Efficient workflow throughout your company is what keeps your business running smoothly. A lack of productivity will seriously affect that workflow, and ultimately, your bottom line. With that in mind, here are a few things that may be impacting the productivity of your employees and how to resolve them.
Document Anarchy
Particularly in a large corporation, thousands of company emails, presentations and documents are created on a daily basis. The problem is that not all employees hold to company standards. This could mean using outdated company logos or incorrect email formats. There’s also likely a lot of time wasted searching for templates, creating them from scratch, or shortcutting by using old templates, such as letterheads, that have redundant information in them.
To resolve this, consider a program like Templafy, which will bring all of your employees onto the same page. This way, all employees have easy access to current templates for PowerPoints, emails and documents. This will ensure that correct, common formats are used for all company documents. For employee specific documents such as emails and letterheads, you can also create individual templates that will insert the employee’s information where necessary.
Meetings
There are two things to consider regarding meetings and productivity – whether the meetings are actually necessary, and making the ones that are strictly necessary more productive. Some research estimates that the average office worker spends 31 hours a month in unproductive meetings, yet they’re still a weekly, if not daily ritual in most offices. If the same goals can be accomplished over email, phone or Skype, don’t hold a meeting for it.
For meetings that are actually necessary – and there will be a few – change the way you run the meeting. Hold a standing meeting, which, as the name implies, means everyone stands rather than sits. There’s evidence that shows this improves performance and concentration, and therefore productivity. If nothing else, anyone who doesn’t like to stand for long will make sure the meeting stays on track.
Send out the meeting agenda at least a day in advance and stick to it. Sticking to an agenda will prevent the meeting going off track and if you’re planning an ideas session, everyone can have their contributions ready before they walk in the door.