Every workplace wants happy and productive employees, but are you also helping them be at their best? In fact, a small adjustment to your management practices can help engage employees, encouraging them to work at their full capacity. Below are some practical tips that you can follow.

1. Pay attention to the connection between body and mind. Employee performance is affected by many factors outside of your office. Remind your employees that it is important that they take care of themselves by feeding the body and nourishing the mind. This begins with a stress-free lifestyle maintained through proper diet and exercise, and is reinforced by a stress-free workplace. Remind them to start the day with a good breakfast because arriving at the office hungry can lead to fatigue and irritability and ultimately make them less productive. Allow employees to take breaks when necessary. Having a responsible break is not a decrease in dedication to work. In fact, it can even help people perform better. A brisk walk around the block, a fresh cup of coffee or tea, a short meditative break in the employee lounge – these are just some of the things that can contribute to a meaningful short break, allowing people to come back to their desks with a mind.
2. The importance of the task list. Most work environments measure employee performance through task completion. But are they achieving the ones that matter? Let your employees create a weekly to-do list based on office priorities and goals. Ask them to classify their tasks as follows:
• those that must be done immediately;
• those that can be done in the next few days; and
• those that can be pushed further.

The list can help make sense of overlapping concerns, especially in a multitasking environment. As you go through your list on a weekly basis, you shouldn’t be afraid to reorder your to-do list in response to real demands and challenges. Through this, they don’t have to constantly worry if they are doing what matters. Likewise, they don’t have to spend too much time figuring out what should come next.

3. Eliminate distractions. Most employees are constantly tempted to change their desks in an effort to make it more homey and personal. Pictures of family, friends and pets or stacks of books and magazines all take up space on your work surface. Instead of asking them to throw it all away, you can provide them with spaces. You can provide shelves for books, magazines or reports, or wall space to hang your photos. The same goes for office-issued desktop or laptop computers. Incessant access to social networks (if not part of work) and installation of various applications can clutter the virtual workspace and eventually slow down the machine. Install effective software to manage employee access during office hours. This also reduces the time you spend monitoring what they are doing on the network.
4. Provide tools to better organize work. Help your employees to be more organized by giving them useful tools. Make technology work for them. Printers, copiers, and fax machines should be accessible to eliminate the need to walk to the other room. Use helpful scheduling software that helps employees plan and cross tasks more efficiently. Good scheduling software is indispensable for companies of any size where several tasks or actions must be completed and where the action or inaction of one can spell success or failure for another. Good employee scheduling software can also help in client scheduling and monitoring attendance, resources, equipment, and facility usage.

By combining these four tips, you can help your employees be more productive and make concrete contributions to the business. A great way to start is by giving them tools they can use in the office. There are many great tools you can find online, such as Schedule it, a cloud and desktop scheduling software solution. See how it can help you promote employee productivity today.