How to Make Your Team More Productive in 2020

Being productive is definitely one of the biggest assets that contribute to the overall health of any business out there. At the same time, since productivity can be quite an elusive concept, boosting it is not the easiest task. Being armoured with proper resources and tools can definitely help your team, though. If you’re actually wondering how to be productive in 2020, then here’s a little something to get you started. 

What is productivity and how can you improve it?

Reading all the definitions of productivity is likely to give you a headache. The classic one, however, describes it as “a way to measure efficiency”. Sounds vague? Well, at least at this particular moment, it’s important to remember that the key to improving productivity is to accomplish more with the same amount of resources. These resources might vary, but one thing stays the same: making the most of them. 

To help you become more productive in the long run, we’ve gathered a few tips & tools to make the whole process easier. Here they come. 

#1 Sharing is caring 

If you work in a team, you probably know the importance of communication by now. What’s equally important as a seamless flow of information, is definitely a transparent work environment. By ensuring both of them, you can easily boost the productivity of the whole team. How come? 

By taking care of internal communication and giving the opportunity to share relevant details with one another, you basically eliminate the chances of your team members doing the same tasks, or performing them with insufficient information. 

In this case, however, using project management & communication tools is going to be necessary in order to facilitate collaboration within your team. Otherwise, exchanging any important details “in person” would be challenging, and definitely time-consuming. 

 

Useful project management & communication tools: 

  • Stackfield – it lets you manage your projects in a clear and effective manner, stay in touch with your whole team, as well as upload and download relevant files and resources, just to name a few. 
  • Troop Messenger – if you’re looking for a sole communication tool, this one is a very powerful, yet user-friendly one. It allows you to manage all your office conversations without compromising on privacy.
  • Shared Contacts for Gmail – sharing is caring, remember? If you use Gmail to communicate with your colleagues and customers, you should definitely try this tool to share your contacts whenever needed. 

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#2 Less is more 

Nowadays, you have a lot of software at your disposal. These tools are likely to boost your productivity – however, using many tools, devices, and storage spaces can also cause major chaos. At the same time, there’s no “one tool fits all” solution, so using multiple tools is simply necessary. There’s nothing wrong with that – but what can actually improve your workflow is to pick the available solutions wisely, and integrate the systems whenever possible.

In fact, tool integration can work wonders for your productivity. For starters, it saves you a lot of time and effort since there’s no need to switch between the systems anymore. Instead, you’re simply leveraging all the benefits of your software while keeping everything in one place. You probably store some data in various tools already – then why not try to have them all integrated? 

 

Useful tools with lots of features and/or integrations available: 

  • CloudTalk, as an example, has plenty of features that can help you facilitate all calls flowing through your company, and improve the productivity of your team once you’re at it.

  • Gist – is said to be an all-in-one platform that truly facilitates customer support. If that’s something that your team focuses on, you should definitely give it a try. 
  • Kontentino –  is a social media management tool that proves to be a game-changer when it comes to streamlining the whole social media content scheduling process due to the number of powerful features.

#3 Easy does it 

Here’s the thing: in order to become (and stay) productive, you can’t overcomplicate things. If there are any opportunities to streamline your tasks or even the whole processes, you should take advantage of them. 

Take dull assignments and unproductive meetings, as an example. There’s no need to waste time on them – instead, make sure there’s a clear purpose and plan behind any meeting and task you’re involved in. Yet again: there are tools for that. 

 

Useful tools to schedule your appointments with: 

  • Harmonizely – if you struggle with scheduling meetings within your team (or with your clients, for that matter), this tool can make the whole process much easier. 

#4 Be conversion-friendly 

What actually boosts productivity is making the most of your resources, right? Then take care of one powerful resource your business already has in place: your website. Bringing in new high-quality leads, for example, can affect the productivity of your team in the long run, which should be a good enough reason to give your site a little makeover (if it needs one, that is).   

Don’t be afraid to experiment. There are plenty of tools that can help you increase conversions, generate new leads, and essentially give your team a little something to work with at all times. The key to finding the ones that suit your business best is to test them out thoroughly. 

 

Useful tools to experiment with: 

  • ProveSource – it may not seem like it at first, but displaying any kind of social proof on your website can work wonders for conversion rates – which is precisely what ProveSource can help you with.
  • Chatbotize, on the other hand, makes it possible to create your own chatbot and engage your (potential) customers in just a few clicks.
  • LiveSession takes a slightly different approach – it lets you verify the intuitiveness of your website with user session recordings. 

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#5 Stop and listen

Whenever you implement new tools & techniques to improve productivity, you have to have your team on board. Otherwise, these tools simply won’t help much if no one’s willing to use them. What’s also crucial is to eliminate potential obstacles that might affect productivity, though. 

Basically, if possible, you should enable all your team members to report and solve problems whenever they arise. There might be plenty of things that your team finds annoying, and piling them up increases frustration rather than productivity. Once you do, though, don’t forget to actually listen to those remarks, and taking the feedback in. In many cases, hearing your team out will be enough – but be prepared to take action nonetheless. 

Useful tools to identify & solve problems within your team: 

  • Sherlock Waste – is a perfect tool for this purpose, as it helps you involve all employees in identifying and solving problems in your business. This way, you have all the insights to ensure that no problem remains unanswered.

Use the right tools to make your team more productive in 2020

As you can see, the right tools can easily empower your team and boost their productivity in the long run. The key is to find the right ones that suit your needs best – even though some of them might be associated with substantial costs. You should always consider them as an investment, though. Especially since you’re bound to see an increase in productivity in no time! 

Berenika Teter
Content Marketing Specialist at Brainy Bees
Creates, edits and promotes useful online content on the spot. Apart from working on the move and doing too many things simultaneously, she also enjoys writing for the tech industry.

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