The office is a unique place designed solely for the purpose of getting work done. Therefore, no matter how your workplace is designed, there's always room to improve it in order to squeeze out a few more precious minutes of productivity from each worker. As productivity goes, every minute saved adds up!
Every productivity expert is a careful student in both math and commerce. Office managers are acutely aware that saving even a few minutes in a worker's day can add up significantly over the course of a year. Additionally, if you multiply that figure by every worker in the office, it will easily add up to saving the company weeks of salary. Here are three practical measures your business can take to improve workplace productivity.
It's impossible to know what to improve upon if you're not familiar with your current workflows. By taking time to study your company's workflows, you will begin to see several productivity shortcomings. You can do this by talking to the workers in the trenches. They will be able to passionately tell you what roadblocks are keeping them from getting more work done. Be sure to talk to as many team members as you can. As you begin to compile first-hand accounts of productivity hindrances, you should start to notice patterns that you can address.
In fact, there's an actual scientific method used to increase workplace productivity called Scientific Management. This field of study dates back to before computers were the norm. As reported by The Secret Life of Machines, "Techniques included taking time lapse photos of office workers with flashing light bulbs tied to their heads and hands to trace their movements. The idea was to eliminate 'wasted motion' and find 'the one best way' for every job."
When it comes to workspaces, it's impossible to implement a one-size-fits-all model. People have different personalities that require different environments to maximize productivity. For example, going with an office designed with all cubicles or an open office that's one big room will isolate people with certain personality tendencies that don't fit the environment. Perhaps a mix of both models will work best to accommodate workers' different personalities. Designing the layout of your workspace will work best if you talk to your staff and better understand their needs. Getting to know your employees will help you to determine the introvert-to-extrovert ratio. For accurate results, you can have every employee take a personality test.
After talking with your team about workflows, you may discover that many of their pain points relate to technology. Techcess Group can improve your current IT infrastructure and help equip your business with the latest in productivity technology. With the implementation of solutions like cloud computing that give workers the ability to collaborate on projects in real time, and content filtering which allows you to block time-wasting websites, you will get back those precious minutes from being wasted on a poor workflow.
