Productivity is the secret sauce of many a successful business. No matter how great your business idea is, if the workplace is not actually productive, your company will not be making much money. Productivity for business means making as much money as per labor spent. If your employees work 9 hour days with little to show for it, then you are not making much money. So here are several essential tips for making your startup or small business more productive:
Assign Leaders
If you assign a team of people to handle a particular task or a project, make sure the team has a leader. When it comes to groups, a hierarchy is important to assign responsibility. The team leader will ensure that everyone does what they are supposed to on time. Without leadership, there will more room for members to be lazy, get into lengthy disputes, and overall be less productive. So, make sure there’s someone responsible for the project or task at hand.
Invest in Communications Software
A lot of time in offices is wasted on employees not communicating properly. Long chain emails, memos that go nowhere, and talking loudly in cubicles are all signs of lack of productivity. Companies should ensure that employees can communicate easily and quickly. So, do invest in communications software. Some, like Skype, won’t cost much money and will make communication much more accessible.
Do a Business Review
It won’t be possible for you to know how productive your small business is without doing a comprehensive review, like Global Resources Reviews. So, don’t hesitate to hire management consultants to review practices at your small business. The professionals will be able to tell you what you are doing right and what you are not doing right. A review from an outsider’s perspective would be highly beneficial to ensuring productivity as well as efficiency.
Ban Spur of the Moment Meetings
Most businesspeople are familiar with those spur of the moment, “5-minute” meetings. Such meetings do nothing but take up valuable time. It’s best to ban these meetings. Do not let employees hold meetings that have no clear purposes. If a team needs to discuss things over, it can be done via Skype or email. Let them hold meetings only when it is absolutely necessary. Discourage all other meetings that only waste time.
Have Clear Agendas for Lengthy Projects
If a project can last for months, then employees that handle the project must approach it with a clear agenda. Big tasks must be broken down into smaller ones, and there should be a team member leading various aspects of the projects. Without a clear agenda, the management of the project will be a mess, and deadlines will definitely be missed. So, make sure projects have a clearly thought out timetable so everything gets done on time.
Allow Employees to Take Breathers
Too much work can hinder productivity rather than make things better. So, if you have employees who are overburdened with work, it can take a toll on their individual productivity levels. So, do allow employees to take a breather and think clearly to be more productive afterwards.
The above tips should allow your small businesses to be more efficient and productive in the long run, and ultimately, more profitable as well.
