By Henry Brown

It is no secret that the more efficient your office is, the more profitable your company will become. Having a motivated staff that wants to complete tasks on time can lead to a very successful business.

We are going to look at some ways that an office can run more efficiently and lead to a business that both you and your employees can be proud of. Employees that feel motivated and safe in the office are going to lead to ultimate production. Working as one cohesive unit is a sweet thing to see!

Take care of your space

Before leaving the office for the day, have your employees organize their desks so that they are ready to go in the morning. Papers shouldn’t be left lying around and files not put away. All phone calls should be taken care of before clocking out for the day. This will allow employees to show up the next day knowing things are ready to go and they can start with a clear head. It will also minimize the time they are looking for things. If they have everything all laid out the night before, they can jump right into it when they arrive for work.

Allow employees to make their space their own

In addition to making sure that they have an organized, clean space, you should also encourage them to make their space theirs. The more comfortable they feel in their area, the more productively they will work. They will be able to feel more relaxed in their space and get work done. You should encourage them to highlight some of their accomplishments in their space such as awards or diplomas so that they can feel appreciated and motivated.

Teach them organization

Your employees will need to learn how to prioritize tasks. They will need to stay on top of business meetings or meetings with clients. Consider having an appointment reminder service to allow easy access for employees to be reminded of appointments as well as a call service to customers. Having this service will allow your employees the ability to know that the proper calls are being made to remind customers of an appointment.

It is also important to stress to your employees that their peak work performance is going to happen during the morning hours.  This would be the perfect time for them to tackle tasks that they don’t really want to do first. If they know they have an uninteresting task to complete later in the day, they will be dreading it, which will lead to lower motivation throughout the day. They should attack that task first thing in the morning and get it over with.

Encourage breaks

Staying as fresh as you can will lead to ultimate success. Employees need the opportunities, outside of lunch, to take breaks. They don’t need to be long and excessive, but they should be able to walk around, read a magazine, or hang out with a co-worker at various times during the day. This will allow the opportunity for them to clear their head and refocus when returning to their station.

You should also recommend they turn off their email notifications when they are involved in an important task. If your employees are constantly being distracted and checking their emails all the time, they will lose focus on their task and become more inefficient. Harvard Business Review did a study on the cost of continuously checking email and how we are fooling ourselves when we think we are multi-tasking.  When something needs to get done, that needs to be the only priority.

Set daily goals

It is a wise idea to encourage your employees to write down their daily goals. Then, encourage them to check off each goal once it is completed. This will motivate your employees to want to get all their boxes checked off. You can even encourage some office reward system each week where you collect the goal sheets each day and pull one at the end of the week to win something. This will help to keep them accountable of what needs to be accomplished as well as allowing you the opportunity to see what they are doing each day. You will have the chance to see if their goals are too difficult to achieve or not overly productive and work with the employee to develop productive goals each day.

Allow music in headphones

Many people may be annoyed when they see someone wearing headphones, but if it motivates the person to get the job done, let them do it. It will keep them focused on the task at hand as well as signal to other people that they are working and should not be distracted. Many people really get into a zone when they have music on and it calms them enough to clear their mind of anything other than the task. It is certainly something to consider if you don’t feel employees are being productive enough. You can also reverse it on them if they are wearing headphones and not being productive. Take the headphones away!

Connected technology and collaboration

Having a system in place that allows employees to communicate back and forth without having to get up and leave their space will allow for more time to achieve tasks. You should also have a room available and accessible for the use of conference or video calls. Just be sure that whatever technology you are allowing to be used is used productively and not as a distraction.

In addition to having a room available for conference calls, this room, or another room that you designate, should be available for employees to collaborate. The room should have the necessary technology available for your employees to work on a task together without having to run back and forth to their office. Make this space enticing for your staff and encouraging enough for them to want to sit in there and work with one another.

Get to know your staff and what motivates them. Each business is different and each person that works in that business is different. There is no one set way of motivating your staff. That is something you will have to take the time to figure out. And, it is worth the time because once you do, you will be amazed at your results.

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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop, he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.