How to keep the production office productive and motivated

Manufacturing is an incredibly challenging industry to work in, but get your approach right, and it can also be one of the most rewarding career paths.

We read a lot about productivity in the digital age, but the countless blogs, articles and social media shares on the subject all too often focus on digital industries. What about one of the oldest and most relied upon of them all?

Surely, manufacturing can benefit from a positive approach to productivity too, can’t it?

We think it can, which is why we’d like to take this opportunity to help you light a fire (not literally, obviously) under your production office. What follows is our favourite productivity tips for keeping production offices in manufacturing businesses motivated and capable of the best possible output.

Make the quality of the working environment second to none

You’d be surprised by how much our surroundings affect our productivity levels.

The wrong shade of wall colour, poorly placed desks and ill-thought placement of devices that are in regular use can impact a team’s ability to get things done swiftly and to their best ability.

This is why you should take time to carefully plan the layout, colour scheme and use of space within your production office. Encourage staff members to add their own touches, too – whatever it is that makes them feel productive and keen to get cracking every morning.

Don’t be tight with tools, machinery and equipment

Whatever your production office needs to be productive, ensure they’re given it.

More importantly, ensure they’re given the best tools to do their job. If you scrimp and save on the stuff they need, you’ll lower their satisfaction levels and force them to work with substandard tools.

There will be large investments required to do this, of course, but they will pay for themselves, tenfold in the quality and efficiency of your production office’s output.

Provide ample autonomy

Providing production office staff with enough autonomy to leave them to it while ensuring they can still receive the support and supervision they need is a difficult balancing act.

However, in order to ensure the team is as productive as possible, you need to offer as much autonomy as possible. And, at times, it might feel like an uncomfortable level which will needlessly lead to errors, but that brings us onto our next point…

Reward failure

If you’re scratching your head at this point, time for a quick disclaimer: if someone royally messes up through gross negligence, they don’t deserve to be rewarded.

This productivity tip refers to the human errors we’re all capable of making. The errors that happen when we head into something with the absolute best intentions, and the errors that we had no intention of making.

Failure is important, because it teaches us not to repeat the same mistakes. If your production office doesn’t fear mistakes, it will be more inventive and far braver. And, while that won’t always result in the best output, it will eventually raise their productivity levels as they learn from their failures.

Listen

“My door is always open,” said many a manager. Only, how many managers really put that into practice?

For your production office to be ultimately productive, the staff within need to know they can always approach their manager if they have a question, concern or challenge that needs addressing.

Make it ultra clear that listening is a skill the management team is comfortable using, and productivity levels will rise. The reason? There won’t be anything that goes unsaid, and anyone who needs support in order to complete a job will know they’ll be heard if they reach out for it.

Make sure goals and targets are ultra clear

It’s hard to be productive if you’re not particularly sure what the goals you’re working towards are.

That’s why the goals and targets you set your production team need to be ultra clear. Set them, communicate them, and then ask everyone to make sure they’re fully understood.

Encourage feedback, too. What have you got wrong with your goal setting? Why isn’t a particular target clear? You probably won’t get this stuff right first time, and taking feedback from staff within the production team isn’t a sign that you’ve failed.

Sniff out negativity, and work to remove it

Negativity breeds negativity, and what might otherwise be a very positive, productive production office can quickly collapse if there’s a hint of resentment for what’s trying to be achieved.

Unfortunately, it only takes one person to topple the entire team, which is why it’s so important to sniff out negativity whenever you first detect it (or it’s first reported) and work to remove it.

That doesn’t mean sacking the offending employee, either. Instead, talk to them. Find out what’s wrong. What is it that is fuelling their negativity?

You never know, solving the problem might be a lot easier than you think, and once you’ve stamped out the negativity within your team, they can all crack on unhindered.

Celebrate every single instance of success, no matter how seemingly small it might be

Every win within your production office needs to be celebrated.

Whether that’s someone who has invented an entirely new way of running a process that will save the business hundreds of thousands of pounds in production costs each year, or someone who simply helped a colleague resolve a customer complaint, the “well done” needs to be hearty, and public.

Celebrating success doesn’t always need to be done in a financial way, either. A pat on the back can be just as heartfelt and meaningful as a few extra pounds on a payslip, so don’t feel you have to reach into the company purse in order to raise productivity.

And finally: remember the importance of training

The manufacturing industry moves fast, and if your production team isn’t able to keep up-to-speed with the latest techniques and trends, they’ll struggle to be productive against the competition.

This is where training is vital. And that doesn’t mean flash-in-the-pan training, either – you need to treat training as an ongoing investment for the production team.

Speak to your suppliers, too – they might be able to offer insight and inspiration for training you may have neglected. Just a day spent in the company of a knowledgeable trainer can raise the productivity in your production team tenfold, so this is one investment that will repay time and again.

We hope you’ve enjoyed reading these productivity techniques for production teams. You may not need them all, but we recommend asking yourself honestly where you might currently be falling short.