5 Tactics To Supercharge Productivity In Your Business
What your business does matters, but how efficiently it does it is essential as well. This is where productivity comes in. Of course, by being as productive as possible, you will not only be sure to meet your customer deadlines, but also save costs and make your company cheaper to run to. To that end, check out this article on supercharging productivity.
What your business does matters, but how efficiently it does it is essential as well. This is where productivity comes in. Of course, by being as productive as possible, you will not only be sure to meet your customer deadlines, but also save costs and make your company cheaper to run to. To that end, check out my post on supercharging productivity below.
Rationalise
The first tactic for supercharging productivity is rationalisation. This is the process of reducing redundancy within your business, meaning that you need to spend less on person-power, energy, time, and effort to complete tasks.
Of course, rationalising every work and process flow within your company can take a long time, especially when it is done by someone that has no previous experience.
In fact, that is why business often employs outside auditors to come in and complete this task for them. The additional benefit of which being that if anyone needs to be made redundant, the blame can be directed at them rather than the managers that are still active in the business.
Automate
Another savvy tactic that can be used to increase productivity in your business is automation. In fact, automating a process can boost how productive your business in two main ways.
The first is that unlike us humans, automated systems can only do what they are set up to do. This being something that makes mistakes and the delays in productivity associated with them much more unlikely.
The second reason that automating is so good for productivity is that it reduces the need for person-power. Thus tasks can be completed without them having to be attended to by a human, something that can make them faster, and save money on wages as well.
Of course, automation is rarely a one size fits all solution to the productivity problem. In fact, different businesses will need customised solutions for them to be effective. One example of this being the use of Automated Dispensing Cabinets in a medical setting. Something that can automate the dosing and dispensing of expensive and controlled substances, therefore saving, both time and making the entire process more secure.
Alternatively, those in an office environment may benefit more from automating parts of their IT systems. Something that may include creating document templates, as well as matching customised content to individuals in a micro marketing context.
Eliminate distractions
Next, when it comes to boosting productivity in the workplace, removing distractions is vital. Of course, in an office environment, this may be considerably more simple than anywhere else. The reason being that new processes and schedules can be introduced to maximise productivity and reduce distractions.
In particular, email is known to be a significant distraction problem, the reason being that employees tend to check it every time a new email arrives. Of course, what this does is move their focus away from the task they are doing. In fact, even worse, what will often happen is they will just read the incoming email and then not act on it, something that means they have interrupted their focus for nothing, and that they will still have to come back, later on, to deal with the query or task the email has created.
Luckily, there is a way of preventing this madness and its scheduling a time both in the morning and afternoon where employees can read and deal with email only. This will then leave the rest of the day free for other important work tasks and should boost productivity overall.
Email is a major productivity killer is most businesses. Picture
However, not everyone works in an environment where they can ignore situations or communications until the allotted time. In fact, for this type of situation to work, it is essential that you have an understanding of the urgency of the communications involved. With those receiving important and business-critical information being able to access and act appropriately.
Another work-related distraction that can drain hundreds of hours from your business each year are meetings, especially unnecessary ones.
In fact, the necessity of the meeting is the crucial thing to consider here if you want to supercharge your business productivity. To that end, before any meeting is scheduled is vital that you consider whether the information that needs to be disseminated or the decisions reached could be done in another way.
Such ways could include through online training, via managers to their teams, via email, or even by using survey that can collect the opinion of people working for you, without the need to take a break for the day.
Motivate
Motivation is also another critical aspect of productivity, although many business owners and managers do forget this from time to time. After all, no matter how many rationalised or automated processes you have, and how many distractions you remove if your workforce isn’t motivated, things will take longer than they actually need to be completed.
That is why it’s so vital that you make motivating your workforce a priority. You don’t even have to spend a fortune on doing it either, as some time just encouraging a culture of praise for a job well done is enough.
Of course, if you do want to take things further, adding additional benefits for those that are performing well, as well as perks for all your employees can make a significant difference when it comes to productivity.
Prioritise
Finally, for your business to be as productive as possible, you need to get really good at identifying what a priority is.
Now, this can be a task that is a lot harder than it seems, the reason being that it is often the ‘squeaky wheel that gets the most grease!’ However, what is actually essential when it comes to prioritising is what tasks will make your business the most money.
In fact, it is widely accepted that 80% of the profits from a business come from 20% of the tasks they actually complete. This being known as the Pareto principle.
Therefore by using this as your overall guide, you can ensure that your time and effort isn’t wasted on things that won’t be making that much of difference to your bottom line, and truly make your business as productive as possible.
