Implementing Technology to Increase Productivity

Technology is key to increasing productivity in the workplace. Business owners who make the effort to implement certain tools can reap major benefits. Following are some ways tech is making a big impact.

Communication is one big area that can benefit from technology and lead to increased productivity. With the right tools, team members can easily keep in touch with each other and prevent roadblocks in their work. Workplace communication tools have improved significantly in recent years thanks to platforms like Slack, Flock, and others. Slack, for example, allows entire teams to communicate via instant messages between single or groups of people, as well as through subject-specific channels that can be set up by team leaders in ways that make the most sense for productivity purposes. There is also an array of ways Slack can be customized to meet your company’s needs.

Tools such as Zoom and Google Meet video conferencing allow teams to have face-to face (or voice if preferred) meetings in a virtual setting so that teams can easily work remotely.

It’s a good idea to have standardized communications policies so that your team members are consistently using the same channels and can get the answers they need as efficiently as possible.

There are numerous collaboration tools available (including those mentioned in the section above) that can help your team work together. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are two massively popular options that provide many of the tools your team is likely to need from company email, docs, spreadsheets, presentations, conferencing tools, analytics, and more. When these corporate collaboration tools are used, teams can work together from shared accounts, see changes each other made, edit one another’s work, etc. For example, with Google’s suite, you can tag a team member on a specific spreadsheet cell and leave them a note or comment that can give them important information they need for their own work.

Finding tasks that can be automated is one of the best ways to increase productivity and efficiency among your employees.  Doing this frees up their time to work on less mundane tasks and get more done overall. Automation can be used in marketing, customer service, invoicing, lead generation, order processing, shipment tracking, payroll, timesheets, and even recruiting to some extent. Imagine the time and manpower that can be saved by implementing automation into all of these tasks.

Project management is all about getting things done, and tech obviously has a huge part to play here.

“In just a few short decades, project management has gone from a pen-and-paper type of process to an automated, organized powerhouse of time tracking, project progress, and team communication,” says Conor Cawley at Tech.co, noting that tech has changed project management in areas, such as: data backup, instant communication, keeping track of deadlines, budget tracking, time stamping, and social media insights.

AI has been the tech talk of the year thanks to major advances, particularly in generative AI with tools such as ChatGPT, Bard, AlphaCode, GPT-4, and others. A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that access to an AI tool increased productivity by 14 percent on average, with the greatest impact on novice and low-skilled workers. It’s still the early stages for the technology, and there are already numerous potential applications. This is certainly a major area where productivity is bound to increase substantially in the coming years.

In 2023, it’s virtually impossible for businesses to ignore technology and stay competitive and relevant. If you aren’t making use of productivity-increasing tools, you are doing your company a disservice. Improve communication, collaboration, project management, and many other facets of your work by taking advantage of the technology that’s available.