Technological advances, customer expectations and especially globalization have increased the need for higher productivity. After all, most entrepreneurs must now compete with companies in countries such as China and India where labour costs are a fraction of what they are in North America and Europe.
In a literal sense, productivity refers to how well an organization converts input (such as labour, materials, machines and capital) into goods and services or output. But today, it is no longer limited to measuring ratios of inputs and outputs. Basically, increasing productivity just means working smarter. You can look for opportunities to improve efficiency just about anywhere in your company. Here are some key areas to consider.
5 Ways to Improve Your Business Productivity
These are 5 ways you can improve your company’s productivity.
1. Utilize technology properly
Web-based tools, apps, and technologies let you massively improve the way you run your business. If you are looking to increase your market share, outdo your competitors, and make your company more streamlined, there are plenty of integrations and tools that you can use.
Using tools and tech also helps to keep your company abreast of technological developments and ensure that your business is taking advantage of the latest innovations to improve productivity.
2. Always be looking to make improvements
Improving productivity is an ongoing activity. It takes a lot of work and you always need to be watching out and making sure that the changes you have implemented are being followed and are working.
Some ways you can do this include:
- Getting external help to assess your business weaknesses and strengths. This gives you an objective viewpoint from which you can improve productivity and redesign processes.
- Take a step-by-step approach rather than tackling everything at once. Focusing on a few priorities will enable you to see results faster.
- Assign specific teams to specific problems or processes for redesign.
- Put a formal suggestion system in place for employees.
- Look for breakthrough accomplishments. Small improvements can transform into major increases in productivity.
3. Host an “anti-productivity productivity day”
Every so often, tear up your company’s schedule and take a “whatever” approach to the day’s tasks. Let your employees pick whatever they most feel like working on and roll with it.
No schedule. No meetings. No commitments. No deadlines.
When you decide to be productive, but can work on anything you want, what do you do? That may be the natural strength talent of some of your employees.
You never know, more might end up being done in the end.
4. Abolish your least productive activities
Productivity is a task for subtraction; not addition.
The process of eliminating or outsourcing as many tasks and obligations as possible is the best way to become more productive. Doing this gives you and your employees more space to get the important things done in a given day.
At the end of each day, week, or month, ask yourself “What can we get rid of?” or “What’s the least productive thing that happened this month?” and figure out what you can get rid of or outsource without harming your bottom-line.
While it can be difficult to see what you are doing well, it is much easier to see where things are lacking somewhat.
Eventually, you will only be left with the things that your company does really well. This is when productivity will be at an all-time high.
5. Get everybody behind your core value
One of the biggest challenges at a company, especially as it grows, is keeping each employee excited about the work that they’re doing. When people are working intrinsically and feel like the work that they are doing is the best possible way that they could be spending their life now, their output is going to be exponentially higher.
If they’re basing part of their self-concept on the work that they are doing and they care deeply about it, then each day they will be coming into work with the energy to give it all they have.
You need to make sure that you don’t just get people behind your values, but that you keep them there, too. Always keep them in your employees’ focus so that they don’t forget about them.
