Increasing productivity in the workplace is slowly but surely becoming every manager’s goal these days. Productive employees are in demand. And what’s not to love? Such workers finish projects more efficiently, which in turn brings in more money.

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But even with all the productivity tips for working from home, you need the right tools and systems to work towards your goals.

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The evidence suggests efficiency is not something we’re born with, but rather something that should be created and nurtured in the office.

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With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of productivity tips for working from home based on nine broad considerations and adjustments you can make in order to get to the bottom of the age-old question of how to increase output:

1. Organize the workload
2. Encourage collaboration
3. Adjust your surroundings
4. Leave time for breaks
5. Keep your workers happy and healthy
6. Set clear goals and reasonable expectations
7. Track, measure and adjust
8. Support flexible work arrangements
9. Promote positive work culture

Getting to the ultimate workplace productivity isn’t easy, but considering these seven tips will take you much closer to it. Apart from explaining in more detail what exactly you should think about when it comes to these things, we’ll also tell you how to increase productivity by using Insightful or similar software to monitor computer usage and that way be more informed in making some of these adjustments.

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1. Organize the Workload

Everything starts with planning. If your employees are given badly laid-out projects with unclear tasks and unreasonable deadlines, they won’t be able to finish anything, because they’d be trying to make sense of it all first. Not to mention how devastating jumbled up tasks are for motivation.

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That’s why the first step in deciding how to increase productivity should be dividing the projects into small and precise tasks and setting up appropriate deadlines. That way everyone knows what they’re supposed to do and when it should all be done.

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PC time management software such as Insightful can help with this. As it records all activities and tracks how long they take, you’ll always have past data to help you decide how long your deadlines should be and how to divide the workload.

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And don’t forget to allocate some time at the beginning of every project to planning. Allowing your teams to take this time to lay out what they need to do and organize their time before they start executing will help focus their productivity.

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2. Encourage Collaboration

Apart from organizing the time, you should also always aim to organize the people and establish good collaboration in the office. The first part of this is appropriate work allocation. Knowing who’s good at what will enable you to delegate effectively and thus increase the overall team productivity.

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Project management and time tracking software can give you insights into who spends the most or the least amount of time on a task, which will tell you exactly what each employee’s strengths and weaknesses are. You can use this hard data from the staff monitor to allocate tasks for maximum efficiency.

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Another thing to consider is encouraging inter- as well as intra-team collaboration. This includes organizing brainstorming sessions where employees can bounce ideas off each other. This will not only create an atmosphere of friendliness but will also help eliminate any creative block that might be stifling productivity.

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3. Adjust Your Surroundings

Another way to approach the problem of how to increase productivity is to reconsider the space that your employees are working in - be it in the office or at home.

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Do you think it’s conducive to productivity?

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If they’re working on overcrowded desks, surrounded by white walls, food smelling from the nearby office kitchen and with phones incessantly ringing, the negative answer is a pretty safe bet.

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First, declutter the working environment. 

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What are cabinets and drawers for? 

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That should leave some room on the desks for plants, tiny ornaments or family photos. Pleasant surroundings have been proven to enhance productivity. Same goes for bright colors, so, if possible, paint your walls green or yellow.

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If you’ve adopted a hybrid or remote work model, think about how you can support team members in the pursuit of productivity.

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Make sure they have the technology they need - be it a computer to work from or noise-canceling headphones to drown out distractions - and set them up with the right software to encourage effective communication and collaboration.

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4. Leave Time for Breaks

Yes, believe it or not, breaks are actually good for productivity.

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Now, let’s get something clear - distractions are something completely different. They happen while we’re working and they draw us away from work. So, even if you might not be able to eliminate them completely, you should try to bring them down to a minimum.

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On the other hand, carefully planned regular short breaks should be something that you encourage workers to do. This will help your employees go back to work refreshed, with regained focus and less prone to distractions. In other words, more productive.

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In order to time the breaks perfectly, you can use Insightful or other software to track employee productivity and look for regular dips in the level of work engagement (i.e. increased use of unproductive apps and websites). That’s very likely a sign that a short break is needed.

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5. Keep Your Workers Happy and Healthy

The foundation for how to increase productivity in the workplace is your employees’ wellbeing. If they feel stressed all the time, forced to come to work sick and generally unsatisfied with the working conditions, you can throw motivation out the window, along with any chance for productivity.

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There are a couple of things to consider. One, avoid forcing employees to work overtime. Especially if it’s not paid. Organizing your workload properly should take care of this issue.

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Two, allow sick leave with no consequences such as having a huge pile of unfinished tasks when they get back to work. Always have another fall-back worker to take care of super urgent tasks. Sick employees, even if physically present, aren’t going to be productive.

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And three, consider allowing some type of flexibility, either in the form of flexible working hours or remote work. The demand for these opportunities among employees is steeply increasing, so providing them might make your workers happier and more ready to be productive. And you don’t have to worry about managerial issues - you can implement remote employee monitoring and use computer software to track activity in order to record attendance, track task completion, productivity and more, even if your employees work from home or at different times.

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6. Set Clear and Reasonable Expectations

For anyone to be productive, they need to have a clear direction. Simply hustling day to day with no end in sight doesn’t drive motivation to put any effort into finishing things efficiently. Therefore, clear, achievable goals and regular milestones are a must if you want a productive workforce.

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Goals are the ultimate focus of effort. It’s not a bad idea to offer some sort of reward for employees when they reach them - e.g. get an extra day off if they finish a long project successfully. Milestones should be shorter in length and they are just roadmaps to keep employees on the right track. Reaching the fifth out of seven milestones is concrete evidence that they’re moving forward.

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You can use regular employee evaluations as an add-on to this system. By giving praise and offering guidance, you’ll make sure that employees know what they’re working towards. This sense of direction will boost productivity.

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7. Track, Measure and Adjust

The last step in improving workplace productivity is to keep on top of the results. Whether you use a productivity time tracker, your own observations or client feedback, it’s important to never stop measuring how your decisions and adjustments affect productivity.

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If you discover that something is working, by all means, make it a part of your company culture. But if you see that something isn’t producing the effects you wanted, change it, go back to the previous system or try something else.

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No matter what a blog post you’ve read online tells you, the only way to know what the best way to boost productivity is will be by trying out different methods and seeing whether or not they suit your company and your employees.

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And one last thing - give your employees a say in deciding how to increase productivity. They might have some ideas that have escaped you. Getting a fresh perspective, especially the one ‘from the inside’, could prove invaluable for moving the needle.

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8. Support Flexible Work Schedules

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Sometimes you have to think beyond best practices and better processes to help your team members achieve more each day.

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The way your team works can have a huge impact on their ability to be productive week after week.

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For some, a fully remote working schedule is what they need to work without distraction. For others, a hybrid arrangement whereby they can come to the office for in-person conversations a few days a week is ideal.

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Using a time tracking solution like Insightful, you can see how - and where - your team members do their best work. With the new remote v office feature, you can view performance levels both in the office and at employees’ homes.

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That way, you can make data-backed decisions which support increased productivity levels across the board.

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9. Promote Positive Work Culture

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Have you ever considered that productivity could be a byproduct of a positive work culture?

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Because it can.

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If you can build a robust work culture in which every team member feels valued, heard, and appreciated - it’s a given that they’ll want to give their all every day.

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Creating a positive work culture can involve:

• Supporting remote work and flexible work models
• Providing opportunities for ongoing professional development
• Keeping coworkers connected with virtual or in-person events

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The more work you put into growing your work culture, the more likely it is that you’ll get complete buy-in from your workforce.

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Boost your Team’s Productivity Today

Hopefully, by now you have some ideas of where to focus your efforts when it comes to making your employees more productive. Whether you decide to use PC time tracking software to help you along or not, it’s important to stay open-minded - try different methods and measure the results. It’s worth it! Getting it right will launch your company to new levels of success.

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