A big part of a manager’s role is keeping everyone on point simply by getting status updates. However, taking the time to dig into everything that’s happening without making adjustments when necessary doesn’t really exemplify effective management. When you’re getting updates and you’re not happy about them, simply being displeased isn’t doing your team any good or helping your situation at all. Here are some ways that you can provide constructive solutions to enhance productivity.
Give Team Members an Outstanding Organizational System
Rallying the efforts of a team to drive a project can be exceptionally challenging for managers. You need to take steps to ensure that everyone knows his or her role. Ideally, they should also have a firm understanding of what other team members are working on so they know who to check in for help with various issues or where to direct their finished work instead of relying on managers to keep the ball rolling.
Programs to keep team information centralized will make managers’ jobs easier while also supporting efficient collaboration. The best project management solutions make it possible for people to work on items in concert and spares them from continually having to go through managers to get the information that they need to advance their end of a shared task.
Offer Schedule Flexibility
While you may not be able to relax deadlines, it may be advantageous to relax scheduling rigidity. Changing up hours in a workday when possible can be enormously helpful to some of your team members who have to deal with other substantial demands on their time. Apart from helping them out personally, it can probably help them do better work. People who are struggling to maintain a good work-life balance commonly see declines in productivity, performance, and satisfaction in their job roles.
If people don’t absolutely have to be in the same space at the same time to work collaboratively on a project, giving people the freedom to modify their workday so that they’ll work the same amount of hours but over a different timeframe may be a supremely successful and appealing work perk. For example, giving road warriors the opportunity to start and end their day later to avoid high-traffic times of day could represent a huge time saver and give them back a whole hour of their day or possibly even more.
Offer One-on-One Support
Making mental notes about disappointments or seething in silence are not the type of responses that people would expect from a great manager. Likewise, they excerpt more than just a general expression of reprobation or berating. Steer people in the right direction with substantive input. You can try reframing expectations, reorienting people to key objectives, or simply emphasizing the importance of specific aspects in their workflow. When you help people readjust their focus and form corrective action plans, do it positively so they can go about it with concentration and confidence instead of stress.
Ultimately, giving your team resources and making yourself available as a resource can help individuals do better work. Collectively, improved individual performance will significantly boost team productivity.
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