5 steps to more productive employees

You’ve spent time interviewing and cultivating the best team possible, but are they living up to their potential? If you know you have the right team in place, here are five steps you can take to maximize their productivity and lead them to success.

Know who they are: It’s important that you get to know your employees. Your team members are more than an employee ID number. They are people with personal lives. They have dreams and desires that they want to be able to fulfill while working for your company. By getting to know about them, you’ll gain their respect. Caring about your staff is a great way to get them to care about your company.

Train them well: Nothing kills productivity like a poorly trained employee. Training should result in an employee knowing the ends and outs of their position, as well as a working knowledge of them company overall. You’ll find productivity is higher when an employee fully understands what they’re doing and how it fits in to the bigger picture.

Sort by strengths: It’s a great feeling when you know you’ve hired the right person for the right job. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes, you have to let an employee go if they’re not the right fit, but it’s always possible that they’re not succeeding because they’re in the wrong position. As you get to know employees better and get to know where they strengths lie, you’ll be able to put all your employees in the right places. Employees aren’t great at everything, so don’t be afraid to move them around before you decide to let them go.

Inspire their minds: Communication is the key to inspiration. Clearly stating goals and objectives, letting everyone know how they fit in, and encouraging open conversation should lead to an inspired team. Also, let your team take risks. When they have freedom to create and experiment, they’ll be able to innovate and succeed.

Move out of the way: When your team is ready, the last thing you want to do is get in the way. It’s kind of like a car trying to move with the parking brake on (or a star ship trying to warp without disengaging the external initial dampener). Your team is strong, they’re inspired, and they’re trained to do their job. Now it’s time to let them do it.