How to Increase Productivity at Every Level of Your Business

In the past I have talked a lot about productivity when it comes to your management team. Having a united front on the things that matter most in your business, and being able to help them focus their time and resources to those end goals can be a huge game changer for a lot of businesses. But what about the frontline workers? The people in your business who spend their days doing the day-to-day work that your business relies on? These are the workers swinging hammers at the construction site, the bookkeeper who keeps the lights on, the client support rep who answers the phone. All of these workers have a huge role in helping your business succeed, so today I wanted to share with you some tips on how to help them be more productive in the workplace.

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Front Line Productivity

It’s easy for a team member to take on a lot of work, but if it doesn’t create value for your business, it doesn’t really count. A sales rep may be really good at client outreach. They can talk to a thousand clients a day, and still struggle with productivity if they can’t close a single sale. The same is true with other positions within your company. So it’s important to recognize the fact that the end goal isn’t to be busy–it’s to create value.

The Huddle

Depending on your business, it can be difficult to get everyone in a room together at the same time, which is why I love the morning huddle. It’s a quick 10- or 15-minute opportunity to go over the most important things within your business. You can begin by asking each team member what is the most important thing they plan to do in the upcoming week. This will vary by position, but will start to spark the idea that the things they do throughout the week have different values for the business. The bookkeeper isn’t going to say that she is going to “pay bills,” but she may say that she is going to finally collect on that client that has a large past due balance.

Huddles are also a great place to introduce your team to KPIs. What’s the number-one result they are looking for in their position? And what are the two most important leading indicators to get that? Once they know what to look for, and what you expect, they will start to gravitate toward the tasks and projects that help move the needle.

So, for example, if you were the front-desk person of a medical practice, the most important result that you could achieve is to make sure that you keep the schedule full, whether it’s for office visits or for procedure-based stuff. Holes in a schedule are incredibly expensive to a medical practice. So for that part, you would want to know what percentage of the schedule was full for the week. And if it wasn’t optimal, you would then find tasks to do that week to help book more patients.

Building value is a group effort, and everyone on your team plays a vital part in making your business a success, so don’t be afraid to include everyone in these valuable productivity exercises.