How to Motivate Bored Employees to Increase Productivity

What happens when employees are bored?

The problem with disengaged members of staff is it may lead to:

• Drops in productivity

• Mistakes

• Low levels of happiness at work

• Increased anxiety or stress

• Absenteeism

• Resignations

This isn’t always a case of individuals lacking work ethic. Employees who get bored easily could have previously been high performers, but may now be disillusioned by years in the same role. The long-term benefits of this can include higher productivity and reducing employee turnover rates.

Spotting signs of a workplace "boreout"

You may have heard of “boreout”, which is a term along the lines of employee burnout. This isn’t the fault of professionals, it’s a matter of under-stimulation in a workplace. If you have a boreout problem, this can be due to:

• Meaningless or unchallenging work that lacks purpose

• Staff with underutilised skills

• Insufficient work for all employees

• The result is staff members may become bored, disinterested, and lack motivation.

Remember, your employees want to do a good job for your business, but it’s vital you keep them engaged with day-to-day activities and the potential for career growth.

How to engage bored employees

With the right tactics, you can aim to re-engage staff members to keep them happy and productive. Consider the following examples and how you can use them across your business with your employees.

1. Keep them in the loop about future exciting plans

Let employees share your excitement about the future. By holding regular updates, you can tell them about successes, areas of improvements goals and what you hope to achieve in the next 12 months. Give them the chance to give their views and to be involved in decisions. All of this makes them want to wake up and got to work and deliver their best performance.

2. Encourage employees to be proactive

Good employees will work on what they have instructed to do, but great employees will go that extra mile. Encourage your employees when they are light on work to speak to their manager to seek more work, to offer assistance to their colleagues with their projects, or prepare for work that is in the pipeline.

3. Give them more responsibilities

When the work isn’t challenging enough to keep boredom at bay, throw some stimulating work their way. You may be surprised at how well they cope, what skills they show and what the final results are.

4. Share the boring tasks around the team

Every team has its fair share of boring tasks that need to be completed. But by sharing the burden amongst the team, you can make sure that nobody is bored for long.

5. Focus on employee training and development

By setting objectives, offering training and development opportunities and having a plan about their career, employees have good reasons to work hard and remain motivated while at work. This reduced the likelihood of them seeking opportunities at other organisations.

6. Keep home workers involved

Often employers can forget about the engagement of home workers. Home workers can adopt a silo mentality and feel isolated from the rest of team, leading to feelings of boredom. But if you get them to come into the office from time to time, have regular Skype meetings with other members of the team, ensure there are clear communication channels and ensure that they have one to one time with their manager, you can boost their engagement exponentially (see our guide to engaging home working staff to learn more).

7. Make them feel valued

You can avoid employee boredom if you show appreciation for people’s work. Recognising your employees’ achievements and giving them feedback for their work is an important way to keep them engaged and keen to accomplish goals.

"With some simple measures, you can crack down on all those non work related activities and get employees to deliver the best results possible. If you are experiencing specific challenges with an unmotivated employee, contact your Employment Law expert for guidance."

How to communicate boring topics to employees

Whether you have new policies and procedures to introduce or regular internal meetings, one way to reduce boredom at work is through company communication. You can spice up your wording, or breaking down large chunks of legalese into short videos or infographics.

Having a sense of humour about proceedings can also help, as can gamification (making learning fun), or adding in interactive elements.

For example, if you have mandatory company policies that need clearing for business conduct or health & safety, you may wish to turn these into engaging interactive courses. Key to this is it shows some personality from your brand, rather it being bland and corporate. If you take that approach, it can alienate staff as they feel disconnected from your messaging.

Spice up business life with expert support

Make the most of daily working life with our expert insights. We've helped thousands of UK businesses with their HR policies, ensuring you get your policies across while keeping employees engaged. Talk to us today for a free, no obligation chat: 0345 226 8393.