Do These 5 Things to Motivate Your Small Business Team And Increase Productivity

Keeping employees motivated in a small business environment requires a conscious effort from the management. Business leaders have to be in tune with how each member of their team is feeling and develop effective processes to help them get more work done. Luckily there are a few key tactics that anybody can use to drastically improve employee output.

Here are the five best ways to improve productivity for a small business.

(1) Show employees that the boss works as hard as everyone else

Leadership isn’t just about what managers say, it is about what they do. Employees need to know that their boss is working as hard as they are. This gives them the motivation to keep hustling even when the work becomes challenging. Bosses must resist the urge to indulge in a bunch of managerial perks. They should remain focused and show their team how the hard work is done.

(2) Increase Collaboration Between Team Members

Collaboration is one of the best ways to improve work output within a small team. When two people work on tasks separately, they will create a small amount of output. When they work together they may generate much more significant results. This tactic only makes sense in certain situations. If a boss asks for collaboration between unrelated employee roles, it can backfire and result in lower output. A startup should only use this technique when there is untapped synergy between employees.

(3) Automate Key Tasks to Increase Output

The worst-case scenario for employee productivity is to have somebody doing a repetitive task that takes up a lot of time. The power of technology today is such that almost any repetitive job can be automated by a machine. In the modern era, there is many a solo entrepreneur that can achieve amazing results through automation. When an entire team is empowered to automate away their menial tasks, the resultant output can be stunning.

(4) Pay Attention to How Employees Feel 

Leaders need to know how their employees are feeling. People aren’t robots and they don’t respond well when a manager ignores their basic human needs. Employees at small businesses will perform best when they feel like their bosses care about them.

Managers do not need to do everything that employees want. There are many times when individual employees will be unhappy with a decision that is right for the company as a whole. So long as leadership listens to employee concerns and keeps them in mind, it will make a big difference for overall team morale.

(5) Invest in Team Members’ Physical and Mental Health

The best businesses go above and beyond by actually investing in the health of their employees. This can happen in small and big ways. Examples of small investments into employee wellbeing include offering healthy food in the office and giving burnt-out employees the opportunity to take a day off.

Even better is to offer subsidies for people who demonstrate that they are working hard to stay healthy. A business can offer to pay for gym memberships or yoga classes for employees. They can even offer to subsidize the cost of continued adult education to maximize the mental health and clarity of their workers.

Finally,  An Effective Business Team

Great businesses can become even better through the power of the strategies listed above. Any manager who is willing to try new things can experiment with these methods. Different tactics work for different teams, so leaders should pay close attention and only stick with the methods that deliver measurable results.

A properly managed business will have happy employees who can create a ton of valuable output. This will lead to healthy profits and a great workplace experience.