The difference between a great business idea and a great business is in productivity. You can have the best idea for a business in the world and it will still fail because you or your team were not productive or efficient enough.
This is one of the reasons so many start-ups fail – they have a great idea but lack either the skill or the organizational capability to execute this idea well. After their eventual downfall, a less creative but more industrious company may make a fortune on that business idea.
If you don’t want that to be the scenario for your business, you need to find ways to improve productivity – either your own productivity or the output of your company as a whole.
The problem with increasing productivity in a business is that every business is different. The strategies that work for one business may not work as well for another, especially if there’s a significant difference in size and line of work.
The best thing you can do for your business is to analyze its faults. No solution will be effective until you get the diagnosis right. This may take a while and require you to implement new processes that are going to take a lot of your time or hiring a third-party auditor / consultant.
That said, there are some areas where many businesses underperform and there are some commonly accepted / applicable solutions.
Here are some ways you can improve your business, for both large and small companies -
The strategies to increase business productivity for a large organization will be quite different from strategies that would work for a small company. If you’re trying to improve the productivity of a team of people, here’s what you should focus on.
1. Find workflow flaws
The biggest killer of productivity in a team is miscommunication and poorly planned workflows. You may have to do a lot of research and planning to fix a seemingly small issue but in the end, it will be saving you hours of labor.
The first thing you need to do to fix a workflow flaw is to find a workflow that needs fixing. If you or your employees have noticed that a particular department or type of task is constantly causing trouble, you know what to focus on. When you haven’t got a clue for the starting point, try asking employees what types of workflows they struggle with.
With that done, start mapping the workflow. Create a chart that has all the processes and the people that make this business process happen. Make sure to map out connections between people, e.g. one person has to transfer the materials to another to make the process flow smoothly.
It’s very important to draw that chart according to how it happens in your team, not how you want it to happen ideally. To do that, conduct interviews with your team members, but make sure to emphasize the fact there would be no punishments for disclosing failures.
When you have found bottlenecks in the business process, create a solution — this may include automatization, employee training, or structural changes to the workflow.
2. Invest in employee training
Employee training is another big factor in improving productivity. If investing in a paid course or hiring a consultant to train your team means they will have an easier time doing productive tasks, it’s worth it.
Integrating learnings from training and facilitating / measuring sustainable business impact is critical for success here.
Hiring accomplished, self-motivated experts is a great solution as well, but in many cases, training the people you already employ may be cheaper. On top of that, you’ll build loyalty with the team.
3. Improve employee comfort
Studies indicate that improving the comfort of your office may result in up to a 14% increase in business productivity.
How do you go about that is up to you and largely depends on the type of office space you have. Some suggestions are investing in standing desks, a comfortable kitchen / pantry, and space for the employees to relax / play / have fun.
4. Give power to employees
Employees, especially those from the younger generations, increasingly want to have some say in the office and work environment. To share power with them, you can:
Small businesses and solopreneurs often face quite a different set of problems. Improving productivity in a small business, therefore, involves a more personal approach.
1. Goal setting
The first thing you need to do to be satisfied with your personal productivity is to set the expectations correctly. When you’re fired up about your business, it may seem that finishing three projects in a month and signing four new clients with a team of ten people is within the realm of possibility. For most people, it’s probably not.
Analyze your team’s performance and set goals they can accomplish. Then, you won’t feel bad about the productivity and won’t lead yourself and your team to burnout.
2. Planning
Entrepreneurs who work with a small team and handle some operations of the business themselves often think that they should be the most productive person in the company. This leads them to burden their day with tasks that are impossible to complete even in 12 hours, let alone an 8-hour workday.
This kind of unrealistic expectation isn’t productive in the slightest. Instead of stuffing your day full of work, pick a couple of tasks that are absolutely crucial for your success. Make them the priority and add a couple of other important tasks to complete afterward.
If you’re the type of person who will work themselves to the point of burnout when they’re passionate about something, it may be wise to add some downtime to the daily to-do list as well.
3. Delegation
Fearing delegation is what kills a lot of small businesses. You as a business owner may feel like a particular task on the project requires so much perfection only you can do it. It may be true in some cases, but in most, it’s not.
Learn to trust your team and delegate some duties to them, this will free up your day for the most crucial tasks your business needs to succeed.
4. Tech productivity solutions for business
Not all productivity problems can be solved by delegating your responsibilities to employees. Some require implementing a new technical solution like using process mapping tools that will help you and your employees focus on the tasks that really matter.
5. Automation
Automation is a great solution for most businesses. You can automate support with chatbots to let your employees handle only the toughest problems of your clients. You can also automate most of the sales process: creating new leads, assigning them to available sales representatives, and automatic replies can save you tens of hours each month.
There’s no single answer to what’s the best productivity software for small businesses, you’ll probably need more than one tool to automate your processes.
6. Analytics
Automation is a great way to save your employees’ time, which will increase their productivity quite a lot. But if you really want to bring structural changes to your organization that will improve business productivity even more, you need to get serious about analytics.
There’s no limit to what you can analyze, from sales and conversion numbers to people productivity. Use the findings to improve important business processes and make workflows more efficient.
7. Improving business productivity is a long effort
The most important advice you can get about improving productivity in your business is not to treat it as a one-off thing. You probably won’t be able to fix every issue in your business the first time you try. Treat improving business productivity as an ongoing process.
Dedicate some of your time each month to find inefficiencies in your business and improve them. When you introduce change that’s going to increase business productivity, use analytics to track how well it’s performing.
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