Your Go To Guide To Boost Office Productivity

It’s hard to nail down exactly what makes someone productive. We know that it’s a mix of the mindset they have and the tools available to help them complete their tasks.

Unfortunately, you can’t always change a person’s mindset. However, you can empower them with the right tools for the job.

Welcome to our helpful guide on boosting office productivity.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

The Importance of Collaboration Applications

Okay, fair enough.

If you open an article claiming to be the “go-to” guide on office productivity, you’re expecting some kind of immediate link to some helpful applications that you can download to boost your productivity immediately.

Well, there you go.

But if you’re thinking about what makes those applications truly special… you’ll come to realize that it’s the fact that they bring people together. They allow teams to communicate with one another with ease and clarity.

How do they do it?

For starters, they’re empowered by the cloud. That is, they’re not hosted on-premise in your building. They’re securely accessed by people across the world. In short, they allow people to work together and share information from anywhere in the world in real time.

These cloud-based collaboration applications are a cornerstone of office productivity. While they’re not the whole picture, they’re certainly an easy “in” to start making your company productive.

The benefits of these apps are so good, in fact, that companies are going out of their way to enable their staff to use productivity apps. A study found that 91% of corporate employees are using at least one mobile app, and 58% of companies are enabling mobile access to further drive app adoption.

But Really, What’s Unified Communications?

In a business technology and office productivity discussion, you can’t go more than 3 sentences in without hearing something about “unified communications”. And to that we say:

Fair enough – it’s pretty important.

Many people wonder what unified communications is, and why they even need it in the first place. The short answer is that it ties together each facet of your communications and makes them easier to organize and understand.

“42% of companies globally plan to expand their unified communications (UC) capabilities in the next year.”

-Cisco

But what does unified communications consist of? Well, there are:

VoIP phones
Chat applications
Screen sharing programs
Emails
Presence controls
Various other collaboration tools, too

Unified communications isn’t just something you can buy and throw somewhere into your server room (only to be forgotten). It’s an approach you work to implement by consolidating each and every communication channel to reduce cross-noise and improve collaboration.

Many organizations understand that it’s important, but they still want to know how to internally implement unified communications in their business. The highlights involve getting (or building) compatible software and hardware that can communicate seamlessly with one another.

In turn, you can use UC to reduce communication errors while increasing office productivity.

The IT Devices That Make You Productive

Of course, you can’t become fully productive from communications systems and applications alone. You need adequate workplace technology that keeps you running strong, too.

The first step is to choose the right workstation for your company.

You’ll find that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all workstation that increases your productivity. That’s because each and every business has unique challenges and needs that they must identify.

For example, a marketing design company might need Apple workstations with a powerful graphics card that can render designs. Conversely, a school might need a wide array of robust laptops with a bigger focus on hard drive space and portability.

Finding the right hardware that enables your office productivity is the key to building a solid foundation within your organization.

Of course, there are other things to consider, too – such as servers.

If you’re not too familiar with them and their capabilities, here’s everything you need to know about servers. In a few words, you’ll want to choose a server that can effectively and efficiently do what your team needs, including hosting, backup, storage, and more.

Useful IT Accessories for Business

There are lots of things that can boost your productivity greatly. However, there are also many things that can boost your office productivity by giving you just a little bit more.

We’re talking about IT accessories. Peripherals. You know, the little extras.

Sure, a next-gen conference camera isn’t going to make or break your next meeting, but it can help you carry you through your next conference call more smoothly. In fact, there are plenty of conference room technologies that you can implement to boost the productivity of meetings.

Having functional IT accessories working for you can be a blessing. There are always advances in fax machines, scanners, printers, and more – so it pays to stay aware.

BYOD Mobility for Office Productivity

Bring-your-own-device policies have taken the business world by storm. For good reason, too – 69% of IT decision-makers favor BYOD as a positive addition to any workplace policy because it saves workers time at all levels.

That’s valuable time that they can put back into getting work done and staying focused.

However, BYOD policies don’t come without challenges. If you’re thinking about implementing one within your organization, you’ll still need to keep an eye out for some policy concerns.

Despite the challenges, there are still plenty of reasons to push for a BYOD-friendly workplace. For one, people are more comfortable working from their own devices. Many people have their own preferences, and giving people more options is always a good move.

Productivity with Office 365 Migrations

A big part of productivity is ensuring that you can access your work from anywhere and that you can work whenever you need to.

In short, accessibility facilitates productivity.

We’re not just talking about applications to download on your phone. We’re talking about a full-scale transition to a platform that supports mobility without limits, such as Microsoft Office 365.

If you’re not familiar with Office 365, you’ll want to take a look at what it can offer you and whether it’s a good fit for your business in the first place.

If you like what you see, you’ll need to migrate your existing data to Office 365. Migrating over can cause some headaches, so be sure to read up on how to migrate (or you could lose your data).

When it’s all said and done, you’ll find yourself with a familiar but more powerful productivity platform that lets you focus on getting work done without the worry of application updates or downtime.

Getting Productive with AnchorSix

There are lots of ways to make your organization more productive with technology. We’re here to make sure that you can make the most of it no matter what.

Interested in learning more about how you can boost office productivity?

Reach out to us. We’re here to help you out.