In the post-Covid ‘work from home’ era productivity is a growing concern for companies who waste thousands of pounds a month on inefficiently used employee work hours. Whether it’s too many cups of tea, chatting on Facebook or just staring into thin air, we all have ways to put off our work and we have all been guilty of taking a more relaxed attitude to our work on occasion. The million pound question is – how do we help employees work more consistently towards their potential?
Getting paid a fair wage just simply isn’t enough to motivate staff; employees need to be valued by their company if they’re to be their most efficient. While actually doing work does require a certain amount of willpower from the employee, it’s largely down to the working environment. This has been an area of heavy change over the last three years. While Covid saw an unprecedented shift towards working from home, a survey in the UK suggest that over half of UK business owners want their employees back working in the office
For many London-based employees this could mean the return of long commutes and the disruption of a more harmonious work / life balance. So how do we soothe this transition to keep everyone happy and maintain at least some of the benefits that the surge in ‘work from home’ culture has brought to the average employee? There are a number of relatively easy to implement strategies available. We discuss four of the most actionable below:
1. Avoid micromanaging
Although you, as a manager, want to ensure that the people you pay are doing their jobs properly and efficiently, peering over their shoulder is likely to have the opposite effect. Once you’ve given instruction, it’s important that employees have the freedom to do their work without being analysed.
Although it’s important to manage staff and provide them with any assistance they need, you have hired them to do the job because you feel they are capable. By putting this trust into your employees, they’ll be more likely to do the work to a higher level.
2. Retain some flexibility
There has been heavy focus on getting a work/life balance for many years, but with the boundaries between the two becoming increasingly blurred with the migration back to physical office space it’s crucial that you continue offer flexibility.
This could mean many different things for example; less strict professional hours. Allowing wiggle room with ‘core office hours’, giving employees the flexibility to work on less time-critical admin tasks such answering emails or employee CPD at times that suit them.
The big one here of course is to still allow part-time work from home options, which in the modern job space is by far the most in-demand perk prospective employees are looking for.
3. Help boost energy
Long days back in the formal office environment are sure to zap the energy out of busy staff members – and that’s before they get stuck into their family life back at home. It’s easy for employees to skip lunch or just pick up something to graze on at their desk. As the early morning caffeine injection wears off, staff tend to face a work slump in the afternoon – avoid this by offering an energy boost. A sugary snack will cause another lull later in the afternoon, so go for something healthy, we recommend providing complimentary fruit baskets for your office staff.
Not only does this give your team a healthier way to get a boost of some natural sugars and vitamins but a recent study by Fruitful Office also reported that out of three hundred employees that were offered free office fruit at work over a thirty day period, over 80% agreed that their quality of life in the office had improved in that time, they also felt ‘more valued’ as a team member.
4. Allow enough time
One of the biggest problems facing employees is a lack of time. When too many responsibilities add up then everything is done last minute and in a rush because deadlines were yesterday. This problem will be compounded when previously ‘work from home’ employees have to readjust their time commitments to accommodate their commute back to the office. The amount of time Londoners must devote to their office commute is over 90 minutes on average.
This kind of work pressure and reduced work-life balance can be detrimental and overwhelming to many staff members. We can mitigate this strain by allowing plenty of time for tasks and careful project managing that utilises the ‘in the office’ time of staff members to focus on team collaboration, in-person meetings and training exercises. i.e. activities that can still benefit from face-to-face interaction.
