Most businesses lose productivity in one way or another. Your goal should be to increase productivity and keep it up as much as possible so that you can maintain your success as a business and stay afloat. It’s no coincidence that a huge percentage of businesses fail within the first few years. You may have the best of intentions, but if you don’t work on keeping productivity high, then it’ll all be for nothing.

Below, we’ll take a look at a few ways you may be losing productivity and what you can do about it:

Sick Workers

You may think that there isn’t much you can do when your team members are sick, but you’d be wrong. For genuine sickness there’s not a lot you can do, but did you know that simply by treating your employees right, you can reduce sick days? When they are not stressed from the pressures of work, their immune systems stay strong and they are less likely to be sick. They are also less likely to need to take a mental health day off work when the atmosphere is positive.

Having mental health programs in place will ensure your workers have a place to turn should they be stressed or need somebody to talk to. Having an open door policy will also help to improve the atmosphere, providing you listen well and do something about what your team tells you they need.

Even taking initiatives such as providing workers with corporate gym memberships can encourage them to stay healthy. You can’t force them to take care of themselves, but you can provide them everything they need to do so, as well as the encouragement. This will of course reduce sick days overall and increase productivity. You’ll also improve employee loyalty and retention!

Time Wasting

Most people waste a little time in work each day. If you look at the number of workers you have, and assume that each one of them wastes a minimum of 30 minutes a week, how much money are you losing? When you look at it like this, the figures seem much more important! You don’t want to crack the whip with your team and make sure they are working as hard and fast as possible every second of every day. In fact, sometimes it may be simply about working smarter, and not harder.

One way to avoid time wasting is to encourage more frequent breaks. It may sound counter productive, but it’s usually easier to stay laser focused for half an hour when you know you have a 10 minute break coming, rather than stay laser focused for a few hours when you know you have an hour long break coming.

Outsourcing important jobs is a better idea than getting your employees to take time away from their core roles. For example, hiring a company like Micro Doctor to take care of your IT services rather than expecting your team to do it will free up time and ensure maximum productivity.

You may also encourage naps in the work place. Again, it may seem counter productive, but a short 15-30 minute nap can improve performance in many ways, and ensure your employees are ready to finish what they set out to do.