But this ad space

10 Common Workplace Problems That Can Ruin Employee’s Productivity

Photo of author
Written By Raymond Chiu

The success of a company might sometimes rely on its employee’s performance. The more effective and more productive your employee is, the better the results will be.

However, there may be times that even the best employees’ performances go down. You see, even a motivated employee will lose his energy when there are specific problems in the workplace. And the sooner you take care of those problems, the better it will be for your company.

Below, we have enumerated ten common workplace problems that are usually why your employees lose focus. 

1. Weak communication

Constant communication is essential in any relationship, including work relationships. But this does not mean you will keep telling your employees what to do all the time. That is wrong and will make things worse. 

Communication refers to letting your employees talk, also. Let them voice out their concerns, opinions, or feedback. An employee that loves his company usually thinks of ideas that will help improve the way they operate. You will never know this unless you allow them to speak. 

Opposite to that, you should also let them voice out their frustrations to create an action plan that will help solve them. If you do not do this, your employee might get frustrated every day until he decides to resign, and you would not even know why. 

We recommend creating a formal process that will document all the issues or suggestions your employees have. This could be a support email, monthly team huddle, a survey, or whatever ways you can think of that will help you get some information out of them. 

2. Lack of Recognition is a Big Workplace Problem

10 Common Workplace Problems That Can Ruin Productivity

Sometimes, employees lack motivation because they feel that their efforts aren’t appreciated. It makes them feel useless, and they’ll start thinking that they’ll only give the bare minimum because there is no use even if they exert effort. 

However, if you give them a simple good job or a pat on the back, that will significantly change your employee’s mood from okay to great. It is that simple and wouldn’t even take several minutes of your time. 

We advise that you create a recognition program with the documents and KPIs to determine who the best employee is. You can name an employee of the month and give extra incentive to that person. 

With this program, you can expect your employees to work harder to earn that recognition. But you must be fair here. 

3. Employee wellness

Your employee is the heart of your business, and that is a fact. It is not your customers or clients, and most especially not you; it is your employees. So, ensuring that they are well and healthy is very important. 

You might want to let that sick employee continue working, but it will not do well in his productivity. He might also end up making more mistakes. He will have to repeat, causing the process to slow down. 

To prevent this from happening, make sure to give them rest, and always remind them to value their health. You can start providing free healthy lunches or programs that tackle more on their mental health. 

4. Malfunctioning equipment

Even the most motivated employee gets frustrated with malfunctioning equipment. If you want your processes to run smoothly, you must ensure that all equipment runs without any problems. It doesn’t matter whether it is a broken chair, a speaker, a printer, and more. 

Providing employees with clear-cut instructions for admin tasks and duties such as printing and scanning can help you prevent common issues. A quality functional office quipped with easy-to-use devices goes a long way. For instance, you use multifunctional office printers which will help organize the company’s printing process with easy access and manuals.

Create a system that will let your employees report any issues they find fast so that you can take care of them more quickly too. 

5. Poor organizational structure

Poor organizational structure

The next thing you need to check is the organization structure, which refers to the whole system or how things should go. 

Let’s take a look at a content writing company, for example:

  • The process would start with you giving a topic.
  • Your assistant will then assign a writer to write this out. 
  • Once the writer is done, he will pass it to the editor. 
  • The editor will then edit the draft and give it to the designer to upload it to the website. 
  • After that, the designer will pass this to a quality design checker to ensure that everything is okay before publishing. 

The goal here is to create good quality content, so it must pass by different eyes before it is ready to publish. 

A good organizational structure or system will allow you to reach one goal even if you do not do the same tasks. A visual board should aid your team members to see the whole process. 

6. No proper training

You might have hired your employee because you are impressed with his skills. But do not just stop there. Improvements should be made. Hence, training is necessary. 

Your employees must know about your process. It will also help if you are open to suggestions on how people can work effectively. Doing so gives them a sense of autonomy. And it will also allow them to be efficient at work. 

7. Poor management and supervision

How you manage your employees will also have an impact on their productivity.

Good management starts by explaining the performance plan to your employee upon hiring. Let them know what you expect from them and continuously update them, whether monthly or after three months, regarding how well they did. 

This way, they know that you care about them improving and that you are there to help. You should also try not to micromanage as this will only lead to slowing down of work. Plus, it will create an impression on your employees that you don’t trust them. 

Have a great attitude, too, and let your employees feel that they can come to you if they need help with anything. 

8. Workplace environment

Sometimes, when many things need to be done, we tend to overlook the importance of a clean environment.

If your workplace is clean, everything appears to be more professional, making everyone motivated to do better. You get to eliminate distractions, avoid stress, and improve efficiency and productivity. 

9. Office politics

Office politics is inevitable in the company, causing lots of problems, especially for new hires. Having an organisational chart and making everyone understand their roles will help bring office politics to a minimum.

It is best if you can create activities that will improve the connections of employees with each other. But most importantly, you should always be fair so that no issues will arise. 

10. No Work-Life balance

10 Common Workplace Problems That Can Ruin Productivity

Everyone desires a work-life balance. If you can provide it to your employees, they will be more motivated, focused, and productive they become.

You should not allow your employees to spend most of their time working. This will likely result in overwork, causing them to burn out and become less productive. 

You should motivate your employees to try out new hobbies that will help them destress. Automate your systems so things would get faster, and your employee will not have to take overtime. 

Sometimes, an employee’s motivation highly depends on how you take care of them. If you can provide them with a great workplace, no one would want to leave. Plus, you can expect great results from them.

If you think you are facing one or more of the workplace problems above, immediately find a solution to them. You will be surprised to see the boost in your employees’ productivity.

Disclaimer. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of IdeasPlusBusiness.com. Any content provided by our bloggers or authors is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

For questions, inquiries and advert placements on the blog, please send an email to the Editor at ideasplusbusiness[at]gmail[dot]com. You can also follow IdeasPlusBusiness.com on Twitter here and like our page on Facebook here. This website contains affiliate links to some products and services. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you.