Any middle manager building a team knows the struggle of improving productivity in the workplace. It’s hard to motivate employees to do their best, get to know their time management skills, and get insights on how to improve time management within the team.
Luckily, there are some practical things busy entrepreneurs and team managers can do to not just boost their personal productivity and organization but let their teams thrive together with that. Let’s see how.
1. Keep Track of Your Team’s Time
Be sure to track your team’s time expenses – and select the right tool for that purpose. Sometimes, tracking time takes too much time, which destroys the very idea of that. So you’d need an efficient task tracking tool if you want to manage a team of workers more effectively.
It can enhance your business in multiple ways: from managing work assignments and tracking time to running reports and analyzing them, so you can spot weak points and amend them. And the best thing about a specialized product is that it allows you to see what everyone is working on, simplify payroll calculation and deliver projects on time. The tool can be adapted to your work process and used to cut business costs.
One aspect of all this could be a bit challenging though: people are often reluctant to adopt new tools. Let’s see how to do it right so you and your team can boost your productivity with less effort.
2. Adapt to New Technology – and Help Your Employees with That
Experts say the first step to better time management is knowing exactly where our time is spent. Now you can achieve that with a time tracker, but be sure to bring your team along on the journey.
It’s easy to introduce the new software product, give people some instructions and let them start using it from day one. But that’s not always effective: help with on boarding is often necessary.
To do this right and eliminate the shock of novelty for people in the workplace, do it in small steps. Instruct your employees in detail how they should use the tool. Also, focus on the benefits each team member will see.
Don’t forget to be an active user yourself. Your employees aren’t going to adopt a piece of technology you don’t seem fond of.
3. Review Your Management Practices
If you want to be a step ahead of the competition and grow as a manager, you’ll need to take a step back and see whether your practices are truly effective. That requires reviewing your management techniques, talking to colleagues and workers and getting feedback, and taking notes.
After that, spend a few days outlining your current habits and practices as a manager, brainstorm ideas on what could be changed. Maybe it’s time for a slightly different direction. Or maybe having new people on board or entering a new niche means you have to build new skills or continue your training.
Not just that, but you should take into consideration the management at all levels in the company. They can go through the process too. This ensures each department is up to date with their project management, culture company, collaboration and incentive programs.
4. Reduce Management Busywork
With smart time management techniques, people can start getting done in less time. The same goes for busy entrepreneurs who are responsible for a whole team. You can find ways to manage less when actually achieving the progress you’re after.
What’s wrong with managing too much? It’s that you don’t delegate enough or coach people on your team.
Management itself takes up a big chunk of your time. But what about the desire to inspire your team to get more done, to help employees build new skills with training, to find new talents and get them on board, and to take big decisions?
The only way to start doing all these again is to cut down on management busywork. One thing that will help you get there is to stop expecting that much from your workers and instead focus on taking responsibility for the project preparation phase.
5. Implement Remote Work Practices
Multiple studies suggest that remote talent is the future and the reasons for that are many. Remote employees are those who have found the balance between work and personal life and are pretty happy with how they are living.
That’s exactly what you need – happy faces during meetings. Such people are energetic but motivated to do a good job and disciplined enough at the same time.
If you haven’t already, get more remote workers on your team. This allows you to choose some passionate and hard-working individuals from around the globe instead of being limited by location. Once you have more of them on your team, and after the training period, you’d be able to delegate whole aspects of the project to them and let them do what they are good at. This leaves you with more time to concentrate on what matters, such as business growth.
No busy entrepreneur should end up stressed or forget that there’s a team they’re responsible for. Follow the tips above and be a productive manager of employees who knows how to manage their own time.
