No matter how big or small your organization is, finding new ways to boost its productivity should always be a priority. There’s no definitive guide to boosting organizational productivity, but there are certain steps you can take that are proven to work.
Since every organization is different, you may find that some things work better than others for boosting you and your team’s productivity. Try using a mix of different strategies, practices, and tools for the best results.
If You Want To Boost Organizational Productivity, Follow These Steps
1. Use Spike Email
One of the biggest productivity drains for many employees is their email inbox. While emailing is an essential form of communication used in most organizations, traditional email inboxes quickly become cluttered with long, repetitive threads that are a nightmare to sift through when you need to find certain information or read the latest reply.
Spike email provides a revolutionary new way to email called conversational email, which turns your inbox messages into chat conversations. Spike streamlines threads by removing repetitive content and stiff formalities, letting you and your team communicate more naturally and efficiently.
In addition to conversational email, Spike also offers a variety of built-in productivity tools that are sure to boost your organization’s productivity. These include collaborative notes with an integrated chat window, group chats, video meetings, tasks and to-do lists, and more. In other words, Spike packs a lot of different productivity tools into one easy-to-use, streamlined platform.
You and your team can sync Spike email with whatever professional email platform you’re currently using, and you can still view your emails in a traditional email thread format if you ever need to. However, once you see what a difference emailing back and forth in a chat format makes to your productivity, you’ll probably never want to return to the old way of emailing!
2. Minimize context switching
Context switching is when you switch back and forth between different apps, screens, and tools throughout the day as you work on different tasks. While it’s necessary to use various different platforms for different things, constantly switching between too many can really hurt your organization’s productivity.
In order to minimize context switching, look for tools that have multiple built-in features that you and your team need. That way, you aren’t wasting so much time opening up new apps, trying to remember passwords, and refocusing after shifting gears from one context to another. When you minimize context switching you’re sure to get more done in less time.
3. Delegate tasks efficiently
Upper level organizational personnel must learn how to delegate tasks to the right people to free up time and boost productivity. In order to do so, identify employees who excel in certain areas and delegate suitable tasks to them. With some of the workload off your shoulders, you can focus more on the bigger picture stuff, including finding other ways to boost your organization’s productivity.
Delegating efficiently not only benefits senior staff, but also provides employees with opportunities to learn and practice new skills, which makes them more productive in the long run.
4. Focus on building a strong team
With the advent of remote work, it’s never been easier to build a strong team with a diverse set of skills and specialties.
Look for employees and contractors with the exact experience and capabilities you need, and look for people with skill sets to fill in any weaknesses on your team. Don’t be afraid to look far afield for new employees, either. Team communication apps make it incredibly smooth and easy to chat and meet with remote employees almost anywhere in the world.
Once you have the team you want, make sure to keep providing opportunities for your team members to grow and skill up. This will keep your employees engaged and productive in the long haul.
5. Automate repetitive processes
Another huge area where organizations waste valuable time is manually doing repetitive tasks and processes. To take back this time, look for ways to automate some of these processes.
For example, you could build a chat bot into your website to provide 24/7 customer service. With modern AI and machine learning technology, chat bots can easily answer common questions customers frequently ask, thus freeing up your employees to do more complex tasks.
6. Set achievable goals
Achievable goals help motivate employees and make them more productive. Identify specific milestones that you need to reach for different projects within your organization to define your goals and drive performance. When people are able to steadily achieve goals, they build confidence in their skills and work more efficiently.
Make sure to regularly check in with your team to ensure that they have all the tools and information needed to meet their individual goals. Also, celebrate wins together when your team reaches major milestones to help build your team.
The Bottom Line
Increasing productivity in an organization of any size is a matter of using the right combination of tools, strategies, and business practices. While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, the above steps are proven to work in many different types of organizations.