5 Ways to Cheaply Improve Staff Productivity

Written by: Jason Neville

Today while having coffee with a friend and client of mine I was asked an interesting question... if I had $1,000 what's the one thing I would spend it upon first to improve the productivity of my staff.  Immediately a number of ideas rushed into my head, but given the $1,000 constraint which would be number one? It was a tough question, and one that I felt needed further pondering. 

Of course, the most natural thing for me to do was to go back into our business, and after speaking with the team and a few of our clients, we came up with the following recommendations:

Our #1 Recommendation - Instant Messaging Solution - Chances are if you have kids, you will know what MSN Messenger is. It's that annoying program that stops your kids from achieving good grades and allows them to have one on one chats with their friends, see their friends statuses, and broadcast short messages to their "address book" about "how Justin Bieber is so cute". The truth is, there are real practical business applications for this type of technology, and it's something that we have noticed many businesses (and ourselves alike) use on a daily basis.

Having a dedicated Internal Instant Messenging Solution offers the benefits of IM without having to mesh your personal and business relationships (eg. you wouldn't want to get everyone in your office using MSN or Facebook Chat!).  IM although seemingly pointless or distracting to some at first glance increases the speed, and frequency of communication between members of your organisation. The "status" feature is also fantastic (a user can set themselves At their desk, away, busy etc) if people are physically seperated, be it in offices or in different locations. Finally, the ability to broadcast short messages to other users in your list is invaluable. Onto the costs... Microsoft have their own product (which we love) called Office Communications Server (OCS) however this is not in the $1,000 range we have set, but to dip your toe into the water there are numerous free products available such as "24IM" and "Big Ant". These products are easy to deploy to your users for a simple trial. Try them out, get staff feedback and watch your bottom line - I gurantee you will not be disappointed!

#2 - Phones with Email - Enough said here. If you as the director, and all your sales team do not have phones with email then it is a must. Of course, if you're choosing a lifestyle decision to not become a late night email checker we respect your wishes!

#3 - Content Filtering - More and more of our clients are asking us to block the big "time wasters" ala facebook, myspace and youtube. It's quite simple to implement (under an hour) and can be useful in 'steering' team members in the right direction. Time windows can also be setup (eg. allowed during lunchtime and after 5PM) however this requires extra configuration and software.

#4 - Sharepoint - Sharepoint is a company Intranet that comes free from Microsoft. It is designed to operate on an Small Business or Server 2003/2008 machine and is a fantastic tool to increase staff productivity. Sharepoint only takes a few hours to setup, and once running can be administered by any staff member with a couple of hours training. The system is designed so that there is no programming or technical skills required. Features include things like Creating shared calenders for boardroom bookings, discussion forums for hot business issues, important policy/forms/files and more.

#5 - Dual Monitors - Is anyone old enough to remember when we used to think "Why do we need a mobile phone?" But after a short while, chances are when you lost it you felt a piece of you had died and you desperately needed it back! Like the mobile phone, Foxtel and those other essential services you thought you would never need, Dual Monitors are an incredible productivity enhancer. Try it out on one of your admin staff and watch their productivity soar for only $300.

I am an advocate of IT as an enabler within any business to drive productivity and increase efficiency. To stay relevant to your customers and continue to offer them a competitive advantage I strongly suggest you have a look at these items and give them a try!

Case Studies

IT Support Case Study "Starting out as a husband and wife team and growing to a 2 office business with 13 employees in just over 18 months certainly gave us a few headaches in relation to managing our IT requirements. We received no “service” from our previous IT Company" » Read More

Cloud Solution Case Study "Expanding a services business into new territories is never an easy thing, but R & G’s hosted desktop cloud computing solution let’s easily manage IT costs whilst having the ability to rapidly deploy new offices and equip staff literally anywhere." » Read More