When you’re running a business, it’s critical your employees manage their time efficiently. But without the right tools, no matter how well organized they are, they’ll never reach their full potential and productivity will suffer.
With today’s technology, we have greater access to online tools and resources than ever before.
Yet, we spend a large chunk of our day coordinating meetings, following up on emails, and trying to find 5-10 minutes to sit down and focus on a task.
A big reason for the lack of productivity in today’s work environments is the sheer number of platforms and tools available. We’re constantly switching from one to another.
It’s most common in offices where data, dashboards, calendars, and other essential tools are spread across multiple apps and locations. Some studies have revealed that the average office worker uses at least five computer programs at once.
The outcome is that employees are not focused and are easily distracted. In one study , it was shown that:
57% of respondents had sent an email to the wrong recipient
33% had sent an incomplete email or chat by accident
23% have sent an email or chat talking negatively about the recipient
Most companies end up using multiple dashboards and programs after they experienced growth and acquired new tools and apps. But the legacy dashboards and apps are still kept unless they migrate the data and dashboard functionality – a rare occurrence unless the original creators are around to facilitate the migration.
One solution to boost your business productivity is implementing a cloud-based Work operating system (Work OS).
A Work OS combines all your different work elements such as data, dashboards, calendars, emails, project management tools, communication, and more into one shared workspace accessible from any location.
Here are five specific tangible benefits your business can gain from using a customizable Work OS.
Improve organization
A significant disadvantage of many service tools such as CRM software, business intelligence tools, and documents, is that they’re all stored in different locations and can only be accessed via various platforms.
Often this means you need to export data from multiple locations and centralize it manually to sort and manipulate it. It’s not uncommon for actions like this to take up to one hour or more, especially when downloading large files.
Instead of wasting time using multiple tools, you can boost productivity by rapidly decreasing the number of tools you use separately, and instead integrate or utilize them via one Work OS.
In large companies with multiple departments, it’s not unheard of to use different sets of tools for identical tasks. Much of it comes down to preference. Using different tools for the same job hurts your productivity. Using one shared Work OS will help increase your business organization and productivity.
Improving collaboration and communication on projects
Work OS apps help managers ensure everyone is aligned and also enhance cross-team collaboration.
Often in companies, information can become fragmented , and ownership of processes and tasks can become complicated, and unclear, especially when multiple teams and managers are involved.
Differing locations, time zones, and remote workers mean the on-premise traditional work methods are no longer relevant to today’s workflows. Without a centralized system to handle complex projects, teams won’t collaborate and communicate effectively.
Tracking time and following a project evolution
If you want to boost productivity, you need a fully-transparent dashboard that can adequately track the progress and time of a project. Work OS dashboard allows team members to work with high-visibility project management tools that track ongoing processes, tasks, and workflows while also giving managers a top-down view.
Advanced Work OS platforms provide high-level features that can reduce some of the mundane workloads by automating specific tasks, provide automated notifications, and even automatically assign the proper team member to functions when required.
Setting realistic deadlines
The bane of many office workers is a manager who has no clue of current workloads, is merely a mouthpiece of higher-management, and sets impossible deadlines. The result is sloppy work, increased stress, and employee demotivation. If you want to improve your overall productivity, you must set realistic deadlines and avoid burning out your employees.
Utilize the overview and project management tools of a Work OS to quickly see who is currently performing what tasks, and who can take on new, critical ones. By looking at the big picture instead of wildly firing from the hip, you can even delay non-essential tasks or reassign projects and block any bottlenecks and needless delays.
Reducing the number of meetings
Meetings are a useful tool to brainstorm ideas, present information and updates to people, and create synergy between employees and different teams. But many meetings are merely inefficient and poorly planned, which results in wasted time.
Work OS can benefit teams by allowing members to share and communicate in real-time plus share and edit documents and data. Combined with the ability to instantly see each employee and team’s status, less time is needed to inform and update everyone on progress. Instead, more time can be dedicated to problem-solving and strategic discussions.
Ensure your employees online safety
With the increase in remote workers and multi-location offices, having cloud-based business tools is a must.
While you can connect remotely to company servers via a VPN, unless its server sits relatively close to your business server, you will experience high latency and problems downloading large files and dealing with live data.
A Business VPN allows users to connect securely to your company’s network and access the cloud safely and securely.
Without a VPN, employees are at risk of inadvertently sharing data or allowing access to the company cloud and network. It creates a secure tunnel between the network and the user with encryption on both sides to keep both sides of the connection secure.
With all the recent cyberattacks, it has become a widespread solution to secure your employees and your business tools so they can work safely from anywhere and from any connection.