When you’re running a business, the daily tasks soon start to add up. That means that you can spend as much time tackling yesterday’s workload as you are on planning for the future. Often, you can spend so much time putting out fires that you can only watch as the productivity of your company starts to take a hit, and that can be very challenging to bounce back from. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your workload, or you’re concerned that your business model is not as productive as it should and could be, then here are the best ways that brands of all sizes can make proactive changes.
Shutterstock Licensed Photo – By NicoElNino
Software Solutions
There are so many choices of software that every entrepreneur now has access to that it can become impossible to know what will be useful and what will only hurt your productivity. Remember the most important elements to consider when looking at new software. These are:
- Is this something my business needs?
- Does it save both money and time?
- Will it improve the lives and workloads of your team?
If the answer to these questions is a resounding yes, then you need to highlight just where you need those software choices to be. With a multitude of applications, you could choose to implement the latest software choices to help improve your:
- Accounting
- Scheduling and Shift Planning
- Communication and Collaboration
- Analytics and Machine Learning
Choose the right software, and you could see your productivity soar.
Know your Team
Your workforce is by far the most important tool at your disposal, and you need to ensure that you are maximizing their potential for productivity. There are some key ways to achieve this, but what they all boil down to is a robust workforce optimization strategy. Not only will a deeper look at your workforce help you to make their productivity much more effective, but it also means that you’ll be able to launch a more potent customer service and customer experience plan as well. If your plan to improve productivity across your business doesn’t start with your team, then you could be making a costly mistake that will limit your strategy and its effectiveness.
Stop Meetings
If there’s one way to interrupt workflow and negatively affect productivity, it’s to make everyone stop working at their daily tasks and head to an unnecessary group meeting. While it’s important that you touch base with every member of your team on a regular basis, those meetings can be a roadblock to productivity. Usually, an entire meeting can be summed up in a single email, so always evaluate just what you hope to achieve from each and every meeting. If you have more important tasks to complete, then a meeting can be an unwelcome distraction that could cost you both time, money, and customers.
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More Effective Hiring
As well as ensuring that your team has the tools and the space that they need to manage their workload, you also need to be certain that new hires are not a distraction or disruption. This can be very difficult, especially if you are taking on someone new that has little to no experience. You want your hiring process to be efficient, and be sure that any required training is not going to eat into too much of any given workday. You can tackle this by:
- Being very specific in terms of job descriptions
- Using video interviews to save time
- Checking every resume and tailoring your questions to suit each applicant
- Not using ‘Google Questions’ without knowing the reason for them
- Getting workplace referrals from your existing team
- Checking references
Once you have identified the best potential hires, you need to make sure that your onboard training is going to suit their existing skill level. Nothing will feel more like a waste of time quite like setting aside a day to train a new call center worker who already has the skills and experience that they are supposed to be learning that day. Personalize your hiring and training, and your new team members will be much faster at getting to work.
The trick to improving productivity in every department of your company is to keep things as simple as possible. Use the latest software to make training time faster, create fewer barriers to workload completion, and look for ways to give your team the tools that they need to get the job done. The more that you prioritize workplace productivity, the stronger your business will be.
