Many small businesses have productivity problems. In a survey conducted by Oasis on 300 small businesses, they found that most of these businesses struggle with increasing employee productivity. Some struggled with costs needed to sacrifice productivity, while some didn’t know how to increase it.
As business owners, we encounter these problems all the time, and we sometimes don’t know where to start. The reality is that productivity is affected by many factors. However, there are some general ideas we can work upon when increasing employee productivity. One of them is giving employees free space to take a break and do some creative thinking.
Give Them Space Outside Your Office
Employees don’t like getting cooped up, especially in small offices. They like to move about and spend their breaks outside to get some fresh air. Without outside space in your office, your employees will feel that they’re locked up. This will affect their creative juices and make them. You don’t necessarily need to build extra space for them to do this. Just build a canopy on top of your office’s garage, and you’re good to go. Getting a canopy system built on top of your office’s garage isn’t too hard to do. Just hire a local contractor, and they can get the job done. The best part about it is that it can fulfill so many purposes besides being a secondary space to park for your employees. It can be an outside lounge, a dedicated smoking area, and a patio. It’s great to have and cheap to make. If you’re low on a budget, this is one of the best utilities you can give to your employees.
Exercise
Now that you have space for your employees outside your office, there’s a variety of activities you can do. One of them is exercising. You can convert the space into a mini-gym by purchasing used gym equipment in your local store. You don’t need too much, just enough to get your employees moving. Another thing you can do is hiring a Zumba instructor to do a session once or twice a week. It’s a cheap activity but a worthwhile one. Your employees will love you for doing this. Extra activities can never hurt. It’ll only help your employees to become more productive over time.
Increase Employee Culture
Culture is something you should cultivate, whether if you’re a small business or not. Your business’s culture affects employee productivity by a huge margin, and by not cultivating it, you’re missing out on a free opportunity to connect with your employees.
The reality is this: you care more about your business than your employees do. They have to lose their jobs, and another job is something they can get in a few months. What you have to lose is everything. Your employees don’t understand this, and this is why company culture is important. It brings you towards the same goal and priorities in life. By having the same goal, your team becomes more efficient and caring about the company. They become more attached to it, after all. But the question is, how do you increase employee culture?
Training
Training plays a big part in bringing your employees together. It also helps them learn skills they might not otherwise have. Since you now have space outside your office, you can start creating training modules to help create a culture within your business.
There are many simple training modules out there that you can pull off without the need for a trainer. Have a look at the internet and pick any activity you would like to do with your team. Once you’ve done it, debrief the team. Ask them about what they feel regarding the activity and what they feel about working together. Then ask them what they can do as individuals to help the team become better. This is a simple line of questioning that’s effective for debriefing.
Go Camping
If your company is small and you only have a few employees to worry about, camping is a good choice to build company culture. It is an intimate activity that’s both enjoyable and challenging at the same time, especially if your workers aren’t the outdoors type.
If you’re not much a camper yourself, you can always hire a survival expert to help you. Ensure that you brief them about how you are new to camping to know how kind of camping experience you should have.
Here are some simple ways you can generally increase employee productivity in your small business. None of these improvements are all too expensive. The best part is that they are interconnected with one another. So try implementing these things in your office and see it change over time.
