The advent of technology has not only revolutionized the business landscape but has also transformed the workplace culture. Smartphones are blurring the lines between office and home as the mobile workplace is catching pace across all industry verticals.
Smart tech is offering greater connectivity, enabling employees to access emails and documents anywhere and anytime at the touch of a finger.
In fact, technology has enabled business owners to address several critical challenges like creating a workforce that is productive, efficient and innovative.
If your main concern has been maximizing the productivity of your workforce, this article will help you identify the best technology solutions. Read on till the end to understand how technology can help you harness the productivity of your employees.
Replace Outdated IT:
Waiting for a prolonged period of times just to complete simple tasks on computers because of outdated IT can significantly hamper the productivity of employees. Many workplaces suffer from lack of sufficient backup, compatibility issues after installing the latest software on old desktops, and slow internet connectivity etc.
Over time, peripherals, computers, and printers become outdated and come into the legacy class. And for such outdated hardware (say 4 years or more) finding drivers that offer support to new OS and its applications, become difficult.
Upgrading to the latest IT might sound costly, but not updating will certainly cost you a lot more on repairs, upgrades, maintenance, and most importantly employee productivity. Besides, a crashed equipment can take your business back for some days, resulting in a loss of revenue. So, identify the culprits that are holding your worker’s productivity and replace them with modern and automated tools.
Communication Software:
The cost of poor communication, as cited in a survey of 400 businesses with 100,000 employees, is $62.4 million per year (average loss per company).
Nevertheless, there are many advanced tools and technology options that can help in fostering better communication with employees. From chat applications and video conferencing apps to team messengers, there are a plethora of cost-effective and free applications that aid smooth communication, which can dramatically improve your workplace productivity.
Project And Task Management Software
An unclear work process impairs discipline, productivity and jeopardizes deadlines. Therefore, having an effective control over what employees are doing become crucial for organizations.
Further, it’s very easy to delineate any task without having the actionable and trackable way to identify if employees follow through. The outcome is miscommunication and idle progress toward project completion and deadlines.
However, by using an effective task management software, you would be able to manage and assign a task to the team, so that everyone can be held accountable for getting it done on time. These software’s will also help you schedule tasks and delegate work amongst a team working on the same platform. Project and task management software has turned out to be really effective in saving time, creating an effective workflow and ultimately boosting productivity.
Digitize Documentation:
Documenting records and other things on paper can limit the accessibility and can also become incredibly time to consume. You have to keep records in files, scan documents, project files, and make them available on the company’s record.
However, an easy, accessible and low-cost online storage account with a good business value is a much-recommended alternative to traditional documentation. Cloud storage offers the ease of accessing documents from anywhere at any time. Plus, you don’t need to worry about the backup, as online services offer automatic backup as the part of their core service. Just organize the data in folders, set user access and your digital storage will be ready!
Time-Tracking Software:
Time management/ tracking software is the most underutilized software by far. However, they pair well with effective planning to pre-schedule things and to meet deadlines. They run securely in the background on your device and create a detailed report of time spent on performing a specific task.
Thus, by managing the time, you can be assured that you are maximizing your team’s work output and productivity.
Gamify:
Research suggests that engaged workers are less likely to leave the company, work harder and perform better. Gamification is a fun and a highly effective way to create an engaging atmosphere that ultimately boosts productivity. Elements of games like scoring points and competing with others keep the employees engaged and also creates a happy work environment. Gamification also motivates the employees by offering them opportunities to get rewarded. Further, it offers real-time feedbacks, transparency and gives employees the objective to perform better.
Make Use Of VOIP’s:
Switch to hosted services to lower down the overall communication cost and to improve interaction between employees. Hosted services let employees make use of advanced tools to streamline workflow and increase effectiveness. You can use broadband internet services to power hosted services, and phone services to offer reliable services to customers. Fax-to-email, Follow Me, voice-to-email, Conference Bridge, Unified communications. Toll-free Numbers, etc. are some of the features of hosted services.
While some businesses think that banning technology can make employees productive, the fact is that with some effort and control, the same technology can be used to make works simple and more accessible.
Above mentioned were some of the tips to show how you can amalgamate technology in the workplace to boost productivity. Besides, the best thing about these tips is that they don’t need health installation cost!
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