How to Keep Your Team Grounded in Productivity
From week to week, month to month, quarter to quarter, a lot of things can happen.
Maybe your team had a strong start to the year, energized and ready to get back into routine, but then, something shifts. Suddenly, things are taking longer to accomplish, and you’re noticing inconsistencies either with the quality or quantity of work (depending on their responsibilities).
You’re sitting at your desk, pacing the room, trying to figure out what happened, what is happening.
What do you do?
Create and Make Space for Vulnerability
The first thing to do when productivity is dwindling is to connect with your team.
Now, I’m not saying you should have a team meeting and publicly shame the person or persons who are lacking productivity, absolutely not. In fact, I’m saying quite the opposite.
Schedule 1-1 check-ins with each team member and truly check in. Ask them how they’ve been, how they’re feeling, what obstacles they are facing professionally, and if there is anything you can do to help support them better.
This establishes a sense of care between you and your team, because even I know, productivity is hard to maintain, especially when life happens. It’s important that your team knows when life happens, they can talk about it, even if just approaching the conversation of modified work or alternative tasks, even if just in the interim.
Set and Reset a Base Level of Expectations for Your Team
A reminder of roles and responsibilities feels very “official,” but sometimes it’s just the nudge your team needs to remember, this is a place of work.
Not to be all “strict boss” mode, but even with vulnerability and open communication, you can still run into patterns that need resetting when it comes to attitudes towards work. Reminding your team of roles/responsibilities, project timelines, and even daily/weekly workflow essentials can be the gentle nudge needed to recommunicate your expectations for them and the business as a whole.
As well, this could be a great opportunity to engage in a discussion with your team if the cause of productivity is misalignment with the values and culture of your business. You may just learn key insights to modify or reshape previous policies, processes, or operations as a whole.
Reward Initiative with Gratitude
Sometimes, it’s about showing, not telling. The best way to nurture and grow your team’s instinct for productivity is to reward it, especially when they’re “going the extra mile,” as they say.
Encourage, celebrate and reward those who take the initiative, whether you have team members who are picking up the slack, finding new strategies or tactics, mentoring other team members, or who solve problems before they even come to pass.
If productivity is important to you, then you need to nurture the success of productivity, which shows an active demonstration of value. Whether you reward your gratitude with words or actions, it is essential to give your team a completion goal to work towards because hey, we all like to be told we’re doing a good job.
Now this might not have been what you were expecting. Maybe you were expecting something about performance reviews and how to have “tough conversations” (which we’ve covered before in our FREE guide), but that is not the first step when managing productivity in your business.
Tough conversations are for cycles and patterns that repeat after you’ve done the above. If productivity is still a struggle and your team isn’t meeting you halfway, then it’s time for more direct action.
BUT sometimes, it’s all about having a heart-to-heart and giving a soft reset.
Looking for support with your people operations, especially when it comes to setting expectations?
We can help!
Whether creating policies, process documents, or even an Employee Handbook to put all your information in one place for your team, Signal Terra is here to help you lead with confidence.