Four Ways to Increase Employee ProductivityProductivity directly affects the success of your business. For most business leaders, that's why it's counted among the top concerns of management.

Low productivity can be due to a number of different factors, including distractions, lack of feedback or praise, the perception employees aren’t recognized, or the way staff are managed.

If you're looking for ways to increase employee productivity, read on.

Remove Obstacles

Janine Popick, founder of Vertical Response and a contributor to Inc., shares some tips to help increase your employees' productivity.

One tip she shares: Keep approvals and other blockers to a minimum, she suggests. Allow your team to move forward and meet their deadlines. We've all been in situations when we felt held back from doing more or being successful because we were waiting on an OK from up the chain of command.

It’s frustrating when you are held up in a project because you need an approval. She also suggests leaders be aware of their team’s deadlines and prioritize accordingly. Look for tasks that don’t directly affect sales, quality, productivity, or safety and get rid of them.

Laura Stack, "The Productivity Pro," further suggests that in order to increase employee productivity, leaders should allow teams to work how they best see fit. "Empower individuals to take ownership of their jobs, so they can use whatever strategy works best in the moment to execute effectively and productively," she writes.

Give Your Team Tools and Resources

Look at what tools and resources your team uses regularly and assess whether these help them be as efficient as possible. Analyze your workflows to discover whether you're improving employee productivity over time, stagnating, or getting worse.

Is there a new tool you can introduce to help increase employee productivity? Can you automate processes they currently do manually? Keep a look out and tell your team offer solutions for affordable and practical methods for getting tasks done more efficiently.

Additionally, advises Popick, ask if your people need your help. If you're able to pitch in, it gives you an opportunity to interact in a natural way with your team, gives you insight into what they're doing well and where improvements might be made, and you also provide assistance which helps them with productivity. Your team will appreciate the gesture.

“Whether you remove obstacles, automate a manual process, or just get out of their way, helping them get stuff done may be the best thing you ever do,” says Popick.

Increase Employee Productivity by Assigning Tasks Well

Look for what drives and motivates your team to perform at a high level, and think about how you can enhance these drivers in order to increase employee productivity. Then assign more challenging tasks or projects to those who want more responsibility. Empower them to make their own decisions on projects so they feel ownership over them.

Make Employees Accountable

Be specific about goals and make employees accountable for them. Make sure they understand the responsibility involved with a project and that it rests solely on their shoulders.

Remember, leaders, it’s up to us to find the most effective way to increase employee productivity and deliver the best results from our teams.

How have you increased productivity? What has or hasn’t worked?