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Greater productivity can translate into higher profits for your company, but raising productivity isn’t as easy as snapping your fingers and making it happen. Running yourself and your employees ragged isn’t an option, especially if you want to avoid people falling asleep at their desks. With 42% of SMEs saying that they’re planning to use technology to modernise processes and boost their operating effectiveness, it’s clear that many businesses realise that the key to boosting productivity is to work smarter, not harder.
Greater productivity can translate into higher profits for your company, but raising productivity isn’t as easy as snapping your fingers and making it happen. Running yourself and your employees ragged isn’t an option, especially if you want to avoid people falling asleep at their desks. With 42% of SMEs saying that they’re planning to use technology to modernise processes and boost their operating effectiveness, it’s clear that many businesses realise that the key to boosting productivity is to work smarter, not harder.
The UK has seen some relatively big boosts in productivity in the last year but is still trailing behind other countries. However, small and medium businesses are helping to drive growth, so what are they doing to push productivity levels higher?
IMPLEMENTING THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY
Technology is high on the list of priorities for SMEs wanting to increase productivity. And it’s a good thing too because adopting efficient technologies could make a huge difference to your business’s productivity rates. Automation and productivity tools help your business to stop wasting time, improve organisation and cut down on mistakes. There are productivity tools aplenty, but getting all your needs in one package helps to make things easier. Tools like Workhorse give you everything that you need in one place. So you can take a simple approach to productivity, instead of complicating everything with too much tech.
Microsoft’s chief operating officer in the UK, Clare Barclay, points out cloud tech and robust hardware as two key tools. However, she also warns that “Technology alone will not plug the productivity gap.” Microsoft research has revealed that almost a quarter of UK businesses are also investing in helping their employees to adapt to changes.
FINDING THE TOOLS FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Choosing the best productivity tools for your business can be tricky with so much out there to choose from. Some tools might be designed to meet a host of productivity needs, while others perform specific jobs. Anyone who’s looking for the right tools to boost their productivity needs to consider several different factors to help them make the right choice.
Defining your requirements should be the first step to help you adopt the most useful productivity tools. This means that you need to identify what could be holding your business back. What’s slowing down your employees and causing their frustrations? Some productivity issues can be relatively easy to figure out, such as slow technology. However, others might be a little more surprising. For example, 63% of office workers say that the office temperature affects their productivity!
When you’re deciding what your requirements are, remember to take stock of the tools that you’re already using. Are they meeting your needs? How do they help and where might they be lacking? You might find that replacing a collection of tools from different providers with one solution that meets all your needs helps to streamline everything.
Your business needs to be smart about productivity. You don’t need to work everyone to death to do more with your time, so look for the productivity tools that will work for you.