You might think that the best way to be more productive is to simply work harder. In fact, it’s important to make sure the equipment you use every day is working hard for you. With that in mind, here are three things every workplace should invest in to make the team more productive.
A Cloud-Based System
One of the most important things when it comes to completing tasks as quickly as possible is making sure you get all the necessary information as quickly as possible. For example, if you need to produce a sales forecast for the next few months, you’ll want to access the sales data for the last few months, as well as any other market research that has been produced. The only problem is that if you work with a big team, many people complete all these different tasks and then saved them in several different locations. If this is the case, it could take a considerable amount of time to contact all these different colleagues to get them to send over the information.
The way to solve this problem is to make sure you’re all working together on the same file system. Instead of saving documents to personal computers and hard drives, set up a cloud-based system where everybody can save all the files they are working on. This means that everyone will have access to every file instantly, as well as any updates to any files, whether they are in the office or working away from their desk.
While this will be a huge improvement to the way you work, it’s important that you don’t rush a big change like this. There should be many phases to your cloud adoption framework to make sure that all the files make it onto the system. It’s also vital that the team can access all the devices used and that they are fully trained on how to use the system before it is launched.
The Latest Equipment
Of course, you can only complete tasks quickly if your equipment can keep up with the speed that you’re trying to complete them. Make sure your devices have enough memory to complete the tasks that you carry out every day. If you’re using complex software like video editing or photo editing, you’ll need a computer with a lot of memory and a fast processor, or you could find that it regularly crashes and you could end up losing some of your work. As well as your computers, make sure your internet is as fast as possible, as you don’t want to be waiting around for files to upload and download.
A Planning Board
Sometimes the simplest of devices can have a big effect. For example, try installing a large whiteboard in your office and write down either a list of tasks to complete or achievements to aim for so that everybody walking past will know exactly what they’re aiming for. Not only will this motivate the team, but it’ll make it clear what everybody is working on at any one time.
