Reduce Office Workload and increase productivity: 5 Steps to achieve efficiency!

 “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” — Michael Jordan.

We have all faced certain challenges at some point in our professional careers where we felt we had too much work to do but not enough time to complete it in a day! According to a study, 6 in 10 employees feel their workloads have gone up significantly. Some even report that they work long hours just to get their job done because office hours are replete with inefficient processes, manual workflows, and other time-consuming distractions.

With a momentous shift in office culture happening day by day, the size of our workloads is constantly increasing. This directly results in massive staff burnouts and/or loss in business efficiency. If your team is struggling to get basic work done, how do you expect them to achieve more? Businesses dealing with an excessive workload need to figure out more efficient ways to get the job done. We bring you suggestions to do just that from the best minds and the most competently run teams.

1. Limit unproductive meetings — A sure way of improving productivity is to limit the number of meetings since they can become quite time-consuming and unproductive. It’s one thing if you have an important announcement or need to discuss strategy, but conducting meetings about topics that can be communicated via email can reduce productivity and are totally unnecessary

2. Encourage regular breaks — Your teams work hard for you, so treating them like robots who clock in and clock out is a sure way to ruin your business or team to the ground. It’s not necessary for every employee to be busy every minute of the entire workday. In fact, keeping your staff too busy can create fatigue and cause burnout. That’s why one of the steps to improve productivity is to take occasional breaks. Taking 10 to 15-minute breaks allows your team to recharge and feel refreshed when they approach the work again. 3. Limit personal distractions.

3. Use time-tracking software — Business leaders should analyze how their teams are using their time. There are several metrics that can be tracked with automation software, such as the time it takes to complete a task or how many tasks are completed per day. Time-tracking software can help monitor the productivity of your employees. It makes it easy for your team members to plan their day and know how long each task takes to complete. As a result, they have more control over their schedule, leading to a boost in productivity. You can even make personnel adjustments in real-time if necessary to make up for lost production.

4. Recognize and reward your employees — Recognizing employees when they do a better job than just ‘good’ can boost work morale and make them want to work even harder. Motivating and rewarding your team can cultivate a sense of fulfillment and inspire others to be more productive.

5. Set and commit to deadlines — Studies have shown that one of the key ways of improving productivity is to set and commit to deadlines. Regularly meeting deadlines demonstrates reliability and the ability to stay focused. Part of running a successful team is taking responsibility that everyone knows what they must do and when they need to do it.

6. Be proactive — Being proactive and going beyond what is needed to limit, reduce or eliminate future vulnerabilities is a great strategy. Businesses that don’t take time to proactively prevent future challenges may find themselves in a difficult situation when the situation occurs. For example, the companies that had switched to e-signatures before the pandemic had far less trouble signing and getting their documents back and forth than businesses that were still using the traditional paper and pen methods of signing.

7. Spruce up the workspace — Learning how to be productive at work includes making work physically and visually enjoyable. By creating a well-organized and paperless office, the workplace can be a pleasant place to see every day. In addition, the more comfortable employees feel at the office, the less stressed they will be.

Read our full blog here and improve the productivity and morale of your team and employees.