The pandemic has made remote working the new normal. Even your team might be working from their own place. Your entire business process might have been altered in the past two years. You might have cut down on your employees and spread thin. But businesses are slowly gearing up for a comeback. Keeping in mind the new work regimes, it’s essential to change with the flow. Also, successful businesses can remain successful as they are always looking for ways to maximize their efficacy each and every day.
Small business owners in Canada, or anywhere in the world, need to juggle a lot of things to run their companies. They need to take care of their employees, think about generating profits, get new clients, maintain a good relationship with the existing ones, and all of this while being crushed by the ever-increasing demands of business-related, day-to-day tasks. If you are an owner of a small business, you need to work smarter to work better. While it’s a fact that you will still have 24 hours to get your work done, you should be able to know the secrets of making every hour productive for better results.
In this article, we will share with you the 5 most-essential business productivity tips which can ensure that your company’s output remains high in any situation.
1. Make Use of Collaboration Tools
Communication is one of the most important aspects of doing business these days. In times of physical distancing and remote working, shooting emails back and forth isn’t enough. Teams should know the ways of coordinating better for more effective work results. So, for business owners in Canada, adding a few extra steps to simplify the process and improve efficiency through collaboration tools is necessary. Software products like Trello, Slack, and Teamwork, also cloud-based SaaS applications like G-Suite and HubSpot, can help in streamlining all communication through one central hub. Writing, editing, sharing, and maintaining documents can get easier with such tools.
2. Set Realistic Goals & Accomplish Them with Responsibility
For businesses that don’t have a physical office, work transparency is critical. Hence, set daily goals which are realistic and which you feel your employees can meet. Also, make use of tools that can track their everyday work processes. This will help you to know when they are logging in for work, when they are taking a break and when it’s time for them to log out for the day. Doing this manually isn’t possible as nobody is working from the office. But with so many tools available online, you can easily choose some for the betterment of your daily workflow. Ask your employees to install time-tracking applications, talk to them regularly over voice and video calls. Basically, teach them to be responsible for their work.
3. Maintain Employee Satisfaction
Even if you track your employees through different online tools, always assure them that you trust them. After all, your employees are the backbone of your business. They expect to get treated with dignity and you should always do the same. Let them know that they can still have a comfortable and stress-free work environment even with all the applications tracking their work. Make them believe in the fact that as long as they are working to meet your business goals, you are happy. Also, make them understand that all these tools are just to make their work better and more streamlined. Encourage them with your words, have 1:1 meetings with them whenever necessary, and trust them with new projects. Do not ever be afraid to show them that you do listen to them by periodically implementing their ideas for your business.
4. Prioritize Your Own Responsibilities
As a small business owner, you are supposed to don multiple hats. You need to take care of a lot of things at one time and it’s tough, we understand. So, it is always a good idea to delegate tasks that you feel can get done by someone else in your organization. Prioritize your responsibilities instead. Juggling with a lot of work might end up yielding you no proper result. Also, remember that 80% of results will come from 20% of efforts. Hence, you should start working on this 20% to help your business grow better.
5. Hire a Professional Bookkeeping Service
Yes, we know that it’s quite tempting to try and do every single thing yourself for your company. However, being an entrepreneur, you should be focusing on a lot more other than doing the books! Hence, hiring a professional bookkeeper can help you manage your expenses and cash flow better, without you having to worry about doing the same. They will be equipped enough to do their job the best way and you will be able to work more productively as the owner of your business.
Wrapping it Up,
Now, probably you have understood that increasing the productivity of your business isn’t about working more but working smart. You need to be able to optimize each and every minute better. Always remember, quality work is greater than quantity work. And in the end, all you need to do is keep your employees happy, keep your clients satisfied and keep yourself creative with all these amazing, yet simple, business productivity tips mentioned above.
For more amazing tips on doing a small business better and effectively in Canada, do not forget to subscribe to our monthly CanadianSME Small Business Magazine.
