If you think your employees aren't productive, you're not alone. Countless employers in the U.S. and worldwide are facing the same problem. Of course, this is not surprising. Recent studies have shown that employees spend more and more time on the Internet for personal business, and your company is losing money for every minute an employee loses during work hours.
Some business owners and managers are considering website blocking as a solution to this problem. However, blocking the Internet is not the solution: website blocking is usually done with EMS monitoring tool that blocks entire categories of websites, some of which are necessary for employees' work.
Steps to Motivate Employees
The best way to solve this problem is to take simple steps to motivate employees.
- Measure the amount of time each employee spends online each day doing productive work
- Compare the productivity of all employees and set a minimum standard that each employee must meet to deliver satisfactory work. Communicate to each employee what these standards are.
- Meet with each employee individually to discuss their performance. Think about why they are not motivated and what motivates them effectively. Keep in mind that there are other reasons why people do things besides making money. Some may want the "employee of the month" award for outstanding performance, and others may want special parking spaces or more flexible work hours.
- Set achievable goals for each employee. This is an incremental process, so don't expect employees to achieve significant improvements in a short period. Instead, set small, achievable weekly goals and highlight each employee's performance. For example, if John Smith wants to work four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days so he can spend more time with his family, tell him he can do so if he increases his productivity by a certain amount in the following months. Set a weekly goal, such as ten more the first week, ten more the next, 15 the week after that, and so on. At the end of the month, John will have reached his goal, and you can reward him with a four-day trial week.
- Finally, communicate regularly with your employees. If you notice that an employee's performance is declining, you should have a personal meeting with them to discuss the reasons and see what can be done to improve their performance.
