Determining when and where employees are most productive is essential if you want to get the most from your team. For instance, recent surveys indicate that employees are most productive in the early morning hours at the beginning of the week. While older employees prefer traditional office settings, younger workers favor working remotely. It’s important to consider performance trends like these if you truly want to improve employee engagement and productivity. Let’s review some more strategies you can implement to improve performance on your team.
Recruit High-Quality Candidates
Instead of settling for a team of average employees, start hiring people that are smarter in different areas than you. Steve Jobs maintained a similar hiring philosophy during his career and said, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Think about your organization’s long-term growth plans if you really want to meet your hiring goals. It starts with creating targeted and comprehensive job descriptions. Consider all the aspects of the positions, including specific personality traits that will fit the company culture, when advertising for job openings. In addition to working with a plastics recruiter for key hires, having an internal referral program can also help companies attract talent. Although experience is still a reliable benchmark when comparing candidates, make sure there is some agility and room for growth in your hires too.
Provide the Right Environment and Tools
If we’ve learned anything from the tech giants, it’s that collaborative, connective spaces are ideal for maximizing productivity. A growing number of start-ups are accommodating for different performance styles with multiple modes of working so employees can choose to work alone or in small group settings. Promote a more united workplace by exposing employees to different areas of the business. Emphasize your core values on a regular basis to keep employees inspired and connected.
Prioritize Mindset Development
There has always been a direct correlation between strong leadership and increased productivity. Companies invest hundreds of billions of dollars on leadership development programs, yet most of them consider their efforts ineffective. Since many of the programs ignore how leaders think, learn, and behave, they are failing to prioritize mindset development which is a crucial leadership attribute. Developing a growth mindset is essential to lead effectively in the plastics industry. Future leadership development efforts should target growth and continued learning to improve productivity on the whole team.
Getting the most from your team starts with attracting and retaining top talent. High-quality candidates aren’t always the most experienced; intelligence is also a good indicator of potential. Once you have high-performing talent on your team, they need strong leadership for vision, motivation, and guidance. The right leadership development programs can help you get even more from your employees.
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