Efficiency is not just about working faster. It is based on the effective management of the four elements of human energy: spiritual, emotional, physical and mental. Efficiency truly depends on the tenacity, focus and commitment of the employee. An efficient home service employee is passionate and engaged in everything he does.

To promote efficiency, you need to do three things deliberately as a business:

1. Provide a growth environment: This is the type of environment where growth is nurtured, expected and supported.

2. Establish a foundation of trust and respect: People are inspired when they are respected for the value they bring to their work and their team. 

3. Promote collaboration and partnership: This is about working together with employees to find out what they need, what works for them and what can be improved to make things operate at their absolute best. 

Your company can’t just push efficiency on employees, though. They have to realize that efficiency is critical to their personal success. They have to buy into the overall vision that efficiency will lead to mutual success for them and your business.

Better tools

Companies can motivate their employees to work more efficiently by removing the boundaries limiting efficiency. It means providing better tools, technologies and resources to help employees get creative with optimizing their efficiency.

Your company must allow employees to test, fail, learn and improve continually. Your highest-performing employees are already self-motivated, but your support helps keep them motivated to provide the best and most efficient service to your customers.

One way to measure efficiency is through tracking and analyzing time-based metrics to give employees immediate feedback on their performance. Any good business management software can help employees take the guesswork out of the prioritization of the most important and profitable tasks and empower them to solve complex problems.

Fostering engagement

One key metric of efficiency is engagement. How engaged are your employees in their work? Do they show up to work consistently ready to give their best? Are they put in a position to contribute at a maximum level? Are their personal needs being satisfied? 

Engaged employees bring their whole selves to work every day, no matter the circumstances. They strive to get the best results for themselves and the company. These employees stay close to the fire — this means staying close to the things that matter most within their organization. They always seek to contribute in the most efficient ways or recommend new ways of doing things to better support the business. 

Winning behaviors

Succeeding in day-to-day work means playing a long game. It’s not about simply working as hard and as fast as you can. It’s about encouraging consistent habits and best practices. It’s about ensuring employee performance is consistent every day. 

Employees who aren’t efficient waste time and energy avoiding tough conversations and challenging people. They lack curiosity, hunger and humility. They also struggle with prioritizing the most impactful work items.

Winning behaviors are more mental than they are physical — positive self-talk, critical thinking and emotional intelligence all help drive teams and organizations to win daily. Cultivating positive behaviors will pay off.

Autonomy, or allowing your employees the independence to do their work without micromanagement, is a great driver for performance and efficiency. Autonomy empowers an individual to truly drive and own the results of their performance. When an employee does this, the results can be extraordinary; however, your business must have the right support systems in place to ensure their success. 

It requires building up your company culture with as much care as your service experts provide to your customers. A great company culture inspires employees in whatever role they fill in your business. You want to foster a positive environment where employees want to promote your business to other people as a great place to work.

Improving across-the-board efficiencies should be a goal for all people in a company, but remember that the race to success is not a sprint. When you focus on improving efficiency, you ensure that employees are constantly refreshed and are motivated to run another mile in the day-to-day marathon of serving your customers. Teamwork makes the dream work.