5 Tips to Improve Productivity in your Office

Let’s get this straight, we all work in a company so that we can produce results, and ultimately earn the company more income. If we are unproductive for a company, then I suppose there is no need for us, and we might as well get fired. However, often we get trapped in our cycle of doing non-value adding, admin work, which never seems to finish, as a result the productivity in the office goes down.

I have seen this a lot at MyVirtualPeople.com, and we actively guide virtual employees to maintain productivity whilst working with our clients. Here are a few tips we implement at MyVirtualPeople that hopefully will be useful to every company.

1. Communication

One of the most important skills in any business is effective communication. When you are communicating with staff and clients, make sure that all your instructions and information is understood the way you intend it to be. With communication, clarity is the number one objective. Just by speaking clearly, concisely and checking that the person you are communicating with has understood what you have said, you can save precious time by getting what you need first time.

2. Planning

Plan your project or tasks properly. Break it down into smaller steps and assign a date by which each step should be completed. Delegate any of the project that can be done by someone else, but keep it closely supervised as to who is doing what and when you need it completed by. Once you have planned how you will do the project, you will find that you are less likely to put it off until the last minute.

3. Prioritizing

Jumping around from one project to another, not feeling as if you have accomplished anything each day or constantly rushing to finish on deadlines is a sign that you need to reorganize how you approach your task scheduling and work prioritizing strategy. Each morning go through your in box and prioritize its contents. Once you know what has to be done, how urgently it is needed, and how long it is likely to take to complete, add the tasks in order of importance to your work schedule for the day. When the mail comes in, prioritize any items that need attention, and then add these to your work schedule.

4. Delegation

If you have team members working on your same project, delegate some of your routine tasks which you can quickly instruct someone else to take responsibility of. Remember to communicate the instructions clearly and ensure they are understood before giving the task to your colleague. Once you delegate something, just a quick review to ensure it’s done correctly and on time is all that you should need to do.

5. Accountability

Every employee needs to be well aware that he is accountable for his actions and decisions, and he can neither pass the buck or pass the blame to someone else.
1. This will help him work more meticulously
2. Take cautious rather than reckless decisions, and not take advantage of his place, position or relationship with his superiors.

6. Bonus Tip – Hire Virtual Employees!

Every company has tonnes of admin work to do, and we often make the mistake of piling on all the admin work to our capable employees who should ideally be busy using their skills on strategic work that helps the company earn it’s bread and butter. A smart way to eliminate this lack of productivity is to outsource the admin work to virtual employees who would work for you company directly from only £2.99 per hour. This of course comes with many other benefits other than just the low pay rate. Visit MyVirtualPeople.com for more details on this, or email me directly on rob@myvirtualpeople.com.

As always, please do feel free to share some of your own tips for others to learn from. And if you have any questions go ahead and drop me a message. Thanks again.

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