Compared to large-scale companies, small business teams have a lot on their plates. Being part of a small business, these teams, no matter what department they are or task they are responsible for, have to work together to get things done. It’s important to keep your small teams motivated and productive as much as possible.
To give your teams a helping hand, here are a few productivity tips for small business teams.
Streamline your communications
Communication is everything. Effective communication in a team can make or break your productivity. Using a good chat for teams can help you out here (do keep in mind that team chat culture plays a major role as well). If your team works a lot with external collaborators, partners or clients, then you have to consider how you organize your project communication. Replacing long and messy email threads with a project messenger may be a good idea.
Streamline the Workflow
If you’re shopping for Christmas presents, very rarely will you write up your list and then proceed to go to the shops once a day, buying individual gifts each day before repeating until you’ve completed your list. Usually, you’ll take a good look at your list and plan which shops are near each other or sell similar items so you can get your list completed as soon as possible.
The same should be done for your team’s workflow. By grouping together similar tasks and setting predetermined times in the day to carry out certain tasks, such as catching up with team chat, you can ensure that your teams stay on task and that their attention isn’t constantly divided between jobs. Not only will jobs be completed quicker, the assignments will also be completed to a higher quality.
Get Organized and Prepared
When your teams sit down to work, it’s counterproductive if they are spending the majority of their time pulling necessary resources together that will allow them to complete the task. When setting tasks, prepare all the materials needed for them ahead of time – clear descriptions of the tasks, folders, a collection of documents or give them access to a database in which they can access all the content and information they need instantly.
A great example of this is in the customer service ticket industry. It’s counterproductive if you are experiencing a large number of customers who are asking the same questions or are having the same problems with your product or service. By implementing an easily accessible ticketing system, once one member of your customer service team has answered a question, the rest of your team members can quickly refer back to that original answer if they have a customer who asks the same question. This system increases productivity, solves customer queries quickly and allows time for more work to be accomplished.
To ensure that all information is accurate, allowing your teams to avoid mistakes which in turn allows them to complete their work even more proactively and more efficiently with Big Assignments to check through and correct large volumes of content which ensures the accuracy of the work of with Custom Essay. This way your teams aren’t constantly looking through work, trying to decipher poor spelling or poorly written sentences, common with customer service employees who are trying to write down information fast whilst communicating with their customers.
Organize Meetings
Meetings can be a huge drawback to many team members, especially those who just want to get on with their work. However, meetings are important for a number of reasons. Most importantly, meetings ensure all members of your team are on the same page. Meetings also help to take time to bring the team together, reminding everyone it’s all about teamwork.
Tom Wright, a team supervisor at Resumetion explains, “I try to get my teams together at least once a day to discuss and motivate them for the day ahead,”
“By having a quick meeting, usually around 5-10 minutes, I can briefly explain all the business interests for the rest of the day as well as giving the employees a chance to have their say and ask any questions.”
Tom says, “I have always found that this helps to pull the teams together and helps to make all the employees feel valued. A great way to imagine is to imagine a football coach giving a quick motivational speech to their team before the big game”.
A key tip here is to have a meeting daily, and keep it short and sweet. Usually early in the morning works best, just as everyone is about to get started, a pep talk if you will. Instead of chatting away for an hour or so referring to a huge list of points, devote your meeting to one, maybe two, priority points. This way you can guarantee the attention of your staff whilst addressing the biggest points on your list.
Delegate Tasks
If you’re managing a small business team, it’s important for you to place your employees in roles that suit them. If you know that Person A is great at typing, has great computer skills and is happy to churn out results whilst sat at a desk whereas Person B is less accurate at a computer but is great at customer service roles on the phone, put these people in the positions that suit them most.
The same can be said for delegating tasks by outsourcing some work. There are a vast number of online tools and services, such as UK Top Writers and Best Australian Writers, which are perfect for outsourcing otherwise menial tasks that need to be completed. This allows your teams to keep their attention to the more important tasks, driving up the productivity levels in your small business.
This is a guest blog post written by Brenda Borg, a consultant and tutor for college students and entrepreneurs, blogger at Letsgoandlearn.com. Brenda likes to travel around the world and share her experiences.
