19 Tips to improve team productivity in 2024

Introduction

Are you looking for the best ideas on the web on how to improve team productivity?

No matter how productive your team is, there are always ways to enhance workplace productivity and take it to a new level.

Now, without much ado, let’s discuss team improvement ideas to help bosses increase team productivity and efficiency.

What is team productivity?

In simple terms, it means the team members collaborate smoothly, communicate effectively, and use their strengths to strengthen the team and achieve a common goal. Team productivity is not just about finishing tasks; it’s about creating a positive and effective work environment where everyone feels valued, and the combined efforts lead to success.

Why is it important to increase team productivity?

• Achieve goals faster: Improved team productivity helps teams meet deadlines and achieve objectives timely. A team can complete tasks and reach milestones more quickly when a team is productive.
• Improves quality of work: A productive team can deliver high-quality results and maintain a high standard of work with fewer errors.
• Boosts employee morale: When team members accomplish tasks on time, it boosts their morale. Enhanced productivity leads to a sense of achievement and increased job satisfaction.
• Fosters innovation: A productive environment encourages team members to communicate and collaborate, which can lead to innovative solutions.
• Increases profitability: A productive team can complete work on time with quality, which reduces costs and increases output. The optimal use of resources can contribute to the increased profitability of the organization.
• Reduces stress: When teams have clear goals and work processes, they can work more effectively. A productive team can manage workloads better, creating a positive environment and reducing stress.

Feeling stuck in a rut or struggling to keep up with your to-do list? It’s time to shake things up with one of these innovative and effective productivity tools.

How to improve team productivity at work?

Improving team performance involves implementing strategies to optimize workflows, boost collaboration, and create a positive work environment.

Here are 19 innovative ideas to improve team performance

1. Give your team members ownership

The best leaders in the business understand the power of ownership. Giving ownership to the team members means nothing but letting them make their own decisions and making them accountable for their work.

Making team members accountable for their work induces a sense of responsibility in them regarding their work, which can be very helpful in improving team performance. They start to see their work differently so that their decisions can impact the entire team’s performance.

Now, giving ownership can take different forms, such as leading a project, handling the responsibility of a task, etc. It shows you’ve entrusted your team members and their capabilities to address a specific job. And when you do this, you realize nothing is more powerful than building someone’s self-esteem in your organization.

2. Ensure proper communication

Communication is one of the critical factors that contribute mainly to team productivity. Without effective communication, businesses fail.

A lot of successful businesses thrive on effective communication. Now, a project manager must ensure effective communication prevails in a team.

Communication plays a significant role in helping team members to understand their job responsibilities. If there is any communication gap, it can lead to multiple confusions within a team, which will undoubtedly impact the overall productivity of a team.

Whether you need to onboard new employees, deliver employee training, or have a place to house important information, consider creating an online course to keep everyone aligned. Thinkific is an online course platform to customize your approach to fit your business and team needs.

3. Identify your team’s strengths and weaknesses

It becomes the duty of a manager or a team lead to discover their teammates’ talents and skills and keep them in mind while allocating tasks. Knowing their skill set is the backbone of producing a productive team.

For example, if a team member likes to think outside the box, you can make him pitch creative ideas to a client(s). Knowing that team members are making the best use of their knowledge, expertise, and talents, they look forward to contributing to the workplace.

Making them use their strengths will contribute to making your workplace better and more productive than before.

4. Team building activities

Team productivity depends on camaraderie between team members. The workplace becomes happier if the team members get along and know their strengths and weaknesses. If the team members are happy from within, the team’s productivity and efficiency will automatically shoot up.

When different people are working within a team, there is a likelihood that not everyone will like each other.

You can incorporate some team-building activities to beat the animosity between the team members. It will add some fun elements, wash away any grudges or miscommunications between the team members, and help the organization enhance team productivity.

5. Use a project collaboration tool

Online project management and collaboration software is essential for boosting teamwork and productivity. Having the right project management tool by your side can help with effective work management and increased collaboration between team members.

For instance, ProofHub is an online project management software that brings together your team members, projects, and clients in one place. With features like discussions and group chat, you can take your team productivity to a new level.

Don’t let poor project management hold you back from achieving your goals. Upgrade to thebest project management tools for 2024.

6. Wholesome work environment

The work environment and infrastructure contribute to improving team efficiency and productivity. According to a recent study, the physical environment dramatically affects how employees feel, think, and perform.

Due to this, many organizations are paying attention while designing their office interiors. They make sure to incorporate bright lighting, a comfortable furniture layout, and a touch of nature with the help of plants and flowers.

Besides the physical setting, the environment within the office premises also impacts team productivity. Dominating bosses, condescending employees, and office politics can affect an organization’s productivity and efficiency.

7. Reward your employees

Employees work best when given a reason to do so – probably monetary. They want their efforts appreciated and prefer a little more than a ‘virtual pat on the back from their bosses. Many employers implement incentive programs to motivate employees and improve team performance.

According to a recent study, 85% of employees felt more motivated to do their best in exchange for an incentive. These incentives include cash, free vouchers, paid vacation, extra time off, lunch-outs, etc. Managers, I hope you’re taking notes 😉

Show your employees that you care about their well-being and growth with the help of these popular and effective employee recognition software options.

8. Give them room to work

Every employee or team member works best when given an environment where they can do things ‘their way’. Most employees tend to lose interest when their bosses or managers micromanage them.

One of the many ways that can help you overcome this is to create a kickass team. Define their job responsibilities and your expectations clearly to them. Now, get out of their way and let them work independently.

At the same time, be approachable so that if someone in your team has a question, they don’t need to think twice to clarify their doubts.

Always trust your team with utmost confidence. This further strengthens their belief in themselves, which helps them perform to the best of their abilities and contribute positively to team productivity.

9. Praise a job well done

While for different employees, different things work to boost their productivity and efficiency at work. But for many, it is as simple as being acknowledged for their efforts.

If an employee feels his contribution isn’t valued enough, they will not be motivated to give their full efforts. Whereas appreciating them in front of the whole team can work wonders.

Instead of virtual congratulatory words, this public appreciation inspires others in the group to do their best. This promotes a healthy work culture in an organization, which will boost team productivity.

10. Clarify each person’s role

This is a very innovative idea to improve team performance for many decades.

As a team leader (manager), you should clarify each person’s role and responsibilities to eliminate confusion and ensure the right people work on the right tasks at the right time.

Having one-on-one communication helps, but having a documented version of all to-dos and don’ts at work pays to.

For example, using ProofHub’s Smart Task Management, you can:

• Divide large tasks into smaller, manageable tasks subtasks
• Allocate these to individuals and groups
• Label them on their priority 
• Set time estimates, start and due dates for tasks 

11. Make the daily workflow more efficient

Workflow efficiency is paramount to getting more done in less effort and time. It is also one of the innovative ideas to improve team performance. Several issues can hamper your team’s productivity. Think of workplace distractions, communication loopholes, lack of information, and unorganized team structure.

Optimizing your workflow and ensuring little time is wasted during the process is an effective way to boost your team’s efficiency.

Using ProofHub’s custom workflows, you can divide tasks and create stages to improve your work process efficiently. You can constantly review your workflows and refine them when necessary.

12. Lead with gratitude

A Glassdoor survey found that 80% of employees would work harder for an appreciative boss. As a manager, practising gratitude at work is crucial to enhance team performance. Do you thank and appreciate your team members for a job well done? If you’re doing it already and missing out on it, you must start on it ASAP.

Being thankful can majorly impact the people you work with within the workplace. Gratitude improves how we interact with others and collaborate. It makes our colleagues feel a sense of belonging and motivates them to work harder. So, don’t underestimate the power of a firm handshake, a warm smile, and saying “thank you” to your team members.

13. Providing coaching and training

Do you know that 59% of millennials claim development opportunities are significant when deciding whether to apply for a position? A regular, intense training and skill development program can improve team performance by a notch. Also, companies with successful training programs significantly increase employee engagement and retention rates.

Give regular feedback to your team and analyze their current skills (both soft and hard). Mark areas needing further improvement and schedule coaching and training programs accordingly.  Another effective method is peer coaching, where team members help each other with their solid suits or particular skills.

14. Let employees take a break

When scheduled right, regular short breaks can significantly improve team productivity. Breaks are essential to prevent burnout while allowing employees to disconnect from work, relax, and recharge their batteries. A North Carolina State University study found that fatigued employees benefit from “microbreaks.”

Short breaks from work should be implemented smartly in a way that doesn’t interfere with your tasks at hand. For example, you can encourage your team members to practice the Pomodoro technique based on 25-minute stretches of focused, uninterrupted work followed by five-minute breaks.

Now, your team members can play around with this technique and don’t have to follow it rigidly. They can work for 30 minutes on a stretch and take a short break of 7-10 minutes. The key to improved productivity is maintaining a delicate balance between work and short breaks.

15. Provide help if needed

Helping your team members at work is critical to fostering and maintaining a stable workplace. As a team leader, you should encourage your team members to approach you with any questions or concerns at work. You should instil confidence in them by taking the initiative. Observe which team members are most productive and who are struggling with meeting deadlines.

Here are some ways to improve team productivity by offering timely help to your team members.

• Practice consistent communication with team members
• Actively listen to people in your team and encourage 2-way communication
• Use your experience to recognize when others are struggling at work
• Build relationships with team members while being aware of professional boundaries
• Practice surprising acts of thoughtfulness such as getting them coffee, leaving personalized “thank you” notes on their desk, etc.
• Ensure a fair and even workload to prevent employee burnout and excessive stress
• Inspire positivity by maintaining a friendly attitude

16. Appreciation and Recognition

A recent survey discovered that 37% of employees value employee recognition the most. Fair employee appreciation and recognition are proven ways to improve team productivity and nurture healthy workplace relationships.

As a team leader, you should create custom reports of everyone to analyze their performance levels and recognize your best performers regularly.

Also, you should note that frequent rewards and recognition are more important to employees than a significant, infrequent event. When you value your employees’ hard work and efforts, they will likely be happier and more engaged, motivating them to work even harder.

You can consider the following types of recognition for employees:

• Informal recognition
• Formal recognition
• Social recognition
• Monetary recognition
• Non-monetary recognition

17. Minimize interruptions

Frequent interruptions at work are BIG time and productivity killers, so if you are keen on improving team productivity, you must eliminate them ASAP. These interruptions disrupt your employees’ workflow as they switch attention from tasks to various things, like checking emails, social media notifications, unproductive meetings, etc.

While some “valid” interruptions (addressing freshers’ concerns, messages from coworkers, etc.) at work are unavoidable, you must find a way to minimize them when focusing on team efficiency and productivity. These must be cut down completely when it comes to “invalid” interruptions (internet surfacing, gossiping, etc.).

Here’s how to reduce interruptions at work to improve team productivity.

• Keep a record of daily interruptions to get a clear picture
• Schedule a regular weekly meeting to address the concerns of your team members
• Allocate time for valid interruptions
• Don’t encourage multitasking in your team
• Keep your team in the loop

18. One task at a time

One of the surefire ways to realize your team’s strengths and improve team efficiency and productivity is implementing a method of focusing on a single task at a time. We are sure you recognise how multitasking is more of a productivity killer than the other way around.

On the other hand, taking one task at a time results in higher productivity, lowers stress levels, and makes people happier.

Your team members likely bounce between tasks because they don’t prioritize tasks. They should focus on urgent or high-priority tasks and leave other tasks for later.

Single-tasking makes people more creative, and they deliver high-quality work with minimal mistakes. The key to focused, deep work is to avoid rushing things and perform each task with your complete attention and undivided focus. Single-tasking makes it possible.

19. Give constructive feedback

Last, the most essential part of the list is introducing a team feedback process. There is no hope of boosting employee efficiency if they don’t know they are being inefficient in the first place. This is why performance reviews and constructive feedback increase team productivity. Knowing about the areas of opportunities will motivate the team members to change their working style.

When you are done with the feedback, ask them what you could do to help them improve. Maybe they would like a little more guidance on specific tasks or prefer a little more room for creative freedom. This encourages a culture of open dialogue that will make future collaborations easier than before.

Conclusion

Team productivity is similar to baking a cake, where the right ingredients (team members) must be gathered and put together. Empowering your teams to be at their productive best requires a well-mixed batter of different components.

Overall, there is no single way to empower your teams to be more productive; instead, you can lay the foundation of a productive environment with small and constant practices. You’ll see a huge productivity increase by providing employees continuous support, feedback, and encouragement.

We hope you enjoy reading the article to make your teams more productive and efficient. We would love to know the different methods or techniques you guys use to boost the productivity of your teams. You can share your thoughts and tips in the comments section below.

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