Let’s face it: Every business has a downtime –the time when it slows down. For some, it’s a seasonal thing but, for others, employee downtime takes place on a daily basis. So, what should you do? Cross your hands and wait for the idle time to pass over? Or, be prepared to slow down to speed up later? In this article, we’ll talk about 5 potent ways your employees can constructively utilize downtime so that you’re back on track in a jiffy. But, first let’s take a look at some common reasons behind downtime in the workplace.
Common Causes of Downtime in the Office
According to a Forrester market study titled “The State of IT Resiliency and Preparedness”, the five leading causes behind downtime in the workplace include:
- Power Outages
- IT Hardware, Software or Network Failures
- Human Error
- Hurricanes
- Floods
You’d be surprised to know that nearly one-third of organizations have experienced some kind of a disaster in the last five years that resulted in downtime at work. And, only 2% of these organizations recovered from their most recent incidents within an hour.
But, why is downtime such a bad thing?Because it results in loss of productivity, loss of business opportunities, potential clients, and low employee moral. So, how do you maximize your downtime to minimize these losses? Below are a few tried and tested ways.
5 Ways to Handle Downtime at Work
1. Plan Ahead
Impulsiveness is the flavor of life, but a recipe that just focuses on the flavor isn’t going to satiate your hunger.
Similarly, depending on impulsiveness for your downtime will probably result in your employees gossiping about each other or taking part in office politics. So, how to ensure that they use this time productively? Simple! Plan your downtime before it actually approaches you. Regularly monitor your systems to check for possible faults and prioritize maintenance. Keep your back up systems ready so that you don’t have to wait for repair. You should have a foolproof strategic maintenance policy in place that offers a good outline of maintenance measures, and recommendations on how to handle upkeep snags. Also, plan activities, ventures, and procedures ahead for your employees so that they know what to do during downtime instead of spending time on social media.
2. Arrange Brainstorming Sessions
Downtime is actually the best time to plan brainstorming sessions for your employees.
Supervisors at times overlook just how imaginative their workers are. When times are slow, you can arrange discussions about how to advance procedures, upsurge profits, and increase quality. Encourage all your employees to participate and you’d be surprised to see how much hidden talent you have in the company.
During downtime, arrange a spontaneous meeting, and encourage everyone to share ideas. These get-togethers may start gradually in the beginning, but when teamed up with real action and inclination to transform, these meetings will motivate your workforces to contribute more and participate in business development. As a result, you’ll have more ideas and eager contributors.
3. Encourage and Empower Learning & Development
If you own a learning management system or any other online training tool, downtime is the right time to use it. Incessant training means to inculcate new skills and knowledge in your workers that they can apply to execute their jobs more effectively. You’ll witness how improving skills of your employees upsurges business success and worker input. During downtimes, keep training possibilities at hand. Develop bite-sized courses that your employees can avail even on their smartphones so that they don’t have to rely on workstations. Offer more flexible learning options and you’ll observe how your workers enjoy schedule flexibility and a greater diversity in their work.
Additionally, by having a better insight of every staff role, workers are more considerate of one another’s roles and more cooperative in the office. Robust and highly spirited workers are the outcome while refining the capability of a business to survive complications in the workplace.
4. Carry out Informal Appraisals
The majority of the businesses have systematic appraisal procedures that necessitate official appraisals on a regular basis, typically once a year. However, a year is a lengthy period to wait for reviews. Frequent reliable, verbal response from a supervisor is essential for workers to advance and to add value.
During the slow times, you can conduct informal reviews that don’t have to be a frightening experience for your workers. Keep it simple, just ask how things are going, and let them know the positive things you’ve observed about them and how they can progress further.
Downtimes are the best opportunity for these discussions as there’s perhaps no harm in removing a worker from duty for ten minutes or so. Besides, the discussion can be quickly concluded if the work is resumed.
5. Maintain a To-Do List
One of the best ways you can maximize downtime in the office is to keep a to-do list that includes all possible activities that your employees can do during slow times. Some of these activities include such things as a systematic cleaning, maintaining catalogues, inspecting stocks, and formulating resources to increase productivity.
Now these activities don’t have to be always work-related or plain boring. You can also include fun activities such as mind games, quizzes that test their knowledge, books about self-improvement and more.
Place this list somewhere where your workers can refer to it during downtimes. And, remind workers of these add-ons that are desirable for everybody to prosper.
Key Takeaway
Downtime is inevitable and can result in significant damages for your business in terms of revenue and customers. Not to forget the expenditures involved in mending the equipment.
While it seems to be a daunting task, you can maximize downtime in the workplace by implementing the five ways mentioned in this article.
Author Bio:
Ehsan Memari is a blogger for SkyPrep, a provider of leading online training software for organizations to train employees partners and customers. Ehsan is a regular contributor to blog posts related to knowledge sharing, L&D and eLearning. Follow him on Twitter @ememari
