7 Ways to Enhance Employee Productivity at Your Custom Manufacturing Shop

Having a team of productive employees at your custom manufacturing shop is vital if you wish to produce products in a timely manner and provide excellent customer service. Employees’ mindsets matter when it comes to their productivity levels. Sometimes, your team may need some help to get into the productive mindset, especially if there are obstacles in the way like micromanagement, improper training or inadequate tools for working. Fortunately, there is a lot that shop managers can do to influence and enhance employee productivity.

Here are 7 tips:

1. Set Reasonable Goals When setting goals, make sure they are not ridiculously high or out of the skillset of your staff. Make sure they are reasonable and can certainly be accomplished within the time frame you are requesting. Of course, there are benefits to having long term lofty goals, but when it comes to short term day to day goals, make them reasonable and not over the top. If the day to day goals are too high, staff may become over-stressed and feel overworked, therefore clouding their mind and making them less productive. 

Suggestion: In your shopVOX account, you can set the numbers of hours that machines and staff members can be worked. This will help to not over-schedule either. 

2. Recognition When employees are doing excellent work and obviously dedicated to your company, make sure you acknowledge them. When they are going over and beyond, perhaps reward them. 

Suggestion: Begin an employee of the month award and post the winners near the entrance of your shop. This get encourage staff member to do more and also promotes a great work environment to customers. 

3. Adequate Training Employees that are properly trained are usually more confident. Be careful not to assume that you staff already knows how to perform the skills you hired them for. Keep in mind, that each company provides customer service, tasks and other skills in different ways from one another. So, it’s important to train staff the way you would like actions to be taken at your business. 

Suggestion: When providing tools for enhancing productivity, make sure you provide adequate training too. When adding shopVOX to your shop, make sure each staff member that is using this Custom Manufacturing Management Software is trained on the areas they will be using. For example, make sure your designer is trained on how to send design approvals to customers in shopVOX and make sure your office manager knows how to read the production and job boards. 

4. Stop Micromanaging Once employees are trained and know their tasks, let them work without you standing over their shoulder and watching their every move. 

Suggestion: If have problems with micromanaging, read this article: Do you micromanage your employees?

5. Meaningful FeedbackSometimes it’s easy to criticize or to be frustrated when someone makes a mistake or is not working to the best of their ability. But, when you control your emotions and give feedback that is constructive, employees often respond better. 

Suggestion: When providing feedback, speak from a positive standpoint and try to work on solutions together. Point out what they are doing right and make practical suggestions on how to improve without insulting them. 

6. Make Work Fun Work can be stressful, even when everything is managed properly. So, add a little fun at your company to encourage the mind to be more creative, passionate for workand open. A little fun can promote team building too. 

Suggestion: Play some music in the background, have fun contests, allow a 20 minute yoga, meditation or nap break, provide fun outings once in while (like ziplining or an arcade afternoon), or do computer work while walking on a treadmill. Little changes can brighten up the mood of the team. 

7. Invest in the Best ToolsOf course, when you have the best tool at your shop, it’s much easier for employees to be more productive. This means invest in great printers, computers, software, cutters, material and so on. 

Suggestion: Instead of assuming that you team with work together and communicate efficiently on projects, provide them with a tool to ensure that they will. As a shopVOX user, your staff has the tools it needs to know what stage projects are at and what tasks they are to complete that day. This helps them to be more productive. 

As a custom manufacturer, taking the steps above will increase the chances that your team will be more productive. As a shopVOX user, you are using one of the best tools available to properly manage your shop which can release much stress from your team and yourself.