When you own your own business you want to get the most out of your employees that you can. After all, you aren’t paying them to sit around. If they complain that they are bored or you catch them sitting around not doing much, you may need to provide some boredom busters for your business.
1. Brainstorm with Your Staff
When days are slow and everyone is bored, ask for your staff and coworkers input to liven things up. They might have some really good ideas of new projects that will improve business.
In addition, your staff could have ideas of how to make customer service or even products or services better. Just don’t forget to give to give credit where credit is due afterward.
2. Give Employees New Projects
If you know of new projects that need to be done but have been getting put off, now is the time to tackle them. Give employees these tasks when things slow down or they are bored to add a new challenge to their day.
You can also have your staff work on increasing efficiency or make improvements to processes they already do. Or, put them to work updating manuals, forms, and other office work that normally gets put off.
3. Provide Training
When business slows and everyone is bored, send your staff to training seminars that will both improve their abilities and help your business grow. You can also cross train employees when things get slow to improve the running of your business.
Another idea is to send your employees to a class. For example, if you have a high population of Spanish speaking customers, have someone take a class on Spanish. This would help bridge the communication barrier and could speed things up saving your business money in the long run.
4. Visit Other Departments
Does your business have more than one department? If so, allow them to take shifts visiting another area to learn more about it.
When everyone depends on one another but doesn’t understand the whole picture it can cause mistakes and workplace squabbles. Give staff the ability to gain appreciation for each other and work more harmoniously by seeing what everyone else’s role is.
5. Add Fun to the Work Day
There are lots of ways to add fun to the work day and break up a monotonous routine. When you and your team are bored with doing the same old thing, change it up a bit.
For example, you could decorate for an upcoming holiday or plan an office potluck. Or, assign a different person to come up with a motivational quote to share each week.
6. Reorganize Messy Areas
Most businesses have a supply closet that needs cleaned out once in a while. But, it could just be your own desk the needs organized, too. Grab a trash can and purge what needs thrown away.
Put files where they go or replace dog-eared folders that are old.
There are lots of ways to add a bit of excitement to your business if you look for them and try a few. Use these 6 boredom busters to keep productivity at its highest and beat the humdrums.
