9 Ways to Encourage Productivity

Getting the best work out of a talented, but under-motivated and under-utilized work staff has kept behavioral psychologists busy for decades. And nothing is more challenging than curing employees’ short attention span during the summer months, when distractions run rampant.

About 30 years ago, Swedish psychologist Göran Ekvall set to work to come up with a reasonably uncomplicated method to help employers know if they were getting the peak performance out of their employees during non-peak periods. He developed these nine everyday workplace measurements that are important in creating the kind of environment that encourages productivity:

1) Freedom: Are people at your workplace encouraged to find new ways to get things done?
2) Challenge and Involvement: Do workers care about – and take ownership in – their work?
3) Idea Time: Set aside time to discuss and develop new ideas as well as better ways of doing business.
4) Idea Support: Is there a marketplace of ideas where coworkers can encourage each other?
5)Debate: With Idea Support in place, you should feel free to actively discuss a variety of opinions.
6)Trust and Openness: A follow-up to Idea Support: Do coworkers feel comfortable enough to openly discuss their ideas with colleagues?
7)Conflicts: A variant on Trust and Openness: When conflicts arise, resolve them.
Playfulness/Humor: One solution to Conflicts: Relax, crack a joke, and enjoy what you’re working on.
9)Risk-Taking: No one is penalized for failure or thinking outside the box.

Dr. Ekvall’s criteria have been formally packaged in a business-motivational tool called the Situational Outlook Questionnaire. The Creative Problem Solving Group Inc. is the formal distributor of the test. Additionally, the organization offers workshops and courses to encourage innovation in all types of workplaces.

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