One of the biggest factors in the success of any business is the level of productivity. Whether you sell sandwiches or you work for a highly regulated financial institution, productivity will play a large part in whether you out-perform your competition.
Of course, there are many other factors that will play into your success. For example, if you are making a great number of sandwiches which taste great but your customer service is terrible, then your customers will not return regardless of how quickly the sandwiches were produced and how tasty they were.
Similarly, if you haven’t put any efforts into marketing your business, then you are unlikely to get many people coming into your shop, other than the people who are passing by. To raise awareness of your shop, you need to invest in some marketing such as leaflet drops or email marketing; for example, maybe a menu with prices and images that showcase your sandwiches.
Those are some of the other factors that you need to be thinking about for a successful business. However, if you go back to productivity and can embed high levels of productivity into your business, then you are pretty much guaranteed to have a business that is performing to its potential. However, incorporating an environment that enhances productivity is not an easy achievement.
One of the biggest barriers to productivity is distraction. Therefore, you need to ensure that the working environment is free of avoidable distractions. So, if you have noisy equipment or nearby traffic, this can be a distraction for people when they are working. Even though it may cost you to rectify such problems, the impact it could have on increasing productivity is likely to make it worthwhile.
To be productive, it is important to set targets. Many businesses use the SMART objective theory, whereby employees are measured against a set of objectives that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely. By producing a set of objectives that hit all of these criteria, and regularly analyzing the employee’s performance against them, a more productive environment can be embedded.
Some companies allow employees to write their own objective criteria to enable them to feel more engaged in their role and to feel more driven when hitting targets. It also means that they will understand how their role is crucial to the success of the overall business. Therefore, they will feel important as they witness how their objectives contribute to the overall business strategy.
If you are looking for a way to be more productive individually, have you ever heard of or considered using the Pomodoro Technique? It is a concept where you split tasks into 25-minute sectors and time yourself to complete the task. Once 25 minutes is up, you have a quick break before starting again. By having a timer, you find a higher rate of focus. It is therefore easier to block out distractions such as emails, phone calls, social media or anything that may take your mind away from the task.
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