Tips and Tricks for Making Your Office More Efficient
By Dan Radak
The efficiency of your office is not just affected by its infrastructure. It’s also something that changes as you manage it. Therefore, you need to rethink all the ways in which you can make it an optimal work environment. The majority of it is affected by the way in which you manage and treat your employees. Their individual traits and preferences are the reason why so many experts advise against the use of words such as workforce or talent. With that in mind, here are five tips and tricks to help you make your office more efficient.
1. Allow people to move laterally
The first thing you need to know about managing employees is the fact that just because someone is bad at the task that they’re currently doing, this doesn’t mean that they’re useless or incompetent. Sometimes, their skillset and their mindset are just not ideal for the task at hand but if you allow them to move to a different position (without promoting them) they might become a lot more efficient. Namely, allowing an employee to pivot is a lot less expensive than having to hire new people. This is especially true because this is someone who already knows the rest of your staff and your corporate values.
2. Incentivize your employees
The next thing for you to understand is the fact that motivation is the key ingredient in the overall efficiency of your team. Different people, nonetheless, get motivated by different factors. It’s your job to discover them all and match them to the right people. Some people are there for a promotion or a raise. Sometimes, you can handle things with a promotion or a gift. Nonetheless, some people are there for recognition and working opportunities. You need to be ready for all of these outcomes.
3. Make sure your equipment is in top shape
If your equipment is lagging and malfunctioning, your team will have a hard time keeping it all together. Not only will they start underperforming due to these technical issues but they might even get demoralized over your lack of care for the state of your business. This is something that you can’t allow to happen. First of all, you need to start performing a kind of triage when it comes to your equipment. Some items need to be scrapped and replaced with new ones while others are worth repairing. This is why a capable office manager always has a service specializing in mac computer repair in their contacts, as well as a range of other services available.
4. Not everyone has to be on premises
The next thing you need to realize is the fact that not every single member of your team needs to be on the premises. Some people simply feel more comfortable working from home, especially introverts, while others feel that this is advantageous seeing as how they don’t waste money and time on the commute. You don’t even have to make this into a rule. For instance, you can give everyone a choice of whether they should work from home or from the office. You can even combine this and allow everyone one or two days per week to work from home.
5. Invest in communication
Just because your employees are talking to you and amongst themselves doesn’t mean that they’re efficient at communication. Efficient communication needs proper channels. It also needs to be expressed at the right time. Sure, everyone can be a million-dollar-idea-genius during a breakroom argument, however, if all your employees are dead silent as soon as they enter the conference room, you might just have a larger problem than you’ve initially expected. All in all, proper communication, in both real and digital worlds, needs to become a top priority.
Conclusion
Like with solving the puzzle, you need to think about each part individually in order to make the larger picture work. Understand that it’s your team that makes your brand for what it is and you’ll do just fine. With these five methods under your belt, you finally have the means to make this happen.
Dan Radak is a marketing professional with eleven years of experience. He is currently working with a number of companies in the field of digital marketing, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies. He is also a coauthor on several technology websites and regular contributor to Technivorz.