As a business owner in the 21st Century, it feels like your business has to be a lot more than merely profitable to succeed (and if you’re a promising tech startup, even that’s not strictly necessary). To truly thrive in the Digital Age, new companies have to be unique, ethical, diverse, empowering, passionate, sustainable, and so much more.
It’s a tall order.
As if that wasn’t challenging enough, the young Millennials who will one day be the future leaders of your company are notoriously likely to hop from one job to another if they aren’t finding meaning or fulfillment in their work. Aside from turnover, without happy employees, company efficiency can go out the window.
No article is going to unlock the secret to profitability; you’ll have to figure that out on your own. However, the best ways to improve efficiency and retain your employees are hardly a trade secret. You have to focus on a few core aspects: health, environment, and purpose.
If you want to see your startup grow in 2018 and beyond, here are proven ways to improve your company’s efficiency and productivity in the New Year.
Employee Health
Eating right during the workday
Even though lunch is one of the most important meals of the day, studies have shown that less than 20% of all American workers regularly take a “real lunch break.” If your employees aren’t eating throughout the day, only eating unhealthy snacks, or if you’re forcing them to take a working lunch, they are going to be far less productive. Even worse, they’ll be much unhealthier in general, which will drive productivity even further down. Offer healthier lunch options and encourage everyone to take a least a half hour lunch to relax and enjoy some good food.
According to the Food Network, workplace meals like salmon, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, and even whole grains can be excellent healthy alternatives to sugary snacks at the office.
“So many dieters give up on grains,” said Samantha Cassetty, MS, RD, head of nutrition at Next Jump, an organization working to build better workplace cultures. “But the truth is whole grains — such as oats, quinoa, brown rice, and whole-grain breads — are wonderful choices when it comes to weight loss.”
Limit stress as much as possible
If your employees are stressed out, they will be unproductive, unhappy, and unhealthy. Of course, you can’t eliminate stress in most workplaces, but you can take steps to cut down on unnecessary stress. Make sure your managers are talking to each and every employee and soliciting honest feedback about what’s bothering them. Once you have this valuable data, see if there is anything that you can do to help limit stress.
Promote a healthy environment
“I think that employees often misinterpret wellness programs as negative, that they’re self-serving for employers — to lower health care costs and get more productivity,” added Brenda Bodenmiller, manager of Premier Healthy Living. “But about you and want you to empower yourself to be healthy.”
Workplace Environment
A positive, millennial-friendly workplace environment doesn’t just mean beanbags and ping pong tables. So what does it mean?
Working in a clean environment
Your office could be serve the healthiest foods in the world to the happiest employees in the world, but there are going to be problems if it’s not clean. Even exposure to too much dust can impact a worker’s cognitive skills by up to 6%. Don’t let your productivity levels dip because of an unclean environment.
Allow workspace personalization
The average individual workstation has dramatically shrunk from 80 square feet in 1992 to 39 square feet this year. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because employees perform well in small areas, but those areas need to be customized to their liking. Allowing and encouraging your team to personalize their desk, cubicles, and office areas is a great way for them to get as comfortable as possible.
Implement work from home programs
Employees who have the option to work from home are much more productive. According to Forbes, as long as employees can designate when they’re working and when they’re relaxing at home, they can be extremely productive.
“A separate workspace makes it easier to set boundaries between your home and office lives,” said Lisa Kanarek, a home office expert.
Eliminate Pointless Tasks
Here’s a startling statistic: the U.S. economy actually loses an estimated $7.4 billion per day (that’s 50 million hours of wasted time) due to improperly filled out time sheets. And that’s just one form of waste.
Workplace Simplification
Workplace and efficiency experts agree: about 30% of any workflow system can be eliminated. No matter how efficient you think you are, systems have a tendency to bloat and expand over time. Without realizing it, these bloated systems become self sustaining. In the New Year, challenge your entire company to simplify their jobs and find ways to cut waste.
Keep communication lines open
Employees need to feel comfortable talking to a supervisor or manager at all times, even during the bad. Don’t let closed communication lines lead to major problems inside your business.
Offer time management workshops
Time management is one of the most difficult skills to obtain in the business sector. Rather than letting each individual employee figure it out for themselves, offer a few time management classes to help them and your entire company.
Limit distractions
Whether you’re employees are onsite or working remotely, make it known that distractions need to be severely limited. It’s okay for your staff to take a 10 minute break every once in a while to decompress, but be sure to not let those breaks stretch to two or three hours of wasted productivity.
For any new company to be successful, either small or large, the entire company needs to find ways to improve all these three major aspects of business. Do your best to find ways to keep your employees as happy as possible, as healthy as possibly, and as productive as possible — you will surely enjoy the results.
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