Growth can be fun and exciting, but take care to watch individual productivity and performance. With growth comes distractions, further emphasis on communication, and forming your team-based office culture. Here are 5 tips for businesses of any size, whether you’re starting out with a team of 2, or even larger teams in offices.
1. Block Distractions to Productivity
Every company has distractions in abundance. From meetings, emails, banter, quick questions that lead to long discussions, and more. For one, if you’re guilty of going down an internet rabbit hole, try using an app for restricting specific website access. Task-switching always eats up more time, so the more you can reduce distractions, the higher your productivity will be.
2. Measure Communication
There is a multitude of different communication platforms out there. Slack, for example, allows organizing discussions, questions, and more into specific channels and sections. Need a 1-on-1? You can directly message the person. Need to create a new channel for a specific brainstorm? Create the channel and send out the invites. Recognize when they need to meet face-to-face, or when a request can wait. Measure urgency to prioritize effectively.
3. Have a Daily Status Meeting
The most effective teams are the ones that utilize project management practices. Try having a 10-minute meeting (maximum) at the beginning of each day with the team. Each member goes over their priorities, their bottle-necks, and that their plan of action is. This allows everyone to get on the same page before you start the day.
4. Know When To Collaborate
It’s a measure of knowing when to work alone, and when to work together that maximizes productivity. Find your work ethos and stick to it. However, remember that humans are not robots. They require being social and they require distraction-free time as well. As such, some tasks require collaboration, some need individuals to zone in and sprint through a task.
5. Office Productivity Is a Work in Progress
What works for some teams and businesses may not work for yours. If something doesn’t work for your team, stop it and try something else. Break old habits, form new ones, and remember it may be slow to form. A successful team is a team that continually puts forth effort into revisiting their office culture and its productivity goals.
From project management to other forms of office management, there are many different types of office culture and ways to improve productivity. While this list shouldn’t be a be-all, end-all, it helps to expand your team’s view on how to continually improve, because that’s what successful teams do. Continually improve!