An inspired workforce can make a world of difference in terms of productivity. What defines an inspired workforce is having employees that connect with the company’s vision and strive to be leaders in the organization. An inspired workforce thrives through autonomy. By allowing their key team members to work on their own and build their own department, bigger ideas can come to fruition through independence and passion.
An accountable workforce can make a significant impact in terms of efficiency. What defines an accountable workforce is having employees that meet or exceed deadlines and expectations on projects. Accountability allows for team members to be relied on to see tasks through to completion. It’s important to have day to day delivery of the company’s purpose regardless of size and scope.
In most Coworking and shared spaces in operation, inspiration is what sets the space different from the others. With autonomy, there is room for out of the box thinking and collaboration between other parties. As more corporations and bigger companies come into the mix, accountability is set to follow as a rising trend as well. Without the proper balance, you can have a significant disconnect with portions of your audience as well as your employees with your company values. The time to establish the balance between autonomy and accountability is more important than ever and here are three ways to achieve it.
Step 1: Less Micromanagement
Too much of a hands-on approach can lead to less inspiration as well as a feeling of detachment from the project. What can occur with too much micromanagement is having workers get less of a feeling of ownership regarding a project. This can make the employees approach a task with a feeling of doing menial work rather than having a sense of driving innovation. One way to do this is to highlight individual and team-based missions as shining examples for a company fulfilling its mission. Furthermore, there should also be a system in place for company employees to evaluate their leaders, with incentives for the latter based on whether they inspire the people they lead.
Step 2: More Organization
Just because you’re a startup with big ideas, a highly ambitious purpose, as well as all your key members working on their own, doesn’t mean the structure has to be a complete mess. Even if your team works remotely from different areas, on their own projects even, there are several solutions in place to keep your staff on the same page. It’s important to have a workspace management system or software in place to best manage tasks and projects so you can set expectations with realistic projections on having them met. By having an organizational structure in place, you can have your team members work as independently as they please while staying connected with the rest of the company.
Step 3: More Purpose
According to a study by according to Harvard professors and co-authors Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “A mere 7% of employees today fully understand their company’s business strategies and what’s expected of them to help achieve company goals,” While autonomy is important to creating an inspired and innovation-faced staff, goal setting should be achieved together and not through isolation. It’s important to have goals that are visible and aligned. While the demand is for quality and quantity, having an environment that exists solely to get product out the door will wind up rudderless. This is especially true in startup culture where employees are looking to have a job that provides a larger sense of purpose. The solution for this is to replace having To-Do’s with more conversation on day-to-day actions meeting goals. By replacing the feeling of droning with a sense of adventure you can significantly boost the creativity of the workspace.
Finding the perfect balance between autonomy and accountability can make your company more productive, original, and adaptive to ideas. With the right tools, an accurate vision, and a means to keep people on the same page while working on their own, you can run your company efficiently, productive, and inspired to drive innovation. Creating an environment that brings fulfillment to its workers can prove to bring more profitability to a company as well as increased morale in knowing that everyone is on the same side. For more information on how WUN can increase accountability, autonomy, and productivity, please click the button below to schedule a demo.