Most companies, across all industries, are constantly searching for ways to boost productivity, thereby achieving more and spending less so the company can be more profitable. However, many productivity solutions are expensive, time-consuming, or both.
So what are the most accessible ways to boost company productivity?
Consolidate Your Tracking and Documentation
One of the first things you should do is consolidate and unify all your forms of tracking and documentation. Too often, organizations allow themselves to become decentralized messes, with data, documentation, labels, and other important pieces of information being tracked and held in many different locations.
This creates many problems, increasing the risk of conflicting pieces of data and causing confusion for people who need to access that data. The solution is to have a single source of truth (SSOT), or in other words, a single, centralized location where everything can be found. Failing that, you should attempt to streamline and consolidate your tracking and documentation to whatever extent you can.
For example, integrated forms and labels are designed to combine labels, forms, and other elements into a single sheet. In addition to saving time, it can maximize efficiency and facilitate greater clarity among employees (and sometimes customers) who need these types of information.
Upgrade Your Tech
It’s also a good idea to upgrade your tech, in whatever ways your budget will allow. Purchasing upgraded services from software service providers, upgrading hardware, and improving your networks and systems can all help here. Because this is such a broad category, there are many individual tactics you can utilize to facilitate greater productivity overall.
Work with your IT team and collect feedback from employees to learn about your weak spots and compensate for them.
Hire Better People
With better people in place, your entire organization will become more productive. This includes both leaders and ground-level employees. During the recruiting and interview processes, be very specific and discerning in your criteria – and don’t make compromises on the skills and experiences that matter most.
Provide More Training and Education
Even the best, most qualified candidates can sometimes struggle to achieve their greatest productivity potential. That’s why it’s your responsibility as a business decision maker to provide more training and education.
This can be formal, informal, or a combination of both; what’s important is that you give your people the knowledge and experience necessary to do their best.
Streamline Workflows
Organizations strongly benefit from streamlining workflows. In other words, you want to make the processes and various steps within them more fluid and efficient.
These are just some of the ways you can do it:
- Eliminate time waste. Aggressively look for areas of time waste and seek to eliminate them. For example, are there any redundant steps that aren’t strictly necessary? Are there any steps that can be effectively skipped or eliminated?
- Reduce possibilities for errors and hiccups. Pay close attention to errors, hiccups, and other productivity disruptions that arise as a result of something inherent in your processes. Typically, there are multiple possible resolutions that can help you prevent these productivity blemishes.
- Minimize steps. Workflows are much more effective when they involve fewer steps. This isn’t always possible but try to reduce or eliminate steps whenever you can. Similarly, you should simplify your workflows so they’re easier for people to understand and follow.
- Automate. Finally, integrate automation into your workflows wherever you can. Automation not only spares manual effort, but also reduces the risk of human error. Because of this, automation can save you time and accelerate productivity in multiple respects.
Improve Meeting Culture
It’s been estimated that half of meetings are a waste of time. And depending on who you ask, that might be a severe underestimate. Meetings can waste time in various ways, including lack of focus, lack of direction, unproductive conversations, and the inclusion of too many participants.
The first step is to take a surgical blade to your existing meeting culture. Chances are, there are at least some standing meetings that aren’t truly necessary, or meetings that could be severely shortened with no disruption in productivity. If there are essential communications that must take place, make sure you either organize and plan your meetings effectively or find an alternative method of communication.
Track and Reevaluate
Possibly the most important piece of the equation is tracking and analysis. After all, if you can’t objectively evaluate your productivity, you can’t brainstorm about effective ways to improve it. Make sure you have the tools and responsible parties in place to effectively evaluate productivity, reevaluate your efforts, and come up with new strategies to make things even better.
The road to better productivity isn’t always easy or straightforward. However, there are many accessible strategies that any business can use to maximize productivity in their own enterprise.