How to keep staff productive in slow election period

A day to the General Election, the country has almost literally come to a standstill as all focus is directed to the forthcoming polls.

The political uncertainty has affected more the business community, rendering most to embrace “a wait and see” approach before making crucial decisions.

This period of inertia will most likely slow down the productivity of companies even after the polls. Those likely to be affected the most are the ones which currently don’t have proper prior preparation towards such eventualities.

As business slows down, staff productivity levels will also take a dive. But is there anything a business or company owner can do to ensure that their members of staff still remain productive even when business is slow?

How your members of staff spend their time can be divided into two contexts. Serving external customers and managing internal operations that facilitate the smooth serving of external customers.

During such slow phases of business, your company needs not relax as you wait the shifting of gears in the political scene.

There are things that you can do to ensure that your staff still remain productive and that your company will be ahead of the competition when normalcy returns.

For instance, this slow period can be the perfect time for your business development team to reach out and touch base with both your current and potential clients. This includes finding out what their future projections are and how your business can add value to what they intend to do.

This will not only make them feel special, but will also make them remember you when they start implementing their future strategies.

While most business enterprises often develop their operational strategies at the beginning of the year, when things get busy, these strategies tend to be forgotten.

This slow period is the right time for you and your staff to revisit the strategies and evaluate the implementation progress, what has worked well and what hasn’t.

This will also be a great time for you to re-assign roles in case there has been any gaps created by staff departures or even assign roles to new staff members.

READ: Kenya firms prepare their staff for the worst ahead of polls

For those in the manufacturing or trade sector, it is the best period for your staff to get precise record counts on all your products.

This should also be the time to organise the warehouse and make orders for whatever is about to run out.

The staff should also use the lull to get rid of obsolete equipment and any other material not in use that could be taking up valuable warehouse or office space so that when once things return to normal, your members of staff can operate in a clutter-free environment.

Normally, it is very easy to lose count of your major accomplishments when times are busy. This slow season presents a good opportunity to sit down with your employees and look back at the things that worked really well for your company and maximise on the activities or strategies that led to those accomplishments.

The same case applies to the major failures. Take this time to let your staff know that the biggest failure is failing to learn from your mistakes.