Creating a productive environment is an important feature for business owners, but this can be a tricky goal to accomplish. Offices are full of distractions and technology can sometimes be a hindrance to productivity rather than an aid.
Fortunately there are many ways to increase productivity in the workplace utilizing technology. The use of technology cannot be avoided at this point, and shouldn’t be. It’s become a necessary asset for most business models. The key is to keep the use of technology productive and ensure a company atmosphere that will utilize technology instead of being distracted by it.
Software Use
Utilizing the most efficient software for your company is the best way to ensure peak productivity. The type of software you will need will vary greatly depending on the type of business you are running, but finding the best version to fit your company is vital.
This involves a lot of trial and error, but finding the programs that fit in with your business model are worth the search. With an efficient software program that your employees can learn and utilize, your business will stay productive and avoid frustration and inefficient practices.
Discover your weak points, write down the qualities you’d like your software to have, and start trying them out. Once you find the right program, your employees will be much more productive than they would be otherwise.
BYOD (Bring your own device)
Allowing employees to utilize their own device for work purposes has its positives and negatives. Bring your own device (BYOD) has become a popular alternative to company assigned devices because it helps lessen the demand of gadgets from employees and eliminates the need for extensive training classes on each format.
Perhaps one of the biggest pros to allowing BYOD is the increase in productivity. If employees are allowed to access work emails or documents on their personal computer or smartphone, they are more likely to stay connected, check email, and thus working a few hours extra per day.
The cons of BYOD have a lot to do with data security issues. 40% of organizations consider mobile device insecurity as one of their biggest security concerns and 15% of employees believe they have minimal responsibility to protect data stored on their personal device. So weigh the positive productivity benefits with the negative security issues before jumping on the BYOD train.
Stay Connected
There are definitely some downsides to being so connected all the time with the potential for distraction but, overall, staying connected great for productivity in the office. The more available and open for communication you are with your employees the better.
Having chat platforms and open email communication will allow for more collaboration, a better forum for questions, and better teamwork. Test out chat platforms like Google Hangouts or Slack to see which one works best for your employees to promote productive discussion.
Consider the Setting
Our surroundings have a lot to do with our productivity. People are much more likely to be happier and more productive in an environment that is clean, comfortable, and welcoming. Office settings can sometimes be constricting and hindering for employees that work better in a more relaxed environment.
Encourage employees to personalize their areas, decorate offices with comfortable furniture, and allow for some natural light to fill your space. Consider flexible technology like Wi-Fi in order to allow employees to move their work stations to more comfortable areas or use portable technology like the ThinkPad 2-in-1 Yoga series which allows the user to change its usage mode in order to work comfortably from anywhere. This will promote a more comfortable environment to aid in employee productivity.
Utilizing Technology Tools
There are many applications that your employees can utilize in order to help keep their productivity where it needs to be. There are a few issues that employees have with staying productive. One of which is staying off of sites that steer them away from work. This is why applications like Forest promote productivity by asking which sites distract you in order to keep you on more productive sites.
The app starts growing you a tree and the tree grows and stays healthy while you’re staying away from bad sites, but if you wander over to a distracting site your tree dies. Another enemy to productivity is disorganization. Evernote is a great tool to keep yourself organized. Save documents, articles, photos, and any other work organized in Evernote and it’ll help save any wasted time trying to find things that are misplaced.
Being productive at work can be difficult for some with so much technology at our fingertips. Fortunately technology doesn’t have to be a cause for distraction and can, instead, help to promote productivity.
By downloading the best software, allowing employees to use their own devices, staying connected, creating a welcoming space, and utilizing online tools, employees have the opportunity to use their potentially distracting devices and turn them into tools to increase their productivity instead.
By Chelsy Ranard
Image Credits: Pixabay
Crisp and clear article. Could you write about some tools tat could help to increase productivity?
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