Smartphones and tablets have opened up a world of opportunities for small business owners, allowing them to streamline operations, enhance customer engagement, and boost productivity. Today, we'll explore how mobile devices are a great tool for small businesses and the myriad ways they contribute to success.
Technology advances at an incredible rate, and the successful business has much work to do in order to keep up with it. How does your organization’s ability to change and adapt hold up compared to your competitors? This concept, dubbed business agility, is of critical importance in today’s fast-paced business environment, and if you aren’t prepared to assess it, you might be falling behind the competition.
Productivity is a concept that has long been viewed as the gold standard in businesses. However, with so many businesses currently transferring to remote operations in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic, it can be challenging for all involved to work as productively as they would while in the office. On the other side of the coin, the right behaviors can make it quite effective.
Let’s review a few suggestions that can help you ensure that your workforce is ready to work remotely.
Unless your employees are completely self-sufficient in their responsibilities (which is incredibly unlikely), they are going to need to interact with their co-workers, as well as numerous contacts outside of the organization. This need doesn’t just go away once they happen to be working from home, either.
As a result, it is crucial that there are open lines of communication between and amongst your team members, and that they are used extensively--almost excessively.
Why is that? Simply put, to make up for the vast amount of in-person communication that you lose during this period. With your team surrounding you, it is much easier to share ideas and collaborate. When working remotely, it isn’t so convenient to do so, passing up great opportunities.
Therefore, it is only more important that you reinforce good communication habits, to the point that they become an integral part of the daily workflow. Make sure your team knows what options are available to them, in terms of communication, and that they are using them as often as needed.
Of course, not every employee works the same way. Some may find that different schedules are more effective than others, something that the office environment may not always allow. When your team is working from home, however, they can enjoy a greater opportunity to shift their schedule to meet their own productivity patterns. As long as the job gets done, right?
This can even assist employees when they have other obligations to fulfill. If someone in your office has a dentist appointment, instead of taking time off and ultimately costing the both of you (them in missed wages, and you in productivity), this employee could instead work from home before and after their appointment to make up the time that would otherwise be missed. Everybody wins!
Make sure that your team is aware of more than just the potential to sit in their pajamas all day, that remote working can be used to improve their work/life balance and allow them to prevent any consequences derived from missing time in the office.
One of the biggest hurdles many organizations have had to overcome if they are serious about implementing remote work is the idea that it is too easy for an employee to become distracted when they aren’t in the office. Make sure that your employees remember how anything can seem preferable to the task they want to do--including household chores--but also that this phenomenon can just as easily happen in the office. The presence of family members can also contribute to some pretty significant distractions (most everyone has seen the BCC interview with Professor Robert Kelly where his young children barged in and stole the show), but also has the potential to help keep you accountable (“Shouldn’t you be working?”). Encourage your employees to recruit their family members to do the latter.
Productivity is possible from anywhere, as long as you have the tools and strategies in place to enable it. Even with the coronavirus already active, The Connection, Inc can help you put these resources into action for your company. To learn more, reach out to our team by calling (732) 291-5938.
How much does your business rely on technology to keep your organization running forward? As business technology becomes more complex, it’s becoming increasingly popular for organizations to have their own internal IT departments to manage and maintain it. Yet, small businesses don’t often have the necessary funds for such a feat. How can your company afford quality IT service? You can start by pursuing managed IT solutions from a managed service provider.
Unlike break-fix IT solutions, which depend on your technology breaking down, managed IT solutions aim to keep your technology in proper working order, as well as take action to proactively treat issues before they become long-term problems. Here are some of the best ways that managed IT can help your organization take better advantage of its technology.
Guaranteeing Flexibility
Let’s say that you choose to hire more employees for a specific department of your business. This means that you have more users, which can lead to more software licenses needed, more email accounts to archive, more endpoints to secure, and much more. Basically, as your workforce needs change, so too must your managed IT service agreement. The Connection, Inc offers scalable solutions that can be customized to fit the needs of your business.
Supplementing In-House Maintenance
Let’s say that you do have an in-house technician or a small group of workers dedicated to IT maintenance. They might be able to get most of their work done, but generally speaking, your in-house technicians probably have their hands full. They might have their hands full with acting as help desk support, or they might be too busy maintaining the status quo to help the everyday worker with their technology. A managed IT provider helps to augment and work beside your in-house team to create greater success for your organization as a whole.
Working with Your Vendors
You work with a lot of vendors to give your company the access to the products your organization needs to be successful. This includes hardware vendors for your workstations and server units, software developers for all of your productivity suite needs, and any other service providers that you have. Reaching out to all of these can be time-consuming, which is why managed service providers like The Connection, Inc offer vendor management services to create a single point of contact to keep your attention on your business and not your vendors.
Improving Operational Efficiency
Your business will generally function better by working with a managed service provider. The reason for this is simple: hands-off IT maintenance that takes up little, if any, of your time. The Connection, Inc can remotely monitor and maintain your business’ technology infrastructure to provide as much of a hands-off approach to IT maintenance as you can get. To learn more about what The Connection, Inc can do for your business, reach out to us at (732) 291-5938.
Your network is arguably your business’s most valuable asset. It keeps your team connected to critical information and applications that are imperative to the continued success of your company. With complex cabling, however, your workstation and network infrastructure can quickly grow uncontrollable. Isn’t there an easier way to manage your network components that can help your business grow, unhindered by physical infrastructure?
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