The primary goal of any company is to establish and maintain a productive workplace. While each company approaches this idea in unique ways, understanding some of the key pillars of a productive workplace is essential. The following five pillars of a productive workplace can be referred to as a fundamental framework to explore a company’s performance. 

1. Collaborative environment

To ensure the free flow of ideas which will aid the company’s overall productivity, the workforce needs to implement a collaborative environment. Value building within the employees and between the leaders and team members will contribute to a positive workplace culture. A company that builds its teams on values like gratitude, recognition and trust will ensure employees to feel safe and acknowledged. When employees are respected and acknowledged for their efforts, they are more likely to come up with creative and innovative ideas. Leaders should be open to change and support feedback from their team members. A company which has established a trusting relation among its employees will automatically make swift and sound decisions and be receptive to change. Actively listening to the employees when they make suggestions and solutions will ensure active participation from the team. Such listening strategies help in building trust across the workforce.

2. Transparency

Transparency in the workplace promotes employee engagement which results in increased productivity. A great way of building transparency is for leaders to share their learnings and mistakes, along with their wins. The most valuable lessons are learned when leaders can openly admit that they fell short or made a mistake that impacted the business. This serves as a good reminder to the team members that there is always room to improve regardless of one’s current positions.  Leaders who are honest about the results of the company’s efforts - whether they were successful or not gain the trust and respect of their employees. Openly showing the end results can be especially beneficial during times of change - both in times of growth and struggle. 

3. Shared Vision

Everyone needs to be on the same page with the company’s overall vision for a peak functioning workplace. It’s difficult to work towards a single goal when each person or group sees the guiding principles and vision differently. Clarity about the company’s vision is key to driving overall  and departmental success. For that, it is important that leaders frame a mission statement with a shared purpose and explain their ideas on fulfilling that purpose. Only then can the team members transform the values into effective decision principles. These effective principles can then be tailored to make any daily decisions. These steps can also help eliminate redundancy and overlapping areas in the group to identify anything that doesn’t provide value. 

4. Appropriate tools

The primary principle in any workplace should be to ensure that employees have all the tools they need to do their job. Employees should be able to access the tools and information they need as soon as possible for an active and productive workflow.

It is important that companies take advantage of technological advances.These new softwares and devices help employees in completing their jobs on time. Companies can use free productivity sources to smoothen the processes in their workplace.

5. Measuring productivity

One of the building blocks of productivity is measuring it in order to see your improvement. Leaders can keep an eye on all the metrics that matter for the team, from hours worked and reports produced to productivity per hour. A customized proprietary system can be used to track important team metrics. The amount of input and effort put in should result in corresponding output that is satisfactory for the company. Developing key performance indicators will help employees in understanding how their individual contributions are helping to achieve the company’s vision.

To know more about driving productivity and performance in the new world of work join us for People Matters' Workforce Productivity Conference. Join the daylong conference on 10th February, 2022, where top corporate leaders delineate the challenges they envisage and the strategies that can be deployed to buoy productivity and performance as we enter a new era of what can be called ‘compassionate competition’.