive if their employers would simply recognize and reward job performance more frequently. Whether you create a formal rewards program or take the time to send regular “thank you” emails, these strategies give team members the boost they need to stay on task and tackle challenging assignments.
5. Free up focus time
The best way to ensure work gets done? Help employees carve out focus time. These blocks of dedicated time let people concentrate on a single task or project for faster, better results. But when schedules are packed and the pings never stop, staying focused is hard. Look for opportunities to reduce unnecessary meetings and curb common distractions. Freeing up a few hours each week makes a big difference in how employees feel about work — and how much they accomplish.
6. Use productivity management software
If you really want to know what’s causing a loss of productivity, workforce analytics is key. Collecting and analyzing daily activity data allows you to see exactly how much time employees devote to meetings, multitasking and focus time. The goal here is not to spy. Rather, look for a tool that helps you understand what employees need to be as productive as possible.
Prevent future productivity losses with ActivTrak
If your team’s productivity is starting to suffer, the above strategies are a great place to start. However, it’s often difficult to determine what’s causing performance to suffer in the first place. Without knowing the causes of productivity losses, it’s hard to know what actions to take in order to prevent future losses.
If this is something you struggle with, ActivTrak is here to help. Our productivity management software makes it easy to identify and address issues. More than 9,500 organizations of all sizes rely on it to:
- See when work needs to be redistributed to ensure everyone’s carrying their fair share of the load
- Identify apps and websites that either promote productivity or make it difficult for employees to stay on task
- Empower employees with Personal Insights reports that shed light on opportunities to build healthier work habits
Sign up for your free account to get started today, and schedule a demo to learn how organizations like yours use ActivTrak to monitor and improve productivity.
