When Your Open Positions Vanish, It's Time to Boost Team Productivity
Struggling with unfilled positions? Discover how to boost your team’s productivity through actionable strategies that empower your team and improve work efficiency—no new hires required!
What do you do when those open positions you were desperate to fill suddenly disappear? If you were relying on these hires to reduce your overwhelming workload, you’re in a tough spot. The immediate thought might be to do nothing, but what does that really cost your team? What’s the cost of losing hope, morale, and key talent?
The choice is clear. You can either do nothing—or take proactive steps to boost your team’s productivity and engagement by improving the work itself.
The Good News
The good news is that you don’t need to make up for lost positions with dramatic changes. A 10-20% productivity boost can often be achieved quickly and effectively. What’s even better? Involving your team in this process not only drives results, it boosts ownership and engagement. And the best part: once you unlock these productivity gains, you can repeat and scale them, always staying ahead of the curve when changes come.
Three Ways to Improve Productivity
The key to unlocking your team’s potential is to start thinking of work as a product and yourself as the owner, designer, and product manager of your team’s portfolio of tasks. Here are three ways this perspective can help you achieve a 30% increase in productivity:
Eliminate Low-Value Work: Identify tasks that offer minimal value and explore eliminating or automating them. This could give you a quick 10% productivity boost.
Streamline Processes: Look for inefficiencies in your team’s workflow—whether through automation, better practices, or fewer meetings—that can save time and effort, driving another 10%.
Increase Work’s Value: Empower your team to add more value through data insights, innovation, or stronger business partnerships. This final 10% can significantly elevate both your team and your business.
Steps to Take Action
Here’s how you can implement these improvements in a structured way:
Assess Current Workload: Review how your team spends its time. Categorize tasks by their value and determine what could be eliminated or streamlined. What can be cut or automated to improve efficiency?
Engage Your Team: Ask for feedback on what hinders their productivity and where improvements can be made. Identify pain points and areas for collaboration. Engaging your team directly will increase ownership and help you uncover the most pressing issues.
Define Your Future State: Create a concrete vision and break that vision down into actionable projects. What are the opportunities for improvement, and how will they shape the future of your team’s work?
Implement Agile Improvement Sprints: Organize the team into sprints to tackle specific pain points, ensuring they have the autonomy to come up with solutions. Set clear expectations, celebrate both successes and learning moments, and continuously improve.
Manage Work like a Product Manager: Embrace your role as manager of the work your organization delivers. Proactively design work processes, expand responsibilities, and leverage technology. Stay closely connected with key stakeholders (boss, functional partners, and customers) to get their input and support for your improvement roadmap.
Embracing the Change
Fixing work requires an investment. You’ll need time to work on the business, not just in the business. Getting started may be tough, with everyone already stretched thin, but the long-term benefits are worth the effort:
In the short run, just the first three steps will help energize the team and create clarity for how to get to a better place.
In the mid-term, over the course of just a few months, you will likely see a significant improvement in productivity and engagement.
In the long run, you’ll have a playbook for leveling up your team’s performance and be ready for whatever comes next.
Conclusion
With no new hires on the horizon, doing nothing isn’t an option. By embracing the role of product owner and focusing on improving the design and efficiency of work, you can achieve significant productivity and engagement gains. The investment in this process will pay off in the short, medium, and long term—giving your team the energy and clarity they need to thrive.
To learn more about how we can help you and your team tackle your most pressing productivity and engagement issues, join our free webinar. Reserve your spot today!