Business productivity is the ability of an organization to utilize its available resources in order to produce profitable goods and services as desired by customers. The production capacity of the company is utilized to the optimum level. One of the effective ways of improving productivity is conducting effective meetings to ensure that all team members are carrying out their tasks successfully. All crucial decisions taken during a meeting can be recorded and transcribed into accurate notes for future reference with the help of a digital transcription agency. Employee engagement is important in all aspects of an organization to ensure productivity.
According to a Gallup study “State of the Global Workplace” on employee engagement, only 15 percent of employees said they feel engaged which means 85 percent employees are not emotionally invested in spending their time and talent to improve the productivity of their organization. Employee engagement will have a huge impact at the time of lengthy shutdowns. Business leaders often ignore the fact that lengthy shutdowns are a motivation killer and the employees find it difficult to get back together at work and find value at work. Once everyone is back in the office there can be two changes among employees:
- Employees who are responsible, committed, and generally on the right track are likely to be more aggressive and enthusiastic after the shutdown. Such workers tend to worry about the work that they could not complete due to the shutdown and will be impatient to get back to it.
- Employees who feel ineffective and are less sure about the direction about their program may return to work feeling more frustrated and angry. They tend to feel powerless and hopeless.
The organization has to address the concerns of both these types of workers so that normalcy is maintained and efficiency is quickly regained. So here are some steps business leaders can take to increase employee engagement after a shutdown.
- Understand employees’ feelings: It is important to allow some time for your workers to share their feelings and experiences during the shutdown. Therefore, it is best not to insist that they start regular work on the first day itself after the shutdown. Also, employees need to be reassured that the shutdown is not a reflection of their role but a tool for policy negotiation. After a shutdown, there is a great likelihood that employees would feel uncertain, frustrated, and not appreciated. It would be good to provide a supportive environment and ask them to share their views on preparing for a possible shutdown in the future. This could help employees feel empowered and an integral part of the organization.
- Chart out a simple restart plan for your team: You may need to reconsider the plans you had made earlier and adjust timelines. Identify priorities once again and carefully consider what can practically be accomplished. After all the employees have returned to their work, share the plan you have charted out and encourage them to make revisions so they feel included and that their opinions are valued.
- Evaluate how the teams are assigned: Once you have identified the priorities after the shutdown, consider whether each team member is assigned the task for which they are best suited. Employees will automatically feel productive and more engaged once they know their job well and are skilled in doing it.
- Monitor regularly: Regularly checking what is happening among employees is a must. Find out how each project is going, whether any employee needs any extra help, and so on. When employees understand that you care for them, they feel good about their work and tend to be more productive.
- Create an open forum for talking about engagement: Conducting a weekly meeting or project evaluation is important to find out how the project has progressed. The meetings could be quarterly sessions for talking about office dynamics, what is working and what could be improved in an organization, problems in the organization and their solutions etc. The decisions made during such meetings can be recorded and transcribed into accurate notes with the help of an online transcription company for future reference.
Productivity of a business is very important because it reflects the efficiency as well as effectiveness of business policies and processes. To improve productivity, employees and managers should reconnect well and understand their roles and responsibilities in the organization.
