Companies like Google have been conducting studies for years to determine how to have the most successful workforce.

What secrets did they discover? Quietly replace staff with an army of robots? Harness the power of time travel to predict future social trends? Actually, the answer is far simpler than you might think…

1. Host Successful Team Meetings

In short, Google discovered that it is not who is in a group that determines it’s success (even when people in the group don’t get on). Quite simply it is how people communicate with one another.

They discovered that they got the best ideas from a team and everyone felt that they had participated through a combination of 3 things:

• equality and turn taking
• Genuine listening and eye contact
• Feeling free to express an opinion and ask questions

2. Build Appreciation

A key to business success is – Make your employees feel appreciated (if that seems to tough then you might want to think about those robots).

Here are a few ideas which are relatively simple to execute:

• Have regular appraisals, take the opportunity to thank your employees for their hard work and loyalty to the company
• Buy them lunch (who doesn’t appreciate a free lunch)
• Get a personalised mug for each employee, this will make them feel valued and cut down work on the washing up, win, win.
• Have a Team building day
• Take them on a day/night out
• Treat them to a fun workshop. Keep your eyes peeled for events in your local area!
• Go paperless, it’s less mess and less stress (a professional organiser can be helpful if you’re struggling)

When all is said and done, productivity comes down to happiness, if a person enjoys their work and feels appreciated they will likely perform better. Why not try some of these tips and improve your staff productivity?