While investors, stakeholders, and managers are in charge of decision making, it’s the employees who put in the physical work to ensure the business carries on production, and offers services. Without your staff, there’s no way you could run your business effectively, hence the importance of learning to maximize production through your staff.
But how exactly is this done? Is it just a matter of motivation? Surely there’s more to it than raising their salary? Here are a few tips on how you can manage your employees better in order to maximize production.
Stop micromanaging your employees and give them some freedom
One of the secrets to maximizing production is to give your employees goal, or purpose. To do this, you need to give them a defined task or role and let them carry it out in their own way.
Provide opportunities to open up to suggestions on improvements, but don’t control their every move and don’t criticize their every action. Avoid micromanaging your staff and you’ll find that maximizing production becomes easy.
Offer proper training to use the right equipment
Production relies on the mechanic skill of your employees. If they understand how to use certain machines and tools correctly and efficiently, then it’s a benefit to your business.
This is where it helps to offer proper training to each of your employees and to give them frequent recap lessons to help them keep their skills fresh. Without the right training, your employees risk hurting themselves, and it’ll reduce the overall production rates of your processes.
Training can typically be offered on the job, but there are also options for remote studying such as online classes and instructional videos. This can also be done in the workplace as part of a workshop to teach your staff new skills.
Open communication and for your staff to report issues
It’s important to frequently check in with your staff to see if there are any issues not just with the production line, but also with their health and safety. This is where Andon systems can come in handy.
This refers to a system that allows staff to notify management, maintenance, and other relevant workers whenever there’s a quality or process issue. This means having clear and accessible communication options to give staff the ability to contact management whenever needed.
Andon systems also give workers the ability to take control of the production process when necessary. This goes back to the first point of avoiding micromanagement and letting your staff have more control.
Instead of needing to contact a manager or someone higher-up in order to stop a production process for quality purposes, you should entrust this to your staff so that they can solve issues as quickly and efficiently as possible. This also puts your trust in your staff, giving them a stronger sense of purpose in your business.