Every business, regardless of their size or industry, wish to get the best out of their core asset – human resource. Many will ensure they hire staff with top-grade academic credentials, those with job experience, staff with the right attitude, or a combination of all the above.

Without the right people, no company survives. Therefore, having consistent creative minds and innovators who disrupt the status quo and improve customer experiences is every organisation’s dream.

Having staff who are consistently productive, however, does not come easy. Organisations must find imaginative ways to make staff productivity is consistent but not occasional. Your support team at Human Capital International has packaged for you, research-based ideas that can help your company replicate the best practices to enable you to increase staff morale, retention, and overall productivity.

Give shares to staff

A growing number of companies, especially in Europe and the United States of America, are giving out shares to staff members as a catalyst to increase productivity and loyalty of team members. The employee trust model, where the owner of the business and employees are co-owners through shareholdings, has been rapidly gaining traction in the last three decades.

Blackwell, as well as John Lewis and partners, a brand of high-end department stores operating in Britain, and several American businesses, are giving shares to employees.

Direct shareholdings, according to research, boost staff morale and commitment, reduce income inequality, and improve workers’ living standards. 

“When you are an owner, you recognize the need to boost your skills levels,” says a report. “You know that the company’s productivity feeds directly into your pay packet and the company’s success. There is no need to fake enthusiasm or force yourself to go the extra mile when the business in hand is very much your business” the Guardian wrote, quoting a report by thinktank Ownership at Work. 

In another research by Harvard Business Review, employee-owned companies “are more durable and resilient during economic downturns”

So, if as a business owner, you want to achieve staff lifetime commitment, consider giving some shares to workers, however small that might be. This can be considered as the one fork handle with multiple prongs of solutions; reducing poverty in your community, earning employee loyalty, and improving staff innovation.

Create a conducive work environment

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At the beginning of 2017, Allan was at the peak of his career selling insurance products with one of the reputed companies in the market. He applied his best efforts to ensure that his department met its targets. 

Targets were indeed met, but Allan decided to resign from his job after three years, citing unconducive work environment. The work environment includes the office set up (aeration, lighting), social features, and physical location.

“There was no teamwork spirit and people were working in silos,” Allan says.

“Communication among teams was not there and management did little to address office intrigue and gossip,” he added.

To get the best out of your staff and increase productivity, going by Allan’s reasons for resignation, special attention must be given to the work environment under which your staff is working.

An environment that allows staff’s feelings, and thoughts to be known through free expression, an environment that supports innovation and rewards creativity, automatically motivates staff to improve their productivity. C-Suite executives who are charged with the day-to-day running of the business must ensure that staff grievances are addressed as soon as possible, and ensure teamwork. 

Investing in the provision of a conducive environment for your staff is a major necessity if you care about improving staff productivity. 

Reward staff well

‘You can’t milk a cow that is not fed,’ is a popular adage among the African pastoral communities. The underlying wisdom in the adage is that a well-fed cow will churn out quantities of milk as opposed to a malnourished one.

This is equally true in the job market. Companies that reward staff innovation and creativity, royalty, and hard work, tend to attract and retain high-grade talents that keep such organisations above the competition. The reward may take the form of a salary increment, gifts, recognition, or allowing excellent staff performers a day off. 

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) report titled Minimum wages and productivity: a brief review of the literature, says that there is a direct correlation between employee wages and their productivity and motivation. 

“They may also stay longer with their employer, gaining valuable experience, and also encouraging employers and employees to engage in productivity-enhancing training,” the report says. 

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An increase in wages for your staff increases productivity, as the staff will do everything possible to keep such high paying jobs even if it stretches them to acquire new skills. An increase in wages also motivates staff to do more to gain even further increases in the future.

As a business owner, therefore, your preoccupation shouldn’t be about improving the bottom line alone. Ensure that you motivate your human resource always. If you do that, they will dream more and, in the end, use their creativity and innovation to make more profits for the business.

Train your staff

Businesses and employee skillsets are fast-evolving worldwide. How businesses operated a decade ago has changed in terms of the work environment, digitization, data-led decision making, customer care, or even products. Similarly, the skills that employees ought to have must be different or improved above those used decades ago.

Change continues to occur. Unfortunately, companies and employees who cannot adapt quickly will not be participants in the fast-changing world but will only become spectators. Any company that will continue to solve customers’ problems and therefore stay relevant in this competitive global economy, is one that trains its staff members to stay relevant, productive, stay updated with emerging customer problems, come up with innovations to ease processes and production in the company. 

It could be envisaged that in a few years to come, no job seeker without ICT skills will be employable especially in the corporate setting. The ability to use a computer, artificial intelligence, analyze data and robotics, will be part of daily job descriptions for almost all employees. 

There are other important skills that a company must train its human resource to develop: a mindset of adaptability and flexibility, critical and systemic thinking to enable them to sift the needful from available options, and emotional intelligence. These are must-have skillsets for all employees in this current economy. 

The World Economic Forum warned seven years ago that 35 per cent of skills considered important in the labour market would have changed by 2020. So, a forward-looking worker and company must take these warnings seriously to stay relevant.