Getting the most out of your team and providing the perfect infrastructure to deliver the right results is key to the success of any business. Productivity isn’t just about giving incentives to your staff, however, it’s about ensuring they are able to do their job effectively, day in day out.
The good news is that a lot has changed in the last ten years. Connectivity has improved and technology is certainly making a huge difference to businesses of all sizes.
Here are our three top tips for improving team productivity in your business:
1. Give Your Staff the Right Tools
Businesses need to be a lot more open nowadays about the technology they use. Good choices enable people to do their jobs better. The trouble is we often take all that tech for granted. Keeping an eye on the latest developments and exploring how these fit in with your business model is imperative.
The development of the cloud and the rise of on-demand third party services, as well as a whole host of productivity apps that are now on the market, have changed the landscape of the average workplace desktop.
Picking and choosing the right products for your business has never been more challenging and it can be tempting to stick with the status quo rather than introduce new ways of working. You do, however, need to be constantly forward thinking.
Collaboration is key for effective productivity management in any work environment. Facilitating staff to connect with ease, even when they are out of the office, is important for streamlining and bringing projects to completion, however large or small.
Using internet connected cloud services enables people to communicate back and forth using a wide range of software and access is immediate nowadays. Even meetings have gone through a revolution over recent years. No longer do staff have to make their way to a boardroom or another part of their building or even across town. They can conference online using a range of video services.
Introducing the right mix of the latest technology for better productivity is the biggest challenge that many managers and bosses face today. It’s not just a case of picking a bunch of different third party services and apps and hope they work. Everyone needs to be using the same apps and other software and these must all be selected intelligently to deliver better productivity.
2. Ensure Everything Works
With this ability to work remotely and to connect to different cloud services, one key factor in maintaining good productivity in the office is having the right telecommunications infrastructure in place. Business owners and managers often consider their phone service as a static, unchanging facility. Using a phone comparison provider, however, helps deliver a different message altogether.
One of the biggest things that can impact positively and negatively on productivity is your telecommunications infrastructure. For instance, any downtime with respect to your business phones and internet connection can have immediate catastrophic effects, literally bringing all productivity to a complete halt.
The move by many companies to leased lines has brought a number of advantages. First of all, it delivers substantially faster speeds than conventional phone lines and that in turn enables productivity initiatives to incorporate better and more efficient technology. Leased lines are also a lot more reliable. You get the bandwidth that you need to operate at full power without worrying about the kind of downtime that can impact on other businesses.
Shopping around for your leased line on a phone comparison site can deliver more savings for your business, money that could well be invested in growth, while at the same time boosting productivity.
3. Reward Success
Finally, while technology and improved infrastructure can both make a difference to the productivity of your business, you can’t ignore the personal side of running a business. If your staff are working hard and delivering on your expectations, then you need to provide them with rewards. For smaller businesses, this can be financially difficult because of budget and time constraints.
But it’s not just about providing bonuses to staff. Rewarding is about delivering a workplace that is fit for purpose. It could well include ensuring your staff have the right equipment and that they aren’t micromanaged by an overzealous manager, for instance. It could mean providing opportunities to progress and develop a career path.