Office Productivity
When you are in charge of large portions of a business, it can seem like there is never enough time to truly make yourself productive. With all of the small problems that can crop up, even trying to complete the smallest tasks can be very overwhelming. Thankfully there are a number of different practices that can help you increase your personal productivity and the productivity of your workers as well.
1. Delegate Out Tasks
While you are responsible for the productivity of your group, you are also able to make the group work together as a team. Assign tasks to the team members to whom they are most suited. This allows you more time to work on tasks that cannot be assigned out and removes stress from your day to day life. This will in turn make your team less stressed and allow them to work together more effectively.
2. Set Clear Goals
While looking at the big picture and thinking abstractly is important, your team needs to know what is expected of them. If you need reports on your office by 5 pm, make that clear. If you want to target a certain audience, make that one of the first things that you mention. Make sure that your employees have a complete picture of what you want and an idea of what the finished product will look or act like.
3. Identify Components That Are Not Necessary
While office environments have not changed much over the last 100 years, the technology and the way that people interact within these environments has changed. Identify things within your office that are unnecessary and that are taking up extra time. If you have been faxing over information that can simply be e-mailed or have been printing copies of information that is automatically added to the cloud, you can cut out these extra steps and save the company time and money.
4. Encourage And Develop Employees
Even if you are the best manager or team leader in the world, the people who make your company amazing are the people who work under you. This makes it important to encourage employees to be happy in their jobs and to feel like they can do their job better than anyone else. A few hours of extra training for new hires or for new technology can make each employee better able to keep up with the demands of a modern workplace.
5. Focus On Your Own Communication
If you feel like you are using too many words, you likely are. Many managers find that they tend to waste words or time when they are communicating with others. Employees should generally understand their jobs, be able to take the information that they are given and work with it, and not need constant check-ins. Make sure that communication is short, to the point, and necessary. You will be surprised how little time you waste once you cut out excess communication.
Overall, increasing the productivity within an office generally comes down to managing the stress levels of the group, ensuring that communication is understood and that employees feel valued, prepared do their jobs, and fully integrated into your team.
