For many businesses production equals success, therefore, it comes as no big surprise that increased productivity is normally listed as a key goal. In a recent productivity study in the UK 23% of workers admitted to feeling unproductive at work which equates to seven million workers nationwide. Taking this shocking statistic into consideration, here are just a few tips for you or your team to help improve productivity within your business.
Track your Time
You may think that you are being super productive all day, but are you really just stuck in your inbox? Or in meetings that aren’t getting you any further forward?
Actively tracking how long particular tasks take will give you a really valuable insight into where your time is spent. It will let you see the areas that consume a lot of your time. As well as the areas that maybe require a little bit more of your attention. Identifying these can help you to come up with solutions to manage your time more productively. For example, if you find that being interrupted by emails is a drain on your productivity. You may consider setting a dedicated time in your day to read and reply to email. At this allotted time only, you can check your email, rather than it being a constant distraction. This allows you to focus solely on the task at hand. Communicate this with your team and then they know the best time to reach you.
Here at Allsop, we use the WorkflowMax solution to record and manage our time. The timesheet functionality allows accurate time recording placed against jobs and tasks. Timesheets can additionally be completed on the mobile app which makes it easy to track and manage your time even when you are not in the office.
Read more about the Solutions we use to increase Productivity and Efficiency.
Put your Commute to Good Use
We all know traffic in Belfast can be a nightmare, so why not ditch the car and take the train or bus to work. This frees up your commute to reply to emails, create your daily to-do list, or simply do some brainstorming. Using cloud software within your business ensures that your team can work from any location and this flexibility can again increase productivity. 71% of people agreed that the opportunity and right technology to work flexibly helped to improve their productivity.
Take Regular Breaks
It may sound counterintuitive, but taking scheduled breaks has been proven in several studies to help to improve your concentration. So grab a coffee and use your break to find out more about a colleague or more realistically talk about the latest show you are watching on Netflix.
Stop MultiTasking
We are all guilty of multitasking, some more successfully than others. You may think that doing lots of tasks simultaneously is being efficient. But according to research attempting to complete several tasks at once can actually result in lost time and productivity. Instead, try and make it a habit to focus on one single task and complete it before starting another.
Invest in the Right Software
Finding a software solution that works for your business is important. Access to technology has a significant impact on employees’ opinion of how productive they are, research reveals that 80% of those who rated their productivity highly said that they have the right technology for their job. And a lack of the right technology can have the reverse effect: actually harming
productivity.
The right solution for your business may be an off the shelf solution or a custom solution. With custom developed software, you get a solution that is built on the way your business already functions. Making it more intuitive for your team to use, thus saving training time. You can also achieve higher levels of automation and therefore help to improve productivity further.
Removing paper processes and investing in a software solution, custom or off the shelf can also increase productivity. As the issue of lost or damaged paperwork is eradicated along with the need for data re-entry. The removal of these admin problems allows your team to concentrate on more important tasks within your business.