Establish values 

Having a specific set of values will allow you to hire the right kind of people and define what your company is all about, why you are in business and who your target audience is. Values allow you to choose an expression you will portray to the world so everyone knows what to expect from a business with you.  

Company values should be clear and very easily translated into everyday interactions, actions and thoughts. Values can help your employees and customers to better understand what is meant by the term “good performance.” After all, having a set of values with no clear understanding of what productivity entails can be tantamount to disaster.  

For example, a hospital may choose “caring customer service” as a core value they provide. But how will this look from the perspective of different employees in different areas of the hospital?  

For example, an orderly can apply the concept of caring customer service when he walks a patient to their next location, rather than merely pointing them in the right direction. The accounts payable manager can apply this value in pointing out billing errors that can cost patients and clients a lot of money.  

As you can see, different roles will apply these values in different ways, yet these values will run seamlessly throughout every contact point where patients interact with care providers and receive other services.  

Communicate clear goals and instructions 

Productivity can be improved by tightening the rigging on your streamlined venture. If everyone knows exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it. This begins with a well-written job description that clarifies all responsibilities and can help managers establish everyone’s responsibilities and highlight their performance goals.  

But that is only a start, the magic is completed and rounded off with feedback through regular facetime with the direct manager. This is because the manager can perceive potential roadblocks ahead and help them find better solutions to achieving their personal goals and achieving the goals of the organization as a whole in a nice relaxed way.  

Keep deadlines realistic 

Before you can provide your team with deadlines and goals that they should complete, you must ask yourself if these goals are realistic. Tracktime24 will help to determine goals and deadlines.

Here are some important questions to ask before setting goals or deadlines:  

• What key performance indicators will be used to measure progress? 
• What are the required steps to meet the goal? 
• In how much time should the goal be completed? 
• Is this timeline suitably challenging, but also achievable? 
• Is this person or team handling any other projects? Is their workload realistic? 

Again, clear direction about goals and objectives will be vital to the success of the project. 

You must be as specific as you possibly can and use very simple terms to describe milestones needed to gauge success. The less you leave to imagination the better in this situation. Confusion and a lack of clear direction can waste time, cause frustrations, and generate unnecessary stress.  

This can be one of the greatest impediments to productivity and causes employees to lose heart in leadership and choice of direction.  

Balance accountability and authority 

The perfect balance between accountability and authority is not the easiest thing to master, but well worth the effort.  

Accountability places clear expectations and consequences in place. Affirmative consequences are as important as those used to fine-tune your processes. Affirmative consequences include increased responsibility, constructive feedback, and simply being informed that all things are on track and running as they ought to be. Negative consequences include working late, being denied promotions, and forgoing productivity bonuses.  

Of course, this type of responsibility is only effective if it is accompanied by the authority to achieve what it takes to get the job done as planned. This means having the resources to perform their tasks as well as the latitude to make decisions as they see fit. 

It will be up to the organization and its specific goals to find the perfect balance between autonomy and goals and choose how they will be best achieved.  

Remember to listen 

Finally, never forget the importance of good communication. This is more than just about talking or sending informational emails. Listening to and receiving information from your employee’s team is essential to adjust your process and methods for maximum efficacy.  

This is because your employees are the frontlines and contact points where your process meets its results. If you are not getting ground floor information from your employees you are missing many of the valuable insights that will allow you to improve your process and thereby increase productivity.