Finding new ways to further increase productivity within your business is a constant struggle for many companies, and as a business owner or manager, there are many reasons you may be doing this. Whether you've started to notice stagnation within your company, leading to a demotivated and demoralised team, or you're trying to grow and expand, which requires a step up in the efforts of both management and the rest of your staff, finding ways to increase efficiency and productivity is incredibly important. To help you decide how to progress and adopt new working methods, we've put together our best tips on how you can improve your workplace's productivity.
Set Goals
Setting and sticking to your targets is a great way of maintaining some level of productivity and efficiency. While it's not going to fix your problems on its own, it's an important starting point when pulling your business out of a rut. When you have no goals and targets, it's very easy for your team to start deviating from their roles and losing focus as there is nothing to work towards. You'll want to set goals, not only for your team to get back on track but for you and your management as well. Having targets for the entire business's direction will help you reassess where you want to take your company in terms of growth and success.
Revisit Your Plans
A big part of being able to decide on these new targets is to revisit your business plan and overall structure. When starting a business, an in-depth plan is an essential component, allowing you to put into words exactly what you aim to achieve and how you plan to do so. But this isn't reserved solely for the start of a business's lifespan. In fact, it's highly recommended that you revisit your business plan every year or two to just make sure you're on track and whether you need to make any important changes or not.
Implement Helpful Tech
Technology is one of the key aspects of improving a business today. There are many different types of technology that can improve the way in which you and your team deliver work. This could be hardware like new computers and laptops that provide your team with faster and more efficient working methods.
It could also be software such as the Factorial HR available in the UK that helps to cut down the time it takes for your human resources team to do their jobs by more than 30% by consolidating all of their tasks into one handy piece of software. Technology and digitalisation continue to be key to improving and growing a business. Failing to keep up with the world of tech within your industry is a sure-fire way for your business to drift towards irrelevancy.
Consider Automation
Another useful technological consideration is that of automation. Time-consuming administrative tasks such as sending out mass emails and redirecting customer service calls to the right departments can be damaging to your team's productivity. Removing these tasks, or at least cutting them down using automated systems, allows your employees to focus their efforts on other, more important tasks without having to worry about laborious yet essential admin work.
Automating your tasks can significantly increase your team's efficiency across the entire business, and it can even free up some much-needed time for you too. As a business owner, especially for a small company, you'll likely be juggling many different roles, which can become stressful and cause you to lose focus. Automating things like payroll and parts of the hiring process can allow you to concentrate on supporting your business elsewhere.
Delegate Properly
When it comes to the stress of running a business and taking on multiple roles, this can be significantly reduced by allowing yourself to let go of some power and control, especially if you have an under-worked management team. You could even consider creating some supervisors by promoting trusted, current members of staff. You can then delegate roles and tasks to all these staff members, letting yourself take some time to breathe and recentre yourself. Failing to maintain your composure by being overwhelmed by tasks you don't need to be doing is going to increase the risk of things going wrong, leading to you and your team needing to focus on damage control instead of the tasks you have to do.
Take Care Of Your Team
Not only do you need to look after your own state of mind, but you also need to find ways to help your staff as well. Poor mental health can be really demotivating and will lead to a higher risk of mistakes and poor-quality work. Ensuring your team is feeling happy and healthy in the workplace benefits everyone and ultimately helps maintain your business's success. Find ways to boost the mental health of your employees by offering counselling services, giving recognition for good work, and even rewards. Discuss mental health regularly and show that this is a big consideration for your business, creating a company culture that strives to preserve mental health wherever possible.
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