The surprising secret to workplace productivity

By Giulia Remondino

12 March 2019 - Those who manage personnel will know the struggles of achieving and maintaining a productive team. No doubt having considered the relentless question: 'what creates a productive workforce?' Usually factors such as time management, goal setting, motivation and team morale are considered alongside implementing incentives, removing distractions and organising breaks. All of which work well but require the repetitive development of skills over a long period of time.

An unconventional technique, yet nonetheless effective, is to improve an employee's memory skills.

Often, workplaces are understandably concerned with achieving targets and keeping up with the day-to-day demands of the business. Pausing to improve one's knowledge of a role, or more specifically their memory recall of their role, is less of a focus. Consider, on a basic level, the skills and understanding an employee has to acquire when first joining a team. Normally this process is as quick an assimilation as possible, naturally therefore, some information is remembered and some tips and tricks forgotten. This may lead to an employee being unknowingly less productive in certain areas, as information was lost in the initial barrage of instructions. This could be something as small as remembering shortcuts to a program or data that may help solve a problem more easily and quickly.

Information gleaned over a long career is built upon, like bricks in a tower. Each brick represents the knowledge one is subjected to during their career. As skills develop, knowledge of the subject improves and an employee's confidence grows. Thus, their personal tower of information increases and becomes quite impressive. Naturally, an employees efficiency and speed is positively affected by the tower they have built. Imagine that each of member of a workforce builds a tower with these bricks of knowledge, and each tower stands next to another to create a fortress of information that represents a business.

Although research is varied on the subject, it is estimated that the average person forgets 50% of learned material within an hour and 70% or more after a day. If you removed all of the bricks that had been forgotten by yourself and your team, how stable would your fortress be?

Years spent focusing on other methods of productivity may have slightly improved standards, yet without improving a team's memory, a business may still have a somewhat hollow fortress on their hands. However, if your employee's could learn quickly, retain information forever and enjoy doing it; how vast and strong would your fortress be?

Brains are an incredible organ and normally have an outstanding amount of untapped capacity. Focusing on improving memory enables one to access of more of its power. Teaching staff effective mnemonic techniques could enhance their recall abilities, whether this is information of a subject or remembering easier ways to navigate day-to-day tasks. As a result there will likely be an upsurge in productivity, employees will be more efficient at retaining new information from training and consequently stand out from the competition. Both the productivity of the workplace and the profile of the company can be raised as a result.

But how can memory be effectively improved? Memory, although varied from person to person, usually adheres to certain characteristics that can be utilised in its refinement:

• Memory is mostly visual. Typically, images are easier to retain than abstract information. So, when trying to remember details, try to picture it vividly in your mind as an image.
• Memory works like a chain, by association, and each link leads onto the next. When memorising new information, associate it with something you already know and is memorable to you. You may see the recall of many different nuggets of information drastically improved!
• When a strong emotion is attached to a memory, it is much easier to retain. If possible, try attaching an emotion to the information and work backwards from there.
• Remembering places is quite easy for most people, so, similar to the visual technique, visualise an object in its surroundings, it may become easier to remember in context.

Consider investing in memory training for employees, the positive effects on productivity may be surprising! Further, many people are looking to train a healthier brain to tap into a variety of long-term benefits, therefore this may be something employees will be very keen to take on!

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