Establishing sustainable processes to promote productivity at your business is crucial to your long-term success.
There is no singular secret to enhancing productivity. A few simple changes to your business operations can help you increase productivity and, eventually, profits.
So, what can a business do to improve its productivity? Contracting business owners can implement several action items to boost their teams' productivity. We’ve broken it all down here. Let’s dive in.
Promote a Positive Work Environment
As a business owner, you may think you need to "crack down" on your staff. While some think this will improve productivity, it could have the opposite effect.
However, a negative work environment with unhappy employees could hurt productivity. Promoting a positive work environment can help you and your teams stay on task.
Studies suggest that a happy brain is a productive brain—research has found that you’re 31% more productive when your brain is positive, as opposed to negative, neutral, or stressed.
Ensure that your work environment is a place where staff members feel welcomed, respected, and encouraged to work hard. With a positive work environment, you’re setting your employees up for productivity success!
Reduce Unnecessary Meetings
While some meetings are necessary, don’t go overboard with constant meetings. When utilized effectively, meetings can be a great place to align on overall goals and strategy. But too many meetings can actually decrease productivity.
According to research, workers spend an average of 31 hours in unproductive meetings per month. Your team needs time to complete their tasks, and if all their time is spent in meetings, it will quickly become overwhelming to keep up.
Take Breaks
Your brain can’t function without some rest time. Remember, the quality of your work is just as important as the quantity. Studies have found that quick bursts of rest between working, called micro-breaks, are a great way to maximize your productivity.
If you take quick breaks while working, you can return to your project refreshed and even more productive. However, don’t spend these micro-breaks on social media—that can hurt your productivity.
Avoid Multitasking
While it may seem counterintuitive, multitasking is actually not an effective way to approach work. Multitasking often requires a lot of task-shifting, which can cost employees up to 40% of their productive time.
Encourage your teams to focus on mono-tasking instead. Instead of dividing your time and attention across multiple tasks, devote all of your attention to one task at a time. Research has shown that this method is much more effective than multitasking.
Prioritize Effective Communication
Without good communication, a team can quickly break down. This hurts productivity and profits.
According to a report from Grammarly, poor workplace communication costs U.S. businesses upwards of $1.2 trillion annually. Yes, that's a trillion with a “'t.”' You must prioritize clear team communication. If you don't, it could cost you.
You should set up communication channels for your employees. These could be regular emails or platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams.
Without the right communication tools, communication could become a challenge for your business, ultimately limiting productivity and profitability.
Boost Your Company’s Productivity
Improving productivity at your business takes time, dedication, and patience. Don’t expect results overnight, and be sure to adjust your approach as needed.
With the right tools in your business’s toolbox, you can improve your team’s productivity over time. For example, roofing estimate software can improve productivity. Roofing estimate software helps you keep your teams organized and on track. When you’re organized, it’s easier for your teams to stay productive.
Instead of spending time finding documents or building estimates from scratch, roofing estimate software does a lot of the work for you. That leaves more time for your teams to focus on other tasks and keep productivity high.
Roofing estimate software can save you time and improve the accuracy of your proposals. SumoQuote helps roofers deliver perfect quotes to customers quickly.
Book a demo with SumoQuote to learn how to speed up your quote process and keep your teams productive.