Improve Work Performance: 9 Effective Methods

There’s often a lot said about enhancing team performance, but what about when you need to improve work performance on an individual level?

From adopting effective work habits like automations to taking care of your physical and emotional state, myriad productivity strategies can make work less stressful and more motivating.

And luckily, none of these solutions are rocket science. It’s all about having a growth mindset and building productive habits. So, without further ado, let’s get on with our 9 productivity-boosting tips for maximizing employee output.

1. Sharpen your relationship-building

Yes, you’re getting paid to do a job, not make friends. But when you’ve got open, flowing communication with your colleagues, you can seriously improve work performance. It’s not just about being easy-going and approachable — it’s about building a supportive network to help you out when you’re in need, as well as offering advice and opportunities.

On a personal level, relationship building involves actively listening to your colleagues and showing interest in what matters to them, both inside and outside of the office. Taking a brief moment to ask how a project is going or how their weekend makes people feel respected and valued is the cornerstone of relationship-building.

These relationships have a direct impact on the feeling of belonging to a team, promoting selfless collaboration because there is a silent commitment to work towards the same objectives. This makes it easier to capitalize on mutual strengths and experiences, encouraging the exchange of ideas and opinions, and obtaining an evident improvement in the quality of work. The result is a positive company culture — a crucial aspect for improving work performance.

2. Practice mindfulness to reduce stress

Very few people are immune to feeling overwhelmed by the information overload of modern-day life. With so many devices, responsibilities, and people competing for your attention, it’s essential to frequently take time out to reset your mental state.

Typical productivity-boosting tips for mindfulness include starting your day with a meditation session, rather than a hectic rush to get out of the house. You can just as easily implement it in your working day too, with short deep breathing exercises or simply brief moments of quiet reflection to improve your mental clarity. If you’re new to the concept of mindfulness, you’re not alone. But a quick search in your mobile app store will reveal a whole host of free and paid apps that guide meditation exercises and send you reminders to take time for yourself.

Mindfulness helps to improve work performance by allowing you to tackle tasks with fresh concentration and efficiency. An increasing number of companies have already realized how effective mindfulness is and offer sessions within work hours. If your organization doesn’t provide it, you should take the initiative to do it on a personal level.

3. Actively seek out feedback

If you really want to improve work performance, you need to know where you’re going wrong. Feedback, both positive and negative, is the raw data that inspires your performance optimization techniques, so as much as you need to gather information, it’s equally important to learn how to apply it.

Supervisors, colleagues, and clients are all ideal sources of feedback. If you feel your manager isn’t giving you enough, request a meeting or video call with your manager to review performance data. Where you see areas for improvement, work together on productivity improvement plans to better align your efforts with team goals.

Unlike your manager, your clients aren’t paid to give you feedback. Therefore, to make things easy and efficient, you can create a feedback form that highlights the specific areas you wish to address. For example, a sales agent could include an overall evaluation, before digging into the details on the speed of the process and how well the service meets the client’s needs.

When set up correctly, all of your responses will feed back into your customer relationship management (CRM) system so you can draw out reports and spot trends in an instant.

4. Prioritize your tasks like a pro

It may sound simple, but effective task prioritization can be tricky. For most workers, tasks marked as urgent flying onto their desks is a daily occurrence, and getting to those necessary, strategic jobs seems like a far-off reality.

One smart way to prioritize your tasks is with workplace efficiency tools like the Eisenhower Matrix, also known as the Urgent-Important Matrix. It’s a simple system that you can lay out on a Kanban board and sort tasks into four categories:

• Urgent and important
• Not urgent, but important
• Urgent, but not important
• Not urgent and not important

The final category is the easiest to deal with — those tasks can wait patiently until the mythical day when you literally have nothing else to do. But more important is to focus on the first two categories, giving the most importance to urgent and important tasks without neglecting the not-urgent, but important work. This smart prioritization means that even if you can’t finish everything, you will at least cover the highest-value jobs on your desk.

5. Remove distractions from your workspace

Mindless distractions are a real productivity killer, but unfortunately, they’re everywhere in this day and age — especially for remote workers. From the obvious examples such as mobile phones and social media to the more pernicious impacts of five minutes of housework that turns into an hour, it’s easy to lose focus if you don’t put efficiency improvement strategies in place.

Start with the physical solution — preparing a minimalist desk, using noise-cancelling headphones, and locking away the main culprits for distraction, like your guitar, book, or TV remote.

Moving onto the workplace efficiency tools, you can improve work performance with apps designed to help your concentration. Use your smartphone or laptop’s focus mode, which will disable any tools you choose. Social media, news, and messaging apps are usually included in this section because most people open them without even thinking about it. Focus mode breaks the habit by stopping you from accessing the app and reminding you to get back to work.

6. Don’t neglect your break times

When you’re up against it with deadlines fast approaching, it is tempting to set the world record for hours at a desk, making all-nighters look like child’s play. However, allowing a one-off to turn into a habit is incredibly counterproductive for your performance optimization techniques.

It has been proved time and time again: Short, frequent breaks boost concentration, prevent fatigue, and ultimately improve work performance. Pomodoro apps are especially good for alerting you when it’s time for deep work and when it’s time for an all-important break. But a break doesn’t mean doom-scrolling on your phone. To really rejuvenate your mind, go for a brief walk, take a moment of mindful relaxation, or do some quick exercise if that’s your style.

Regular breaks aren’t just beneficial for immediate work quality enhancement. You’ll also reap the benefits in your long-term health and well-being. Self-care techniques like this allow you to work far more sustainably, reducing the risk of burnout while maximizing employee output.

7. Make time management your ally

Intricately linked to scheduling break times is the art of managing your time. Although it is one of the most effective work habits, good time management practices are hard to keep on top of as pressures rise.

One of the best ways to manage your time is to identify how well you work at different times and organize your day accordingly. Many people find they can improve work performance by using the early morning for quick, intense tasks, before spending slower periods of the day thinking more strategically. It’s a good idea to break down these larger tasks into smaller, more manageable steps, setting strict deadlines for each. The psychological impact of these deadlines allows you to time-box your work and avoid letting tasks drag on for longer than necessary.

There are all kinds of tools you can use to plan your day, with digital calendars and task time-tracking apps among the most effective. Smart use of reminder notifications can alert you when a deadline is approaching or when it’s time to switch to your next task.

8. Learn to be adaptable

We’re in a world of constant flux, and anybody who tries to stay rigid against the winds of change is likely to snap in half. But the good news is that the ability to adapt to changes quickly is a skill you can actively learn.

Whether it’s new technologies, evolving market trends, or shifting project requirements, embracing changes is crucial to boosting efficiency improvement strategies. Part of the battle is mental — not getting so attached to one way of working that you refuse to accept changes. But you should also focus on the practical side, volunteering to explore new areas such as automation, data analysis, or AI engineering.

Even a small amount of knowledge puts you above the rest regarding the skills and awareness you absorb. But by fully embracing a growth mindset, you make yourself an invaluable member of the team who upper management can always rely on to take on new challenges.

9. Enhance your skill set with continuous learning

Focusing on a subsection of adaptability, productivity improvement plans that focus on continuous learning are an unbelievable way of staying at your best. Nobody is asking for overnight success; it’s all about making marginal gains that combine to make a big change.

Clearly, you can see the most direct impact by focusing your continuous learning on new skills or deepening your knowledge of your role. However, you shouldn’t be afraid of diving into unknown waters, which can broaden your understanding of business as a whole and often lead to unique, cross-departmental synergies that set you apart from the rest.

New technologies such as AI, data analysis, blockchain, and virtual reality are revolutionizing how we do business at an exponential rate. Only those committed to continuous learning can improve work performance and ride the wave of these changes, rather than struggling to stay afloat.

Bitrix24: Unleashing your full potential

As we’ve seen, there is a diverse range of work quality enhancement methods that you can adopt, some of which will speak to you more than others.

But to put yourself in the best position to improve work performance, you need to make these techniques as easy as possible to implement.

Enter Bitrix24: A versatile business solution, packed with productivity-boosting tools. This all-in-one platform facilitates efficient project planning, task management, organization of events and meetings, reports, and integration of automations into your daily workflow. With its fully customizable interface, you can tailor your user experience, concentrating on essential features while minimizing distractions.

So, if you’re serious about improving performance at work and optimizing your operational efficiency, sign up for Bitrix24 today.

FAQs

Effective methods to improve work performance in remote settings include:

• Regular virtual meetings for alignment
• Using collaborative tools for seamless communication
• Setting clear goals and expectations
• Ensuring you have a streamlined work environment
• Prioritizing a healthy work-life balance

Technology enhances employee productivity by automating routine tasks, facilitating efficient communication, and providing analytics for performance tracking. Tools like project management software, communication platforms, and time management apps help streamline workflows, improve motivation, and reduce manual errors.

Project management software centralizes task tracking, facilitates clear communication, and helps in deadline management, which is key to improving team performance. It provides a shared space for project planning, resource allocation, and progress tracking, ensuring team alignment and efficiency in achieving project goals.