5 Tips for Improving Productivity Among Employees

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The key to improving employee productivity is setting your team up for success. Here are five tips for improving employee engagement and productivity.

Before exploring methods for making people more productive, managers should assess the root cause of productivity killers. Auditing employee pain points will provide valuable insights into challenges and barriers that are impacting productivity.

Create a safe space for employees to share their feedback. There are likely several culminating factors that impact productivity. These could range from tangible issues like outdated tools or processes to intangible issues like poor communication and lack of purpose.

Taking the time to understand what’s really impacting productivity will help leadership decide what resources are needed and what issues are a top priority.

Invest in the tools and support your employees need to do their best work. For example, if you have outdated, decentralized CRM software, employees may experience frustration while trying to find information for customer care. That frustration may carry over into conversations with customers. Determining how to enhance customer experience digital offerings could require an intuitive, centralized tool to streamline the process.

Employees who feel empowered and valued in the workplace also tend to be more productive. Invest in coaching and skills development to ensure employees have what they need to be successful in their roles and broader careers.

Providing employees with recognition for their work and positive feedback is one of the best ways to improve productivity — without spending a dime.

Train managers and supervisors to share positive feedback and recognition with their teams on a regular basis. Including peer feedback and recognition will also help create a more cohesive team.

Consider implementing tools and structures to support feedback sharing. Apps like Matter integrate with work ecosystems to encourage team recognition. You can set a recurring "Feedback Friday" that prompts everyone to share employee highlights and appreciation.

To further strengthen a culture of appreciation, you can improve these efforts with thoughtful gestures like promotional corporate gifts that support recognition in a visible and practical way. Over time, these small but regular touch points can help build stronger engagement and a more positive workplace environment.

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Many companies don’t walk the talk when it comes to work-life balance. Promoting work-life balance as an organization requires more than telling people to use their weekends wisely. It’s about encouraging employees to set boundaries and giving them resources and bandwidth to find balance.

Offering schedule flexibility and going beyond the legal minimum for paid time off is a strong starting point for promoting work-life balance. Branching into work-adjacent support is also helpful. For example, there’s increased demand for workplaces to offer financial wellness support or to support fitness initiatives.

Create opportunities for your employees to come together and be a team. People who enjoy going to work and interacting with their coworkers are more likely to be productive.

Get departments out of their silos and encourage company-wide events. Implement recurring teambuilding events, like a virtual Happy Hour on Fridays, or use some tool to start interesting conversations.

The key to improving productivity isn’t creating more restrictions; it’s about creating more opportunities to connect as humans. By taking a human-centric approach to running a business, you can help your employees become more productive.