Many companies that transitioned to a work-from-home set-up during the height of the pandemic might be going back to the traditional office set-up soon. In contrast, others reported extending their remote work arrangements until next year. Wherever your company or organization stands in this current debate that was brought on by the Delta variant, there are plenty of ways to ensure efficiency in your operations, regardless of whether you’re working from home or the office.
Whether your team is returning to the office or staying home, here are the qualities of an efficient office or organization—and why you need to adapt them to make your company run as efficiently and smoothly as possible.
They leverage and maximize technology
An efficient organization does not shy away from modern technologies, especially if they are cost-efficient and make day-to-day operations run much smoother. Here are some tech tools your company or organization needs to explore if you want to improve your efficiency this year:
- Automation. If there are repetitive tasks in your company, you will do your employees and team members a world of good if you can get these tasks off their hands with the help of automated solutions.
- Enhanced productivity. There are also solutions, platforms, and services that can help enhance everyone’s productivity, like simple yet potent features that keep everyone in the team focused on their tasks at hand.
- Cloud synchronization. If your company has not yet leveraged this tool, now is the time to do so. It will give everyone remote access to all your files, information, and everything they need to do their work smoothly and efficiently, no matter where they are in the world.
These tools are useful in lines of work that require making RFPs for various industries, so make every day easier not just for you but also for your team to manage the system better by using solutions that streamline and simplify the process.
They keep things organized
Putting everything in its rightful place—both in the physical and digital realms—will yield the following benefits for your organization:
- It will take much less time for people to find things they need since you will be free of chaos and clutter, giving everyone more time and energy to focus on their foremost tasks.
- Less clutter improves the well-being and mental health of the people in your office. The same can be said about your digital processes, especially if you and your team work from home.
- Regularly getting rid of physical and digital files you no longer need will keep your company from accumulating too much trash and spam.
Organizing the office and your digital files may be tedious, but it will enormously help you and your team. Give productivity and focus a fighting chance by keeping everything where they need to be and getting rid of files you don’t need anymore.
There is guidance, but individuals are also empowered
Micromanagement has gotten a bad reputation in the world of business, and rightly so. The research found that employees tend to have a strong negative reaction to unsolicited help, resulting in discord in our work relationships. It’s clear that employees don’t like being nagged or told what to do over and over again, and they certainly don’t appreciate bosses constantly looking over their work instead of empowering employees to find ingenious solutions to problems.
As a CEO, boss, or manager, the onus is on you to supervise and manage the other duties in the office, but you’re not the team members or employees’ maid or parent. Encourage your team to be self-sufficient and to find solutions and answers for themselves, but remind them that you’re there to guide them as they navigate certain parts of their jobs that are uncharted territory for them.
They encourage positivity
Another office quality that has gotten a bad reputation is toxic positivity, and there are also plenty of valid reasons for this. We can’t ask people to keep smiling, and we can’t keep spewing meaningless platitudes when they’re about to lose their home or if their loved one succumbed to COVID-19. But positivity in the context of work can mean a lot of things:
- Being approachable and friendly despite the stresses of the workday
- Being patient with workmates and clients
- Knowing when to take breaks and recharge when it gets overwhelming
Apply these qualities to your work culture this second half of the year, and it will help your organization navigate this new normal better, whether at home or in the office. Good luck!
