Taking Proper Breaks Whilst Maintaining Productivity

When it comes to balancing between work and play, there’s a lot you can do wrong. You can spend 20 out of the 24 hours at the office, filing and typing and emailing to your heart’s content, and then lose all of the quality time you really need at home. Or you can spend too much time taking a break over the weekend, and not realise you’ve only got a couple of hours on the Sunday to prepare for the week ahead.
Either way, you’re not using your time effectively, and that’s where your operations are being harmed. So now’s the time to change tune, and make sure you’re always taking proper breaks at work whilst still pumping out the right amount of productivity to take your business higher and higher. Read on for a couple of suggestions that could just help you out.
Make Sure People are Away From Their Desks
If the breaks both you and your staff are taking are always situated in front of the desk, you’ve already missed a trick. There’s no point trying to work through what’s meant to be your time away from the computer, and you’re just going to be wasting time that could be put to much better use. Not to mention, when you have a working lunch, you’re more likely to run overtime and waste precious minutes you could have put to good use in the afternoon.
So instead, make sure you at least have a break room to relax in or a water cooler for people to congregate at, and then have you staff properly take some time away to recharge for the rest of the working day. Productivity only comes in bouts after all, and we can’t run on all cylinders for the full 8 hours of work a day.
Track Your Working Hours
For both you and all your employees. If you know when people clock in and out, you know if they turned up to work on time and if they went home when their shift is over. Overall, it doesn’t give you too much information over how your employees actually spend their time. Programs like that of Time and Attendance can help you out here, and you’re never going to be left in the dark over the operations going on behind the screens you can’t see.
If someone is logged in at their desk for a good couple of hours, diligently working and using the internet for business means only, you’re not going to need to hound them to prove they’re staying on track. All in all, it means both you and your staff are given a break over what seems to be a lack of productivity, as the actual facts are all laid out in a data sheet in front of you.
Taking a proper break when you’re at work is one of the best ways to maintain the right amount of productivity, and there’s no way around that. Make sure you’re relaxing right!