How to be more productive is an often-searched topic online. Business owners and managers carry the bulk of responsibility for making sure that employees CAN be productive. Productivity affects almost all your business scorecards and key performance indicators such as staff retention, operational costs, revenue, and even customer satisfaction. It also impacts your less measurable yet equally essential things, including culture, employee experience, and brand strength.
Business owners and managers must accept that commerce moves onwards and upwards. As a result, increasing organizational productivity should always be a priority. Your technology-enhanced workforce can communicate instantly from anywhere in the world and access vast amounts of cloud-based data at any time. Businesses that leverage these innovations can scale, pivot, and make it happen far better than before. Here are some technology tools that can increase productivity for your team.
Collaboration
As your in-office staff levels shrink and your remote workforce expands, by strategy or pandemic response, it’s more important than ever to offer collaboration tools. Collaboration is a huge contributor to productivity, and technology makes it much easier to connect and work together no matter where you are. What’s better than a productive brainstorming session? Right! Now that you’re doing so many remote, get the right tools for the job. Microsoft Teams is the hub for being a team player in Microsoft 365.
All your projects have a document (more like 10) that needs to be shared with peers to drive pace and progress. Give collaborators the ability to chat in a searchable, forum-like discussion thread. Text chat not getting it done? Move to voice with the click of a button. Huddle your team quickly by video on the fly, or schedule it. Video conferencing encourages your people to interact, and seeing their expressions improves team connections. And finally, let your introverts be heard! With a convenient virtual hand-raising function, they can wait patiently until your extroverts are done talking over each other.
Clarify communication in a meeting by sharing your screen so everyone can see the same content at the same time. Share from any device. Use your computer, tablet, or mobile device to share from almost anywhere. Or use them together in meetings for more flexibility. Did you know your tablet can be your “whiteboard” while your computer lets you participate on camera?
Be intentional about increasing the productivity of your workforce. To get the most out of these new collaboration options, let your staff always be learning with Microsoft Teams training:
Share a Teams conversation in Outlook
Been lost without a whiteboard in virtual meetings? Here you go:
Productivity packed tips for Teams:
Bonus: When you become adept at using Microsoft Teams, you can Wow your Customer by engaging them like a collaboration pro! Be together even when you’re apart.
Secure the network edge.
The best way to maintain productivity is by eliminating disruptions before they occur. None of the tips and tricks found here have any value if your computer is down. When your team was working from the office, you benefited from data networks secured by a firewall. Your staff’s surface area for cyber threats increased substantially when the work-from-home migration began. There is ample evidence that remote work increases the risk of a successful ransomware attack significantly. This increase is due primarily to weaker controls on home IT followed by a higher likelihood of users clicking on COVID-19 themed ransomware phishing emails.
Did you know you can virtually extend and improve your office-based protections to your remote workforce? Implement a good EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) that goes beyond antivirus. EDR tools can protect your staff’s computers by detecting potential threats, real-time, no matter where they are. The management and secure monitoring happen in the cloud, not behind your office firewall.
Trust the experts.
Worried where to start? Just as your CPA takes ownership of your tax issues, let your MSP (Managed Service Provider) take ownership of your IT issues. As a small business owner or manager, it is not easy to gauge when exactly is the right time to outsource IT responsibilities you may try and handle on your own. While you can certainly take care of day-to-day IT internally, there are many instances when the expertise of an MSP helps you make sound business decisions, avoid costly mistakes and save time.
As you have probably seen up until now, there are several ways how technology can improve productivity. MSPs are aware of trends in technology, especially as they constantly evolve. It’s up to you to make a conscious decision to invest in productivity technology and incorporate it into your business strategy.
- Give them collaboration tools.
- Train them.
- Secure them.
- Trust an expert when you need a helping hand.
Ready to optimize your team's efficiency and set them up for success? Schedule A Discovery Call today to find out how IT support from Gant Systems can increase your team's productivity.
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