One of the major areas that managers and executives focus on today is that of productivity across their company. After measuring productivity throughout an organization, how can managers improve workers’ productivity and efficiency? Utilizing metacognition strategies may be one solution in which a team can consider “task orientation, activity level, and task management” in order to boost production levels, according to Quartz at Work.
Along with using metacognition strategies to think about how to perform better, it is vital to utilize the right tools to improve task management, focus on quality instead of quantity, and have supervisors who avoid micromanaging. In addition, it is useful to avoid multitasking, to have managers who delegate tasks effectively across a team, to take breaks, and to take part in self-care. By following these steps, the productivity of your team will reach the highest levels.
The following topics will help you learn more about the benefits of metacognition strategies and how to perform better at work.
- Productivity Depends on the Individual Workers
- Task Orientation
- The Activity Level Should be Based on Purpose
- Task Management and Delegation
- Metacognition Strategies Help Students Perform Better
- The Tools and Strategies Needed for Quality Team Task Management
- Additional Ways to Improve Productivity
- Project Management Software Essential for Boosting Productivity
Productivity Depends on the Individual Workers
Whichever organizational tool or whatever technologies are used, the productivity of a company falls directly on the shoulders of the individual workers. Essentially, every employee’s ability to transition between tasks, skill set, prioritizing abilities, and coordination between tasks will be what determines the overall productivity levels of a company.
In order to better analyze these skills and help improve these abilities among workers, managers and company leaders are advised to utilize metacognition strategies, which focus on the “how” behind thinking. There are three parts to this including orienting yourself around a task, basing activities around a purpose, and managing tasks.
Task Orientation
When making the best choices for a company, managers and employees will need to consider focusing on tasks that are relevant and important for the organization. In addition, workers need to feel that they can succeed in the tasks set before them.
Essentially, task orientation involves employees identifying the most important tasks and being willing to put in their greatest effort to accomplish the assignments effectively in order to benefit their team and company. Task orientation involves having the drive and a sense of purpose to accomplish a task.
As such, it is beneficial to base activities and tasks around a purpose, which may be based on the company’s mission.
The Activity Level Should be Based on Purpose
There is a clear difference between general busy work and performing activities that have a purpose behind them. Busy work can be considered as overall activity while purposeful work is related to focused and applied activity.
The best employees at any company are often focused on how they can improve outcomes for the organization and often spend most of their time on applied, focused activities. These employees are focused on their career goals as well as the company mission and are able to combine the two areas to their advantage.
Often, people who are focused on their work in such a manner are considered “in the zone” and have a rather streamlined way of completing their tasks. Task management is another key area of productivity.
Task Management and Delegation
Task management is often one of the most difficult areas to master when it comes to boosting productivity levels and utilizing metacognition strategies. Managers and supervisors have the main task of delegating assignments based on employees’ skill levels and time management abilities. However, the reason that task delegation may prove difficult is because some employees may be assigned a task that is outside their skill range, too challenging, or takes up more time than they have.
As such, it will be essential for managers to learn who in their team is best suited to complete specific tasks and assignments. It is helpful for managers to note where employees struggle and where they feel most comfortable as well as observing the tasks where the greatest success is reached.
Along with the benefits seen in the corporate world, metacognition strategies have been proven to help students improve their grades.
Metacognition Strategies Help Students Perform Better
A Stanford study found that children who were taught how to think about their study habits or utilize metacognition strategies performed better in school than their peers, according to a Quartz article.
“All too often, students just jump mindlessly into studying before they have even strategized what to use, without understanding why they are using each resource, and without planning out how they would use the resource to learn effectively,” Patricia Chen, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford, told the news source. “I find this very unfortunate because it undermines their own potential to learn well and perform well.”
In this study, researchers held two experiments in which a number of college students were given prompts to think more carefully about their study habits and to think more effectively about how to study to do well on an exam. The students in the control group were only given a reminder that their exam was coming up and to prepare.
The results show that students who spent time thinking about their study habits and what they needed to do to perform better had better grades on the exam by one-third of a letter grade. Additionally, students who received the intervention prompts two times did better than students who received it only once.
This clearly shows how metacognition strategies can be helpful both in school as well as in the workplace. Next, we cover some more important strategies for team task management.
The Tools and Strategies Needed for Quality Team Task Management
In order to improve team task management across the board, it is helpful to follow the steps below.
- Hold weekly meeting in-person or via Skype.
- Use cloud-based software tools as well as time management software to organize schedules, assignments, and deadlines.
- Employ project management tools to work on assignments with employees located remotely or in different cities.
- Use mobile phone apps to hold video calls, track emails, and message co-workers more quickly.
- Focus on boosting performance and quality of work instead of quantity or the time spent at work. Keep reasonable deadlines, but be sure that quality of work isn’t compromised.
- Avoid micromanaging your team so that employees can take on more responsibility.
In addition, company leaders will need to learn how to appropriately delegate tasks in order to effectively manage their team. Delegating tasks can be essential for boosting productivity across the board.
As the supervisor, you will need to know when to delegate certain parts of a project and when to hold onto certain assignments and complete them yourself. You will need to consider how much control over a project you want to have. For instance, companies often have blogs on their website to attract more customers. As the manager, you’ll need to consider whether you want to edit the first draft of a blog article or whether another team member can perform this step.
Lastly, it is beneficial to discuss why workers should avoid multitasking and provide some final steps for improving productivity across your team.
Additional Ways to Improve Productivity
Many may think that productivity is enhanced when workers are continually multitasking. However, this is only a myth and the truth actually finds that multitasking hurts the efficiency of a team. For example, imagine driving a car and texting or talking on the phone at the same time.
It is often against the law to both text and drive. This is because drivers are much more likely to end up in a car accident if they are distracted by their phone. As such, it is clear that multitasking is more distracting and less helpful for anyone to accomplish a task. Therefore, it is advised for workers to avoid multitasking.
Some other ways to help employees learn how to focus on work and improve productivity include:
- Taking regular breaks, which has shown to improve concentration;
- Taking part in self-care to boost mental and physical health;
- Limiting the amount of time spent on work so that employees have free time;
- Creating a comfortable work environment.
By following these steps, managers and their team members will likely be more productive across the board. It is also essential to utilize project management tools such as Runrun.it software to ensure assignments are completed on time and reach quality levels.
Project Management Software Essential for Boosting Productivity
You will find that project management tools like the Runrun.it system is essential for improving productivity throughout your company. This collaboration tool is excellent at keeping your team completing assignments in a timely manner while adhering to high performance levels. You’ll see that this project management software is effective at keeping your team motivated and your assignments more streamlined.
Communication across team members will be more transparent with this tool while the workflow will lack the usual bottlenecks. Click here to check out a free trial for Runrun.it software.
