Many businesses need to make up for ongoing COVID-19 crisis financial losses. Thus, the new normal office productivity must improve. Wouldn’t it be great to balance out some of the revenue lost during the pandemic with one or more surprisingly simple productivity enhancements?
In a previous post, we briefly listed several improvements business leaders could make to increase productivity when workers return. Implementing those changes while the office is close to empty makes perfect sense. So, consider these productivity boosters, ranging from easy and affordable to bold and exciting.
Cameras for Desktop Computers
Because they come so equipped, many workers use their laptop camera for video chats and meetings. Thus, a webcam with a mic makes for an easy and affordable productivity enhancement to the standard office desktop computer. No need to pull out the laptop or switch back and forth.
Voice-Controlled Light Switches
Voice-activated light switches make a great addition to a conference room or other areas such as storage or server rooms. Lighting controlled from a phone or tablet also works to save time and steps. A variety of stand-alone or app-controlled switches enable employees to choose the lighting that best suits their work.
Headsets
Wireless headsets enable office corridor roaming on calls and generally doing two things at once. For example, a headset frees up your hands to write or retrieve information while conducting a clear conversation. Hence, video conferences, team chats and regular calls all become more productive.
Studies show that using a headset increases productivity by up to 40 percent. Likewise, most knowledge workers believe that office noise negatively impacts their productivity. Fortunately, headsets help employees create their own space to focus on tasks in a hectic office.
Conference Room and Conferencing Tools
Office workers connect and collaborate faster with Microsoft Teams compatible headsets and conference room devices. They join meetings in a single step, share content, and collaborate with remote attendees to make meetings more productive and engaging.
Workers choose where and how they want to work with devices designed for any space and working style. They work confidently with consistent high-quality video and audio, and easy setup and management.
Consider Microsoft Teams Certified phones and conference room systems to optimize meeting quality. With screen, speaker, camera, and microphone they capture faces and pick up the voices of all participants in large or small rooms.
Remote Worker Performance Monitoring Software
With greatly increased remote work, business leaders must know the projects employees spend their time on and how long they are engaged in productive activities. A recent Gartner study revealed that 57 percent of companies plan on tracking one or more employee activities.
Numerous worker monitoring tools aim to track productivity in different ways. For example, they may tally time spent on various programs, apps and websites. Reports that sort those totals into productive vs. non-productive time enable managers to compare individuals, teams or departments. Other tools monitor keystrokes, giving a baseline for employee activity.
Microsoft 365 and Teams
Organizations around the world depend on Microsoft 365 with Teams for increased productivity. They leverage robust and secure online meeting and collaboration tools for office employees and remote workers. Because nonverbal cues add much to effective communication, video conferencing boosts engagement, improving morale and productivity.
Online Microsoft Teams meetings help to close the gap created by social distancing. Easy to use technology assembles team members in a virtual conference room. Furthermore, Teams users do real-time coauthoring and commenting in documents in the cloud. Such close collaboration over distance proves extremely useful for a distributed workforce.
Additionally, Microsoft 365 allows office workers to communicate in a variety of ways and easily switch between them. For example, users can open a chat within Microsoft Word while editing a document and then click the video button to initiate a video call when needed.
Optimize Your New Normal Office Productivity
Businesses of all sizes have been forced to quickly adapt to rapidly changing business conditions. Achieving the new normal office productivity in the era of COVID-19 requires foresight and expert assistance.
When it comes to making productivity improvements under trying circumstances, eMazzanti’s staff of experts is ready to assist. Founded weeks before 9/11, we quickly adapted to be in the business of helping customers survive and prosper during difficult times.
Contact eMazzanti Technologies today to prioritize and implement new normal office productivity best practices for your organization.
