HERE IS HOW YOU CAN IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY AT WORK

Q: I need to improve productivity during my day. We have a morning staff meeting every day. It’s supposed to be only 10 minutes long, but inevitably, it drags out to 30 minutes without any real substance or it lasts about 3 minutes and we’re back to our jobs. It doesn’t feel like we ever really accomplish anything and I’m wondering if we should just cancel them all together. I’m desperate for some way to decide what the best thing to do is. Help!

A: We hear you! You’re not the only one who struggles with this issue, so don’t feel like you’re an isolated case. Most people don’t like meetings of any kind, so sometimes just getting people to show up is a challenge. But a morning staff meeting, whether it’s an all-hands meeting or a department meeting, is an important tool for setting the tone for the rest of the day.

Consider implementing some or all of these 7 techniques:

1. Decide on the best frequency for your company. Rituals and consistency in your business can help people be more productive because they become habits. It takes 21 days to make a new routine transition into a habit, so keep that in mind as you decide how often you should have your morning meeting, what format it should take, who should attend and what the purpose of the meeting should be. We love our routines because they create a level of comfort.

Consider having a core agenda that everyone knows to expect, but don’t be afraid to shake things up a bit once in a while as well. We don’t want anyone to become too comfortable and occasionally disrupting the routine is a good way to foster creative solutions to lingering problems.

2. Be prepared. The purpose of the meeting is really the key factor to all of these tips. If there is no established purpose, don’t waste anyone’s time. So thoughtfully decide why you should have a meeting and everything will fall into place much more clearly.

3. Have an agenda and stick to it. Each meeting should have a core agenda. What are the most important things you need to cover each time? Who should lead the discussion or present the information? It shouldn’t be the manager all the time. Open up the meeting by asking other team members to take ownership of one of the core topics. This is a great developmental opportunity. Don’t be afraid to do a quick preview of the information the day before in case you need to coach someone to a better way to share and communicate with the rest of the team.

The next tips are our suggestions:

4. Incorporate safety. What is one of the most common issues that labor-intensive businesses have? Injuries, accidents and safety in general. So make this one of the first topics you cover at every meeting. Call it a “safety moment.”

• Share a quick tidbit on how to improve safety.
• Get a couple of volunteers to role play a situation to show the correct way to do something.
• Get everyone’s blood pumping and incorporate physical movement.
• Demonstrate proper lifting techniques
• Review PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)
• Gather around and test an eye wash station or a fire hydrant.

Make sure everyone knows what to do in an emergency.

EVERY SINGLE MEETING should start with a Safety Moment. Rotate the topic amongst all your employees to get greater involvement. Great Business Practice. This does more than improve productivity at work – it keeps lowers your risk factors too.

5. Use the time as a teaching moment. Safety isn’t the only thing you can teach in your meetings. What happened the day before or earlier in the week that caused an issue? Don’t make the topic about blaming someone for doing something wrong, or embarrassing someone; keep the information objective and neutral, but discuss how the situation came up and how to best handle it or prevent it in the future.

6. Use the time for recognition of jobs well done or other achievements. Don’t forget that even though “bad” things impact the business in a big way, so do “good” things. Whether it’s how an employee made a great customer focused decision, how someone has achieved another anniversary with the company or a birthday (although make sure you don’t share someone’s AGE), or to congratulate someone for a personal accomplishment that they are proud of, or even if you are just saying “thank you for doing a great job with….” Make it fun!

7. Use visuals to keep attention focused. If one of the objectives of your meeting is to review productivity, think about new ways to present the information. Running reports that get distributed, and then ditched, may not be the best way to go every time or maybe you need to add something to make it more meaningful.

Consider posting the information on a white board, using colorful charts or graphs to give a visual image to help everyone soak up the data more effectively, and showing before and after images, current state versus desired state. Not everyone “gets” numbers, but most people will “get” pictures that illustrate the point.

If you can make them easy to digest, you will see an increase in productivity across the board. And don’t think that a meeting is the only type of morning ritual you can use. There are lots of other things that might be more effective for your company:

• short exercise periods to warm up those muscles and clear the mind
• A song pumped over the loud speakers to introduce the day and make everyone smile
• A 15 minute walk around your building to greet everyone and be available to answer questions or have a quick chat.

Use your imagination and think about how you like to start your day and how you can most effectively engage your employees to start the day off right.

Do you and your team have any morning rituals to improve productivity at work? We’d love to hear about them so share your rituals at [email protected] or come on over to our Facebook page and tell us about YOUR morning rituals.