Deadlines are looming and your staff is fired up and ready to put in the extra hours, but how do you make sure that crunch time is well spent? Many workplaces overburden their employees, giving them too much to do, and by improper planning and delegating, they waste some of their crunch time.

We want to give you a few tips on how you can maximize that time and ensure that you squeeze the most productivity out of a busy period. Here are our suggestions for making crunch time count.

Plan for Food Deliveries

One of the simplest ways to keep your employees working and to limit how many times they have to leave the office is to have food delivered to them. If the employer pays for the food as a way to say “thank you” to their employees for dedicating themselves to the deadlines, then the employees are more likely to stay motivated and work well.

Food deliveries help to keep the flow of work going and limit disruptions. If employees have to leave the office to get food, they may use up some much needed energy in their excursion and may not feel like working when they come back. They may also lose focus and have a hard time getting back into the work mindset when they return.

Do keep in mind that your employees may have different dietary needs and preferences, including food allergies. Be aware that you will have to cater to them in these areas and should be very careful about what kind of food you buy for them.

Set Priorities

You don’t want your employees to dedicate extra time to work to meet deadlines and not be focused on the right things. You want them to have their priorities straight and to get done with the essentials before they try to tackle the less important tasks.

In order to make that happen and to streamline the work process, you need to set clear goals and make the priorities easy to understand. You can set up a board in the workspace that lays out the list of priorities in order or the list of tasks for each employee to focus on. This will help keep them working on the right responsibilities and ensure that they don’t get off task.

You should also check in on them every so often to ensure that they are making progress, are not stagnating, and are clear as to what they should be doing. There is a tendency among some workers to not say anything when they are lost and confused and to try to sort things out for themselves rather than ask for help. Look for employees who might be prone to do that and focus your attention on them to keep them on task.

If your workers know what their priorities are supposed to be and what you expect from them, they can get more done and can feel more accomplished. If they don’t know what the priorities are supposed to be, they may work on the wrong things first or may wander and get confused. Keep them focused to ensure that excellent progress is being made in the short time that they have available.

Hire Professional Cleaners

Another way you can keep your employees focused and limit the distractions is to bring in professional cleaners to tidy up for them. This will help keep them on task so that they do not have to stop to clean up the workspace. You can have the cleaners come just before the crunch time begins, so that they are not in the way and ensure that they do all the cleaning that will need to be down for a while. You can also have the cleaners come in while your workers are on lunch break so that the work is not disturbed.

Busy schedule cleaning can make a big impact, giving you a cleaner and healthier workplace and minimizing hazards. Talk to the cleaners so that the know exactly what you want form them, and make sure you are getting all areas cleaned where your workers are going to be present. You want the crunch time work to go as smoothly as possible, and limiting how much extra ork your employees have to do by hiring professional cleaners is an excellent way to do that.

Recognize Progress

During crunch time, your employees will likely be working very hard and giving a lot of themselves to the job. You want to recognize that effort and reward it appropriately. As you take small breaks to divide up the day and ensure that your employees do not get burnt out, you should recognize the efforts of your employees.

Let them know that you see the progress they are making, and document that progress as they go along so that they can see that they are advancing and that they are accomplishing something with their work. You can reward all of your workers as they go along or you can pick out a few outstanding workers to recognize and reward. This helps to motivate them and to let them know that you see the efforts they are putting in.

The reward should be appropriate for the work they are doing. It should not be a simple gesture that has no value. It should be something that your employees could use or that they would really appreciate. You should know their needs and wants and should be able to reward them accordingly.

If you struggle to figure out what to do for them, then it doesn’t hurt to ask them what they would like as their reward. Do your best to show your appreciation to all employees, but it is also not a bad idea to focus on the superior accomplishments of a few. Crunch time is tough all around, and recognizing and rewarding good efforts will help make things easier on people.