Management
3 Tactics For Maximising Business Productivity
Having an unproductive business is even worse than not having a business at all – it can be absolutely disastrous for your profits and income, and if you’re not able to bring in the money you need, you’ll probably have to shut down.
All your hard work will be for nothing if your business is not productive enough to make the most of it. That’s why it’s so important to ensure your business is as productive as possible. If you can do this – and there are many ways in which it can be done – you stand a much greater chance of growing the business and making something of it.
Read on to discover some of the ways that you can make your business more productive and thrive.
1. Improve Employee Wellbeing
Although you might initially think that productivity has to be all about systems and being organized, and using business knowledge to become better at what you do, this is only half of the story.
The rest is all about your employees, and it won’t matter what kind of tools you have in place or what kind of training you offer if you overlook one simple thing; your employees’ wellbeing.
A happy employee is always going to be more productive. They’ll be pleased to work for you, glad to put effort into their work, and above all, they will be loyal, knowing that they will be fairly rewarded for a job well done and that, if they have any issues, they can talk to you about them.
If an employee is unhappy, or they feel they are never listened to or that their needs go unfulfilled at work, they won’t be so productive. They will only do what is expected of them and nothing more, and they will be much more likely to look for work elsewhere which is costly for you and disruptive for the business as a whole.
The key, then, is to ensure that your employees are as happy and content in their work as possible. How you do this will depend on the business, your budget, and where everyone works, but it could include:
- Offering flexible hours
- Unlimited vacation days
- Free fruit and water in the office
- Special wellbeing days (yoga, meditation, or similar self-care events)
2. Use Organization Tools
Using organizational tools in your business can help a great deal with your productivity.
Right now, if you don’t have any Gantt chart tools or similar to help you understand where everyone should be and what they should all be doing, it’s easy for tasks to be neglected or forgotten, and when that happens, productivity falls.
Not only will your employees not be entirely sure what they should be doing and when it should be done by (and this ties into their wellbeing as mentioned above), but you won’t know when to check that the tasks have been done, or even, in some cases, who to ask.
When you use specialist organizational tools, everyone can feel much more comfortable in their work since they will all understand what they should be doing. Plus, your customers and suppliers will be happier too, since no order or payment or job will be forgotten and your reputation can therefore grow.
3. Fix Issues Before They Become Problems
It’s good to be able to react to problems within your business; in fact, it’s crucial. If something unexpected and negative happens, you’ll need to know how to manage it and ideally have a plan in place to deal with the issue.
However, even though this is a good thing, it’s actually far better to be proactive and ensure that these problems – as far as possible at least – don’t occur in the first place.
When you can do this, you won’t have as much downtime in your business, your employees will feel much more in control, and your customers won’t suffer.
Put systems in place that will ensure all areas of your business are monitored. In this way, you should be able to spot an issue before it grows into a major problem, and that means you can deal with it more quickly.
If you and your team are unable to monitor things as closely as you might like, you can outsource this task to a third party such as a dedicated security firm, a managed IT company, a human resources business, and so on.