Whether you want to boost profits, grow your customer base or launch a new product range or service, now is the perfect time to reflect on last year’s success and implement some New Year’s Resolutions for 2016.
No matter what your goal, productivity plays a key part in achieving everything you need to do. Here are just a few suggestions for ways to boost productivity throughout the year ahead.
Embrace Flexible Working
A growing number of businesses are beginning to embrace the benefits of a flexible working policy. By allowing employees to work remotely, not only can businesses decrease overhead costs and improve staff satisfaction, they can often benefit from an increase in productivity, too.
In fact, 30% of office workers are more productive when they work from home. Employees are also more likely to work beyond 40 hours a week if they are given creative projects remotely.
Introduce Cloud-based Apps
If you decide to take the leap and allow employees to work remotely, it’s worth introducing your team to a number of cloud based apps and tools. Trello, for example, is a fantastic project management tool that allows users to easily track projects from start to completion.
Collaboration will become effortless, even if team members are working from home or the other side of the world. You’ll be able share tasks, achievements, and documents all in one place, and employees can keep one another updated with their progress.
Minimize Internet Downtime
When a company suffers technical problems such as internet downtime, a significant amount of money can be lost. When employees sit around the office unable to do their jobs properly, customers’ email queries can go unanswered, deliveries could be late, and the company’s reputation could be damaged.
To ensure your employees are able to achieve their potential, make sure you have an experienced and reliable IT support company at hand that can send help at the first sign of a problem. If it seems as though an issue may take a while to resolve, be open to sending employees home. If you’ve followed the above advice regarding cloud apps and flexible working, your team will be more productive at home.
Emphasize the Importance of Focus
When a number of tasks need to be completed in a short space of time, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. However, flicking from one task to another is rarely an effective way of working.
Workers are likely to achieve more, and to a greater standard, if they really focus on one thing at a time. Encourage employees to keep a list of tasks that need to be done, tick them off one by one, and ask for help if necessary. Trello can be particularly useful for this.
Train Employees
If certain members of your team struggle to stay productive, set some time aside to find out why this is. Don’t be afraid to train them and share a few tips of your own.
Even though focus is important, sometimes it’s best to get quick wins out the way as soon as possible. Writer and entrepreneur, Steve Olenski, recommends embracing the “two minute rule”. He explains that any tasks that are predicted to take two minutes or less to complete should be done immediately. Olenski states that completing the task straight away takes less time than going back to it later.
About the Author
Molly Benson is a writer for Synextra. She’s passionate about helping businesses embrace cloud-based technology and boost productivity with the help of flexible working policies.
