5 ways to increase productivity in your team

Whether it’s pooling ideas, working on a pitch, or staying late to finish a project, team work is an important and integral part of digital marketing. Without it, there’s no productivity. Here’s some great tips from Tweak Your Biz about how to keep your team tight.

# 1. Accountability

Every employee needs to be well aware that he is accountable for his actions and decisions, and he can neither pass the buck or pass the blame to someone else.

• This will help him work more meticulously ,
• Take cautious rather than reckless decisions, and not take advantage of his place, position or relationship with his superiors.

# 2. Follow up

Employers often set targets and feel their job is done.

• No, every target or milestone set needs to be followed up as well, to see if the progress is sufficient and if not, whether any interim measures can be taken before it is too late to salvage a situation.
• It also keeps the employee on track,  ensuring there is consistent effort throughout the lifetime of the project

# 3. Manage the work force but avoid micromanagement

It is well known that a large pool of employees does need to be managed, provided direction and given assistance. But with this they must also be trusted, given freedom to operate in their style and adopt measures which they think are the best to deliver results.

• This freedom to act as they deem fit helps to keep them encouraged, motivated and happy in the belief that they are trusted.
• Micro management is a human tendency but one that is detrimental to achievement, since it makes mere puppets out of employees, who are expected to toe the boss’ line and not think for themselves.
• Employees need to think for themselves, analyze the consequences of every decision or action to be able to give their best to their jobs. And the employers must make it possible for their workers to do so.

#4. Encourage, motivate, reward and recognize

The employer must ensure that on his part he always has words of encouragement for his staff. Encouraging them helps them move forward and do even better, and makes the worker feel happy. Innovative ways of motivating them spurs them even more. For example, holidays or conferences paid for by the company have been found to motivate employees immensely.

• Rewarding the hard work put in by employees makes them continue to work in the same fashion, and if the employee feels that his work is not appreciated in words or in material terms, he may gradually stop doing so, since he may feel that others working less are given the same too, so he need not work more.
• Rewards, and other ways of keeping employees happy makes them feel that their effort is being recognized and that they are needed by the company.
• Without these, they may soon start looking for greener pastures and new jobs.

# 5. Reach out to employees by seeking them out

Every employee loves to feel he has the ears of the management who will recognize him and listen to what he says. Display of inter personal skills in which the boss appears humane and one of them, rather than a larger than life, distant figure, helps to have employees warm up to him and feel happy working for him.

• A bit of effort to reach out helps them all do better.
• If this extends beyond the work place it may prove to be even more encouraging to increase employee productivity.