It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a person happy in the workplace is a productive one.
Technology has made our working lives more flexible, faster, more efficient, and more accessible than ever before.
So, if you’re contemplating a revamp of how you do things in your workplace, we have a list of ways you might consider to improve the productivity of your team.
After all, creative workplace interiors and the appropriate application of interactive technologies contribute towards the priming of the Employee Experience; set for greater productivity.
Read on for tips on how to use interactive technologies to improve your workplace productivity.
1. Thinking differently about computers
Computers are smaller, more mobile, and more flexible than ever before. Consider clearing your desks of all the clutter and paraphernalia associated with clunky old desktop PCs. Speed up your working day with hardware that actually works.
Think tablet. When tablets first hit the market, they were considered more toy than professional workplace essential.
But touchscreen technologies have blossomed and born fruit: the processors in even mid-range tablets such as the Amazon Fire HD range are powerful enough to run the majority of your business-essential applications.
Also, they’re cheaper than ever to buy and maintain. Microsoft Office 365, Apple iWork, and Google Docs make mobile working a genuine possibility.
There’s a wide range of free work-based applications such as Apache OpenOffice, WPS Office, SoftMaker FreeOffice and LibreOffice – many of which have reliable mobile versions.
Tablets are compact and portable, but if you hate typing on the glass, Bluetooth keyboards have come a very long way.
2. Interactive displays
Interactive displays offer amazing flexibility for group meetings. With 4K touchscreens in dimensions as large as a whopping 65 inches, collaborating in the boardroom has never been easier. Some interactive displays come with native compatibility for Windows 10, Office 365, and Microsoft Teams, facilitating collaboration on your projects in brand new ways.
If your meeting requires remote participants, they can be seen on the screen, while far-field microphones and built-in conference cameras can seamlessly enable interactive communication and participation in the entire meeting process.
3. Project organisation
Working on projects can get messy – especially if you have team members from various sites all working towards the same goal. Emails get missed, key workers find themselves out of sync with each other, and milestones get lost along the way.
There’s a wide variety of networking applications that make collaboration more natural and more user-friendly.
Borrowing from social media-style platforms, applications such as Yammer, Slack, and Zinc offer group discussion threads in a familiar format.
However, these interactive technologies aren’t just Facebook-style gimmicks.
They help everybody stay in sync – with live updates and notifications that help the team remain in contact, without trawling through email threads lost inside a bulging inbox. They’re compatible with tablets and smartphones, making them ideal for agile workplaces.
With instant messaging and clear project timelines, these networking applications can truly improve your employee engagement and productivity.
4. Virtual teams
Virtual teams provide genuine workplace flexibility while significantly cutting costs. Gather experts from around the world to collaborate on a single project – without ever meeting them in the real world.
Video conferencing platforms – such as Zoom, Cisco WebEx, and Skype for Business – that facilitate screen sharing, group collaboration tools, and break-out rooms, provide a versatile platform that helps improve the productivity of virtual teams.
5. Customer Relationship Management platforms
If you’re working with virtual teams, a shared CRM such as GreenRope, Zoho, and Pipedrive provides access to a central system in the cloud, so that everyone can serve your customers remotely.
Shared cloud storage provides access to databases and everything that your team will need to do a productive job.
6. Project Management Tools
One of the most useful innovations to have emerged in the workplace over the past ten years are web-based PMTs.
PMTs such as Basecamp, Wrike, and Apollo, offer a broad suite of applications to help project managers stay on top of team productivity.
Common features of project management tools include:
- Real-time KPI dashboards
- Discussion forums and message boards
- Secure file storage
- Email and desktop notifications
- Shared team calendars
- Shared meeting schedules
- Time-tracking for billing
- Reporting for project progress
- Native invoicing for freelancers
Accessed from anywhere in the world that has internet access and a browser, PMTs offer agile solutions that boost productivity.
Bonus mention:
Milanote: A gathering place for your whole team
Milanote is a place for your designers, developers, product managers, and even your clients – Get everyone involved in a creative project on board and tackle challenges together.
A private board is your space to explore your creativity, but with a few clicks you can share your work with the wider team.
Sharing features such as secret links and read-only boards mean that only people you invite can see and edit your boards.
- Comprehensive sharing features.
- Simple commenting tools to make it easy to discuss your ideas.
- Perfect for remote work.
7. Chatbots
If your business has a customer-facing component, you’ll know that providing good customer service is both a challenge and an imperative. While chatbots can only currently answer FAQs on your website, it frees up your team to be more productive in other areas of the business.
Chatbots will always give the right information – keeping your message with your customers consistent and reliable. They give rapid answers with fewer errors, they keep your visitors on your website and can handle simple transactions, such as transferring money, buying train tickets, and booking hotel rooms.
Some of the most popular AI chatbots include BotEngine, NanoRep, and Twyla.