The Ultimate Workplace Productivity Guide You Should Read to Get Things Done

From the desk of your favorite brilliant weirdo:

Thank you for taking the time out of your tight schedule to read this article. It doesn’t matter where you are coming from (Codegiant, Reddit, Hacker News, or any other hidden corner of the world wide web), I always appreciate every reader.

Welcome to Codegiant!

Personally, I love to start things off with a brilliant quote.

And here’s one of my favorites from Paul J. Meyer:

I don’t want this to be another one of those all-talk, no-action blog posts that lists down useless workplace productivity tips, just for the sake of it.

Honestly, such blog posts are more inclined towards boosting a website’s SEO, rather than delivering actual value.

And that’s not how we operate at Codegiant.

We believe in delivering value. And that’s what you’ll receive.

That being said while producing this content piece, the first thing I did was hop onto Google and gain deeper insights into how productive an average employee is throughout the day.

You’ll be shocked to read the answer:

• An average employee is productive for at most 2 hours and 53 minutes.

This means out of the nine-hour shift, you’ll find an average employee being productive for less than three hours.

That’s insane.

Some other interesting observations as you can see in the pie chart include:

• Employees spend 1 hour and 5 minutes on average reading news
• 44 minutes scrolling their social media news feeds
• 26 minutes hunting a new job
• 40 minutes discussing non-work-related things
• 23 minutes taking smoke breaks
• 17 minutes preparing hot drinks
• 14 minutes texting their friends or family members
• 18 minutes calling their friends or partners
• 8 minutes eating snacks
• 7 Minutes preparing food in the office.

And let’s not forget those mandatory, yet pointless meetings scheduled just for the sake of it.

And what’s worse is that I’ve found most of these meetings to have no agendas at all.

This results in lower productivity, which often leads to:

• Lesser profitability
• Employee disengagement
• Lower team morale
• Lack of motivation and creativity
• Delay in project deliveries
• Workplace toxicity
• High employee turnover

If you are wondering how to increase productivity in your workplace, you’re at the right place.

Our team has spent days preparing this guide to help you understand how to make the most out of every day.

This blog post is truly actionable and will help you gain insights into:

• What is Workplace Productivity?
• How to Increase Productivity in Business?
• Measure Office Productivity with this Brilliant Productivity Formula
• 7 Incredible Productivity Tips from Codegiant’s VP of Engineering to Get Work Done
• 4 Productivity Apps or Tools to Increase Office Productivity

Let’s touch down on each of these sub-topics one by one.

What is Workplace Productivity?

While producing this guide, I personally reached out to ten project managers with extensive experience.

My primary aim was to understand more about challenges they face with workplace productivity.

And the first question I asked them was:

“In your words, what exactly is workplace productivity?”

I know it’s a really basic question.

But trust me — about seven out of the ten project managers we interviewed described productivity as a synonym of the word ‘busy.’

While the rest had multiple opinions yet couldn’t come up with a concrete answer.

You see — not many people are familiar with workplace productivity’s actual meaning.

That’s the reason I wanted to touch down on this point.

But before I share my own version of workplace productivity’s definition, I’d like to tell you what office productivity is not.

What Workplace Productivity is Not

Throughout my career, I’ve met two kinds of people:

• The show-offs: These are the ones who extend their nine-hour shift to fifteen hours, yet don’t really deliver results. All they want to do is show their project managers how hard-working they are. That’s all.
• The productive ones: These are the employees who are actually productive. They are the ones who get work done and deliver outstanding results. They work smart, not hard.

Project managers often consider productivity to be a direct synonym of ‘busy.’

That’s the reason they want the employees to be busy all the time.

To keep them busy, they end up assigning multiple tasks and responsibilities.

That’s wrong.

This will result in nothing but a toxic work environment.

Here’s a quote from Henry David Thoreau:

“It’s not enough to be busy. Ants keep themselves busy as well. The question you should ask is: What are we busy about?”

Employee productivity isn’t a synonym for busy.

It’s not about getting more things done.

Instead, it’s about getting the most important ones done efficiently and in a timely manner.

Now that we know what productivity isn’t, let’s explore its actual meaning.

The True Meaning of Workplace Productivity

Dan S. Kennedy did an outstanding job at defining productivity.

And here it goes:

Let’s say you own a sports shoes manufacturing company and produced 5,000 pairs of shoes in the month of May.

Whereas, in June, your team manufactured 10,000 pairs of shoes.

After looking at these numbers, you’ll be under the impression that your team members were more productive in June than they were in the month of May.

But, what if out of the 10,000 pairs of shoes they produced in June, about half of them were low-quality products?

That’d be just a waste of time and resources.

Obviously, your team members were busier during the second month. However, they were more efficient during the first.

And in the midst of all of this lies the true meaning of productivity.

According to me, workplace productivity refers to the amount of quality work produced by an individual or company.

That’s the productivity formula we use at Codegiant.

We understand that you want to make the most out of every day.

After all, who doesn’t?

And if you are wondering how to increase productivity in the workplace, look no further.

We have it here for you.

Next, we’ll focus on how to increase productivity in business the smart way.

How to Increase Productivity in Business?

This section has been divided into the following two subsections:

• The Productivity Formula You Should Use to Measure Workplace Productivity
• 7 Game-Changing Productivity Tips from Codegiant’s VP of Engineering to Get Things Done

In the first section, we’ll understand how you can measure employee productivity.

This will allow you to gain insights into how productive your employees currently are.

And next, I’ll share the seven productivity tips Djimy has listed out to further boost productivity in business.

Let’s wait no more!

I am so excited to share this with you.

The Productivity Formula You Should Use to
Measure Workplace Productivity

Here, we’ll have a look at the productivity formula for our employee productivity measurement.

I was just curious how other businesses measure their office productivity.

So again I made my way to Google and looked for the productivity formula most businesses use — basically, I looked for articles that were focused on “How to Measure Workplace Productivity?”

And just as I expected, the formula shared by these articles was:

But as we discussed earlier, productivity doesn’t refer to the amount of work you produce. Instead, it’s the amount of quality work you produce.

So, I’ll modify this formula a bit.

Using this formula, you can track various metrics like your overall workplace productivity, individual employee productivity, and more.

Let’s first learn how to measure workplace productivity using this formula.

Here’s the scenario — let’s say you are a project manager who wants to measure your overall team productivity. Assume that your team manufactured $100,000 worth of products in the month of June. But you noted that $1,000 worth of products were of degraded quality and can’t be sold. Your team comprises 40 members — who work 25 days per month and 9 hours each day.

Let’s fit all of this information in a table.

First, we’ll calculate the input using the data we have.

Input = (Team Members * Working Days * Working Hours)

So, your input will be 40 * 25 * 9 = 9,000

Now, let’s apply the productivity formula.

Workplace Productivity = (99,000 / 9,000)

That’s $11 worth of products being manufactured each hour.

You can compare this number with your past month’s number to gain a clear perspective.

Now let us consider a second scenario: You are a project manager in an IT company and would like to measure the productivity of your individual employees. Assume that the names of the three employees are Mark, Matt & Joseph. Each of them works nine hours a day and 25 days per month. But, here we’ll assume that Joseph was on leave for two days. Here, the output refers to the number of test cases (let’s assume that these test cases are simple) they executed in a month. Like before, let’s fit this information in a table.

Let’s calculate the output for each of these individuals.

Mark Input: 9 * 25 = 225
Matt Input = 9 * 25 = 225
Joseph Input = 9 * 23 = 207

Now, let’s assume that they always deliver quality work and the output is equal to the actual output. That being said, let’s measure each employee’s productivity.

Clearly, Mark is the most productive of the bunch, whereas the least productive here is Matt.

But if I were to say that Mark doesn’t deliver quality results and half of his work is of degraded quality, then he’d be the least productive.

And that’s how you can measure your employee or business productivity the smart way.

I really insist you gather the much-needed data and measure your workplace productivity straight away. Also, don’t forget to measure your individual employee productivity and compare it with the rest.

DISCLAIMER: Depending on the industry you belong to and your business model, the data may get complex.

However, the formula I’ve mentioned in this blog post will be applicable for all scenarios, all you’ll have to do is adjust it according to your industry.

And after you successfully measure your workplace and employee productivity, if you find it to be extremely low, then you need to take action and do something about it.

One of your employees may be staying fifteen hours in the office and executing 500 test cases each month. On the other hand, another one of your employees with the same workload may be completing his 9-hour shift and can be executing 700 test cases each month.

That being said, if you feel that your workplace productivity is extremely poor, there may be some serious problems.

Maybe, your employees aren’t happy. Or the problem may be with your company’s tech stack. Or what if your employees have to forcefully attend numerous useless meetings?

Through this article, my aim is to share seven game-changing productivity tips that’ll help you get work done efficiently.

And while producing this blog post, I had a brief conversation with Codegiant’s VP of Engineering — Djimy Charles. At Codegiant, he has done an outstanding job at boosting our team’s productivity and morale.

We had a memorable one-hour interview, where he shared his views on workplace productivity and what entrepreneurs and/or project managers should do to get quality work done. Also, he shared seven game-changing productivity tips which we’ll be discussing next.

7 Game-Changing Productivity Tips from
Codegiant’s VP of Engineering to Get Work Done

Here you have it:

• Set clear and realistic expectations
• Improve team communication
• Avoid micromanaging and don’t be afraid to delegate
• Equip the right tech stack
• Focus on your employees’ happiness and well-being
• Fix Workflow Issues
• Implement a No-Bullshit Meetings Policy — I seriously hate such meetings.

Let’s touch down on each of these tips with a bit more insights.

Set Clear & Realistic Expectations

Your team will never know what you expect from them if you don’t set clear expectations.

For example, if you want your team members to update their task status before they leave the office or log off, you need to convey the message.

Otherwise, they’ll never know that you want them to update the Kanban board.

Another example — if you want your team members to fix a bug the same day itself, you need to convey this message to them. Otherwise, they’ll consider it “low-priority” and mail you:

“I received your mail about the bug. I’ll look into it on Friday.”

Want your employees to complete a task by this week?

Maybe, review their code twice before they push?

Or anything else?

You need to be clear about what you expect.

Not setting clear expectations will lead to confusion and anger on both sides.

Your employees may even think that their boss or manager is unfair.

But, setting clear expectations is important.

At the same time, you need to make sure that you are setting realistic expectations.

For example, if a task requires a week to be completed, project managers or leads shouldn’t ask your employees to deliver it within a day.

That’s stupid.

Also, I am not a big fan of multi-tasking.

It often results in unnecessary errors or complications, which could have been avoided only if the employee wasn’t required to multi-task.

Asking your employees to tackle 4–5 tasks at the same time and expecting them to excel at each of those areas isn’t advisable.

You need to strike the right balance.

Understand what your employees are capable of. Review each of your employee’s past data and quarterly performance. This way you can understand more about their limits.

There should be a perfect balance.

Otherwise, your employees will consistently feel unhappy and may even claim their workplace to be a toxic environment.

Improve Team Communication

86% of employees consider poor communication and lack of collaboration to be the two reasons behind workplace failures.

I recently reviewed a report shared by McKinsey, in which they stated that improving collaboration and communication can boost productivity by as much as 20–25%.

These days most of us work remotely.

And in today’s working environment, late replies or a lack of efficient communication channels can seriously harm employee productivity.

What if you are waiting for inputs from the designer yet he hasn’t replied for more than an hour? And if you can’t proceed forward without getting those inputs, you’ll be wasting about an hour.

That’s the reason it’s critical for employers to focus on team communication.

Better communication leads to better workflow which in turn results in higher productivity.

Improved communication leads to better collaboration and outstanding results.

And if you haven’t yet invested in an efficient communication channel, then your employees are already struggling in terms of communication.

Different tools serve different purposes.

For example, you can use Office 365 or G-suite for emails. On the other hand, you can also invest in instant messaging applications like Slack.

While these tools serve different purposes, their one common aim is to increase office productivity.

But, investing in these tools isn’t the end-game. You need to motivate your employees to use these tools, otherwise, they’ll prefer doing it the old-fashioned way.

This will result in poor communication and lack of productivity.

And that’s the last thing you’d want after spending your big bucks on these tools, wouldn’t you?

Avoid Micromanaging & Don’t Be Afraid to Delegate

If you are the founder, then I understand that you’d want to stay on top of every single thing that goes on in your business.

It’s natural.

But, while doing so, I’ve seen the biggest mistake most entrepreneurs make is telling the employees how to do their jobs.

I understand that you want results.

But, if you end up micromanaging and hurting your employee’s morale, then it’ll lead to lower productivity.

At the same time, you’ll find yourself not being able to focus on your own tasks.

You see — that’s the problem.

By micromanaging everything, you’ll be facing a hard time getting things done at all. At the same time, you’ll also not be able to focus on your own activities.

Also, you can be a big hater of micromanaging, yet still, end up doing it without even knowing. You are a micromanager if you:

• Keep requesting minor changes on everything
• Have to proof and approve everything all by yourself
• Are not a big fan of delegating work
• Attend every single meeting
• Ask your employees to always keep you in CC
• Keep asking for updates frequently
• Are the only decision-maker in the organization

The one big mistake most entrepreneurs make is trying to be perfectionists. I appreciate the ones that have higher standards and want to deliver the best quality work to their clients.

But if you keep obsessing over it, it’ll ultimately lead to depression, anxiety, and frustration.

Accept that your team can make mistakes. And most importantly, trust your team members to carry out their respective tasks.

If you don’t trust them, they will not be able to trust you either.

Let them know that you have faith in them.

And encourage them to make better decisions. Most importantly, don’t ask them to ask for your approval on every task they conduct.

Your aim should be focusing on tasks that you and only you can conduct — these are the ones that can’t be delegated.

For example, you are the only one in your team who can focus on growth-related activities. And no other team member may be able to do that for you. So, that’s what you should focus on.

You shouldn’t focus on other activities like marketing or sales. You might already have your team members focusing on those. Delegate these tasks and assign these tasks based on their skills.

Equip the Right Tech Stack

If you search for the phrase “productivity app” on Google, you’ll come across a world full of options right in front of you.

That’s because the internet is flooded with thousands, if not millions, of productivity tools.

You need to find one that is a perfect fit for your company.

For example, Codegiant simplifies the development lifecycle, as it allows companies to plan, build and ship great software the smart way. This results in higher productivity. So, if you are an IT company founder or a project manager looking for brilliant project manager software, Codegiant will do wonders for your business.

While looking for the right tools for your business, make sure that you thoroughly review its features and benefits. Understand how a tool can lead to higher productivity.

Carry out thorough research and learn what their past customers have to say.

Test each tool before you implement it.

And if it’s a paid one, make sure that it holds the potential to deliver a positive return on investment.

We’ll talk more about this in the “4 Productivity Apps/Tools Worth Getting Your Hands On” section.

Stay tuned!

But until then, let’s focus on the remaining three productivity tips.

I know you are excited — and so am I.

Focus on Your Employees’ Happiness & Well-Being

85% of employees are unhappy.

That’s the percentage of people that hate their jobs.

And I am not throwing a completely random number to catch your attention.

This was uncovered in a global poll conducted by Gallup.

If you are not focusing on your employees’ happiness and well-being, your employees already belong to the 85% list.

A few of the reasons why your employees may be unhappy include:

• Not being paid enough
• Poor work-life balance
• No room for progression
• Boring daily routine
• Having a long commute
• Poor company culture
• Private life issues
• Disliking the boss
• Disliking the colleagues
• Disliking the working hours

It can be anything.

But, if your employees are unhappy, then it’ll in turn result in lower productivity.

Hence, it’s crucial to focus on your employees’ happiness.

Setting unrealistic expectations or imposing unrealistic deadlines will not make things easier.

Come up with innovative ideas to bring a smile to your employees’ faces. Make sure that they love their time at work.

Moreover, look after their health — both physical and mental.

Doing this will lead to higher job satisfaction.

Your employees will likely recommend your business if you focus on and support their well-being efforts. In fact, they would love nothing more than leaving five-star feedback.

53% of employees have claimed that better access to a company’s wellness program helps them focus on their health.

Another interesting observation was that companies that focus on their employees’ health have a lower number of employees requesting sick leaves.

I’ve met project managers that ask employees to work even when they are sick.

That’s so inhumane.

Nothing is more important than health.

Implement a flexible work schedule.

Make sure that your employees don’t feel stressed out or worried.

Help your team members achieve a good work-life balance.

Invest in programs that will help your employees stay fit for life.

But don’t just invest in these programs just for the sake of it.

Most companies make this mistake. They seriously neglect the benefits of an incredible wellness program.

And lastly, motivate your employees to participate in these wellness programs.

Fix Workflow Issues

Your team’s workflow determines your business’s success.

Any issues will result in inefficiency and a lack of productivity.

Reach out to your team members and ask them their honest opinions on workflow issues.

What if your team members face a hard time finding the required documents?

Or what if there’s poor collaboration between different departments?

Maybe an inefficient approval process is in place.

Such workflow issues will seriously tamper with your team’s productivity.

Prepare a list of these issues. Prioritize this process.

And once you have the final list of workflow issues, consider looking for solutions that’ll help you capitalize on these issues.

Look for a brilliant productivity app like Codegiant that’ll make things simpler for you.

Implement a No-Bullshit Meetings Policy

“The least productive people are the ones
who are always in favor of holding meetings.”
- Thomas Sowell

I seriously hate those ineffective and pointless meetings.

According to him, these meetings do nothing but drain employees’ energy levels, stamina, and brainpower.

Professionals lose about 31 hours every month attending ineffective meetings.

And the worst part is that these meetings don’t even have an agenda.

Once you do come out of these meetings, you’ll need time to recover.

Nothing affects productivity more than these ineffective brain-sucking meetings.

71% of employees waste time each week due to unnecessary meetings. Whereas, 45% report that they feel overwhelmed attending useless meetings.

Cancel the meetings that can be easily avoided. Most importantly, cancel the ones that have no agendas.

At Codegiant, we have a no-useless meetings policy in place. And we’ve never seen our employees complaining about such pointless meetings.

So, if you think that your team is spending three-four or more hours each day attending meetings, serious action is required.

Try to cut down on these pointless meetings.

And when you do, trust me — you’ll not only put a smile on your team members’ faces but also witness a spike in productivity.

Apply these seven game-changing tips to increase productivity in business.

At the same time, if you haven’t already, consider investing in a reliable productivity app or tool like Codegiant.

Next, we’ll look at the four best productivity tools that you can use to skyrocket office productivity.

4 Incredible Productivity Apps or Tools to Boost Employee Productivity

And here I present in front of you the list of the four most incredible productivity apps that’ll help you increase your workplace productivity like nothing else:

• Codegiant
• Slack
• Google Docs
• Salesforce CRM

NOTE: There are ’n’ number of productivity apps out there that you can get your hands on. In this article, I’ve listed down the ones we use at Codegiant for different purposes. Every single one of these productivity tools serves different purposes. For example, Slack is an instant messaging app, whereas Codegiant is a brilliant project management productivity app.

Let’s tap into the power of each of these tools one-by-one.

Codegiant

Of course, we are biased. But the reason I have mentioned Codegiant here isn’t that we want to badly market our platform.

No — that’s not the case.

The reason why businesses should consider tapping into Codegiant is that it’s one of the best project management tools out there for developers.

Codegiant offers a clean UI and multiple outstanding features to help project managers and entrepreneurs turn the management process easier.

This in turn results in higher productivity and allows you to get work done.

And for those who aren’t already aware of our platform, Codegiant is a fully functional project management software geared towards developers.

Some of its outstanding features include:

• Issue Tracker that offers Kanban & Scrum boards
• Time tracking
• Linking tasks
• Drag & Drop
• Comments
• Status Pages that’ll allow you to easily communicate real-time status with your users.
• Website’s Performance Monitoring
• Codepods
• Serverless Workflows
• Tasks & Sub-tasks
• Fully-Integrated workflow for software developers
• Detailed documentation guide for API
• Documentation tool, allowing companies to turn the documentation process smoother
• Seamless integration with Slack
• Story points
• Git repositories with a Web-IDE

Thousands of businesses prefer Codegiant over its competitors because of its clean UI and the unbelievably smooth experience it provides.

Slack

At Codegiant, we use Slack for our internal team communication. That’s because it’s the #1 team collaboration and communication software on the world wide web.

Every single one of us at Codegiant loves it.

And that’s the reason we have put in place a seamless integration with Slack, just to make things easier for you.

As highlighted by our VP of Engineering, good communication is the cornerstone of good teamwork.

And you can always take your discussions on Slack by communicating with your team members, creating separate channels that serve different purposes, share documents, and much more.

Some of Slack’s incredible features are:

• Real-time messaging
• Archiving
• Intelligent search functionalities
• Ability to upload and download big files
• Ability to view code snippets without losing formatting
• Seamless integration
• Personalize user profiles
• And many more!

Google Docs

Google Docs, in my opinion, is one of the best office suites there is.

With G-Docs, you can easily create, access, write, collaborate and edit documents on your tablet, phone or computer.

And the best part is that you can even work offline.

You don’t need an active internet connection to create and write documents.

It’s by far one of the most reliable document editors.

As a writer, I can say that G-Docs is an ‘angel in disguise.’

On top of this, you can choose from a variety of resumes, reports as well as other pre-made documents to make things much easier.

Google Docs even allows team members to collaborate in an efficient manner. Depending on the level of permission you grant, your team members can view, edit or comment on the documents.

And the best part is that you can get your hands on Google Workspace — which allows businesses to share their documents with added security.

Some of the other incredible features of Google Workspace include:

• Comment, Chat & Real-Time Edit
• Works with all popular file types
• Unlimited revision history
• Work across different devices
• Easy-to-manage sharing controls
• Seamless integration with different platforms
• Cutting edge cloud security
• Better control for teams

Salesforce CRM

Building the highest-quality product is critical.

What’s equally important is having all of your customer and client information and interactions in one place.

And that’s exactly what Customer Relationship Management software can help you with.

Research reveals that a reliable CRM software can increase workplace productivity by 34%.

The reasons why businesses should incorporate CRM into their tech stack are:

• Helps center business growth around the customers
• Aligns sales, marketing, and sales teams
• Syncs and shares data with ease
• Automates daily tasks
• Allows to create workflows
• Simplifies customer interactions
• Builds custom dashboards and reports that matter

Salesforce CRM will allow your employees to find your customers, retrieve their information, grow accounts, and close deals efficiently.

This CRM is packed with innovative features focused on helping businesses boost their sales revenue, improve customer satisfaction rates and grow their business.

Also, you can easily track your customer interactions, even while on the go. So, no more having to log in to your laptop every time you want to fetch your customer information or interaction.

Alongside this, you can gain real-time insights, all thanks to Salesforce’s highly configurable dashboards and reports.

Let’s shift our focus towards the CRMs features:

• Contact management
• Opportunity management
• Lead management
• Configurable reports and dashboards
• Ease of accessibility
• Email integration
• Comprehensive sales forecasting
• Workflows and approvals
• Files sync and share
• Sales collaboration
• Territory management
• Partner management
• And more!

Ready to Boost Your Workplace Productivity?

While producing this guide, I came across numerous mind-blowing quotes. But, here’s one that did catch my attention:

“Good employees don’t leave companies; they leave managers/bosses.”

This doesn’t mean that you should leave your business in the hands of your employees entirely. Instead, what I mean is that if you take the much-needed steps to increase workplace productivity, your employees would love nothing more than delivering results. In fact, they’ll even give your company a five-star rating, allowing you to attract talented individuals from all across the world and grow your business.

Try to make things easier for everyone within the workplace using the seven brilliant productivity tips I’ve mentioned in this guide. And while doing so, don’t forget to load your tech stack with brilliant world-class tools like Codegiant.

And if you are in charge of a software development company, check out our “The Best 40 Development Tools” guide today.