On paper, working from home has the promise of an ideal working environment. You can be flexible in your working hours, no commute, reduced colleague interruptions; all allow you to achieve everything with time to spare.

However, you may find you achieve less working at home, leading to feelings of anxiety and stress building up which further impacts productivity. Personally, I found most of this problem was largely down to poor time management.

These seven tips for successful time management work for me and can help put you back in control and improve productivity:

1. Tidy desk, tidy mind

A messy working environment will inevitably lead to you losing crucial pieces of information and wasting time looking for it. Create a simple, structured filing system for your paperwork, digital files and email content, filing information regularly as you receive it.

2. Establish clear objectives

Without clear goals you won’t know if you’ve achieved what you set out to do. Start by creating and maintaining a to do list of everything which needs to be done.

Add estimates for how long you’d anticipate spending on each task, remembering to be realistic with your targets as it’s all too easy to be optimistic.

Break larger tasks into smaller chunks of work to monitor your progress better. Breaking larger tasks into sub-tasks will also produce a more accurate estimate of time required for the overall task.

Keep your to do list up-to-date. Regularly ticking off completed items is a satisfying reminder that you are achieving your goals, which helps keep you motivated.

3. Prioritise

A structured to do list organises your thoughts into clear objectives, allowing you to concentrate on the task in-hand, but you’ll need to know where to focus your attention. It’s easy to choose the jobs you find more interesting rather than the ones which need doing.

Assign each task a priority rating of urgent, high, medium, or low, adding any deadline dates associated with each task.

Add alerts into your calendar software to remind you at multiple dates prior to the deadline so you don’t miss it.

Review your list every day, updating and re-evaluating as priorities shift.

4. Do not disturb

Working at home means it’s too easy to take time out to catch-up on those overrunning weekend DIY jobs. If you have family or friends around the house, they’ll likely reach out to you for help with something. All these interruptions break your flow of concentration. It’s essential you set boundaries with yourself and those around you where you have fixed ‘Do not disturb’ periods which will allow you to ‘get into the zone’ and make real progress with your work.

5. Regular breaks

We’re not machines and performance will suffer if you don’t take a break. Even though you think you might get more done by working through lunch, it’s actually likely to be counterproductive and effect your performance later in the afternoon. Take at least a 30-minute break for lunch, get some air and do something physical to stimulate the body and mind, such as a brisk walk.

6. Delegate

If you have people working for you, try and delegate tasks appropriately where possible. If you have regular tasks on your to do list, take the time to show your staff how to do them as this will save time in the future.

Keep these tasks on your to do list, as this reminds you to follow up on their progress so they’re not forgotten about.

7. Avoid repetition

If you find you’re constantly performing similar tasks over and over, come up with a strategy to streamline the process to avoid repetition. For example, if you end up repeatedly answering similar customer enquiries, invest the time to improve your website with an FAQ page, so the information sought is more obvious.

Create standard email and letter response templates you can re-use for common situations. In essence, look at what software solutions exist to improve your business process.

As a small business owner, your time is your most valuable asset. Hopefully you’ll find that my tips will help you achieve more with the same amount of time, and reduce your stress levels at the same time.

Simon Horton is the founder of ShopIntegrator, a hosted shopping cart e-commerce solution.

What you need to know about working from home

Ben Lobel runs through some of the key elements for creating an efficient home working environment

For the majority of people it is a successful method of working, however it does come with added responsibility. Not only are home workers faced with the temptation to under or over work, but they are also in charge of their own health and safety, as well as the protection of any office equipment they are using.

Work schedule

When working from home there can be a temptation to either be too relaxed in your work schedule or to over-do it. With no employer supervision, it can be difficult to stick to set working hours. It is therefore important to set boundaries; ensure that you start and finish at a certain time and take a specific lunch hour where you have a break away from the computer. It can be helpful to have a specific room that you work in, so that you can physically leave the room – and your work – behind at the end of your working day. This can put a clear divide between your home and work life, so the two do not merge.

Protection of office equipment

Whether using a company’s equipment or your own, it is important to ensure that all items are protected whilst working from home. Designating a specific work area that is removed from where you eat or drink can help this, as can ensuring small children and pets respect and avoid your work space. Accidents do happen, so it is essential that your office equipment is covered by the correct insurance. When making the transition to working from home, don’t forget to ask your work about insurance policies.

Client meetings and inter-office collaboration tools

In recent years, the use of virtual meeting technology has improved massively. If your company is not already signed up for specific web conferencing software, you could try looking at signing up to the basic packages on offer from companies like Zoom, GoToMeeting, RingCentral, Vectera, and many others.

Related: Top 10 tips for effective video conferencing

For online collaboration and work tools and apps see our articles: 20 free apps to improve your business productivity and Five tools to increase collaboration in your business.

Health and safety

If working from home for an employer, you are still legally entitled to the same health and safety training as employees in the workplace so you will be responsible for keeping your own work space safe. Completing a basic risk assessment could help highlight any potential hazards that need to be resolved. This could include checking that plug sockets are not over-crowded and keeping computer leads secure to reduce the risk of tripping over exposed wires. For your own safety, it is also important to use a chair that suitably supports your back and take regular breaks from the computer screen to protect your eyesight and improve your ability to concentrate.

On the surface, working from home can seem like a stress-free alternative to a high-pressured office environment. For the majority of people it is a successful method of working, however it does come with added responsibility. Not only are home workers faced with the temptation to under or over work, but they are also in charge of their own health and safety, as well as the protection of any office equipment they are using.

Related: The essential guide to setting up a home office

The post Working from home – How to manage your time and increase productivity appeared first on Small Business UK.

Britain would boost its economy by £83bn if regional productivity gaps were just halved.

Only London and the South East outperform the national productivity average, with Wales, the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber the lowest-productivity areas.

If the 10 most under-performing regions could each make up just half their productivity gaps with average UK productivity, then UK GDP would be 4pc larger, according to PwC.

>See also: Small Business Minister Kelly Tolhurst – ‘Tech is key to solving productivity’

Employees working in small businesses account for 99.9pc of all business workers, while SMEs account for 99.3pc of all companies.

British output per worker though is between 10pc-15pc lower than it is in Germany, France and Sweden and more than 30pc behind the United States, PwC said.

Matching Germany’s average productivity would boost the economy by £180bn. per year.

Companies need to invest in  staff training schemes, especially whe it comes to digital skills, PwC urged, while the next Government must invest in transport infrastructure.

John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC, said: “We find, for example, that a 1pc increase in skills is associated with a 2pc increase in productivity in a local area.”’

Britain has suffered a lost decade when it comes to productivity, which is defined as output per hour worked and is the man driver of long-term economic growth.

Since the financial crisis of 2008, it has grown by just 0.6pc per year on average, compared with 2pc a year before the great recession.

“Evidence suggests that this productivity shortfall is due to low levels of investment and R&D spending and a longer tail of companies and workers with relatively low productivity and skills,” said Alex Tuckett, senior economist at PwC.

Earlier this month, the Labour Party announced that it would be nationalising broadband and providing free access partly in order to boost the UK’s productivity by £59bn – a move widely slammed by the City and telecoms operators but supported by London mayoral candidate Rory Stewart, for one.

Further reading on productivity

Ed Vaizey on productivity: ‘Network with other businesses. It’s what MPs do all the time’

The post Britain could get £83bn boost if regions halved productivity gaps appeared first on Small Business UK.

UK SMEs have cost themselves £1,268 per second in lost productivity this year – the equivalent of over 16 days so far.

These startling figures comes from Sage’s second annual productivity tracker, which investigates the amount of time sacrificed to administrative tasks.

At an event co-chaired by Ed Vaizey MP, key industry figures talked about the issues affecting efficiency in business today.

Overall it seems that our productivity is getting worse. We’ve seen £40bn of lost economic value in the UK in the past 12 months, an increase of 0.9pc compared to the year before.

Sabby Gill, Sage MD for the UK and Ireland, said: “With less than a third of those small businesses surveyed in the UK currently using cloud technology for administrative tasks, compared to one in two large businesses – there is a clear gap that must be closed, so that the benefits can be felt by all.”

The economy has grown 3.3pc in the past year while productivity has grown by less than 1pc. “If you could automate admin activities, it would contribute to that 3.3pc,” said Gill.

Businesses say that the admin tasks which take most time are accountancy, generating invoices and human resources.

Productivity problems

A handful of issues affecting small business owners were discussed during the event.

Regulatory burden

Members of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) find it difficult to keep up with tax regulations, according to their own research – entrepreneurs spend 178 hours a week complying with regulation, equating to three working weeks a year.

“Policymakers haven’t assessed the burden of taxes,” said Sonali Parekh, head of policy at FSB. “Two thirds of small businesses think that the burden of regulation outweighs the benefits. It’s not just a direct compliance cost – it’s more of an administrative cost.”

Finding the right tech

Vinous Ali, associate director for policy at techUK, added her take: “The productivity issue is often down to new companies vs old companies rather than large vs small. You’ve got to understand what the tech does. What problems are you trying to solve?”

Adopting tech

Jonathan Brenton, head of international trade at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) says that the UK ranks consistently low on adopting tech, especially outside the city: “There’s a lot of talent in rural communities. Having good broadband at home would make them more productive,” he said.

Helping larger businesses

Effective tech helps larger businesses too. Gaynor Bailey, head of HR programme and operations at Channel 4, said: “Processing payments for a freelancer takes 13 days and goes through about five or six different departments as well as through tax assessments. The team isn’t there to do what we need to do so we need to outsource.”

Commenting on the event, Ed Vaizey MP told SmallBusiness.co.uk: “The reason I wanted to do this with Sage is that technology is the main way of [improving productivity.] We sometimes have this very superficial debate about the march of the robots costing jobs but in my view, the more that business can automate its processes, the more likely they are to spend time on the things that actually count. At the same time, what came out of this discussion, quite understandably, is that a lot of businesses don’t even have time to think about it.

“People forget that MPs are a bit like a small business”

“I think that at the heart of all of this, there are brilliant technology solutions that can make people’s lives a lot easier. It’s getting your head round the fact that spending the time thinking that through pays dividends down the road – and networking with other businesses to find out what they’re doing.

“People forget that MPs are a bit like a small business. [It’s like] going down the pub with your mate who also runs a small business. You’ll be having coffee with someone and they’ll suddenly announce that they do X, Y and Z and it’s very effective and you go back to your team and talk about X,Y and Z. It’s exactly what MPs do all the time. You shouldn’t forget that human contact.”

Read more

Ten ways to get better at networking

The post Ed Vaizey on productivity: ‘Network with other businesses. It’s what MPs do all the time’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

A substantial 39pc of SME decision makers would consider leaving their role if they didn’t have the right tools to do their job properly.

What’s more, almost a third say that their leadership team isn’t moving fast enough to keep up with the evolving technology requirements of their staff.

These figures come from the 2019 Digital Business Report from Advanced, investigating whether employees are being given the right tools to improve their productivity. The firm concluded that leaders need to work with their staff to find out which issues could be resolved with updated technology.

It’s not that easy, though. In a separate survey from Advanced, one in five SME leaders said they felt under pressure all the time – 48pc of these respondents said that a lack of time caused much of this work pressure.

Technology is one of the best ways to boost productivity

“The fact that just 31pc of respondents say productivity is triggering the purchase of new technology in their organisation will raise alarm bells,” says Gordon Wilson, CEO of Advanced.

“Surely this should be a critical factor? Technology is one of the best ways to boost productivity and treat a work-life imbalance. It can improve processes and eradicate time spent on tedious tasks, freeing up time for more valuable activities, increasing job satisfaction at the same time.”

He adds that employees must be able to see the value in using these digital tools to increase productivity. For this, leaders will need a digital strategy which encompasses change management and takes different workers’ backgrounds and abilities into account.

The good news is that smaller businesses are nimbler, free from the hefty weight of legacy systems and old processes. “SME leaders should see this as an opportunity to give large organisations a run for their money and take the lead in driving new technologies to boost productivity,” says Gordon.

For more on how to perk up efficiency in your small business, check out our Productivity Zone.

The post Poor tech slows productivity – and leaders are partly to blame appeared first on Small Business UK.

The UK’s waning productivity levels won’t improve any time soon, according to the latest Small Business Index (Q2) from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

Political uncertainty is the key barrier in business expansion and boosting productivity levels.

Finding staff is also proving difficult, with 35pc of small businesses struggling to find appropriately skilled employees. That’s the largest proportion since Q3 2015. The net balance (the proportion of those hiring new staff minus the proportion reducing their team size) is at a three-year low at -2pc.

A massive seven in 10 businesses (72pc) are not planning to invest in their own companies over the coming three months – the highest since Q2 2017. What’s more, ONS figures reveal that business investment fell over four consecutive quarters for the first time since the financial crash in 2008.

Mike Cherry, FSB national chairman, said: “It’s impossible for small business owners to invest for the future when we don’t know what the future holds.

“We urgently need to see both prime ministerial candidates spell out their plans for supporting small firms and securing a pro-business Brexit – one that encompasses a comprehensive deal and a substantial transition period. Fast and loose talk about accepting a chaotic no-deal Brexit in four months’ time is not helpful.”

Be the Business, the Government’s productivity think-tank, thinks it will be at least 10 years before UK business productivity gets to where it should be.

James Gribben, senior corporate affairs manager at Be the Business, said: “The UK has experienced a decade of under-performance and we will need a decade of improvements to turn things around.”

Net migration from the EU also fell to 74,000 in the year ending December 2018, down from 189,000 to the year ending June 2016. It’s bad news for small employers as one in five (21pc) say they rely on staff from the EU.

Improving small business productivity

Gribben said: “The good news is that there are big opportunities for small businesses to find performance gains. We already have some of the most productive companies in the world. Ambitious small business owners can close the gap with our most productive firms by learning how they operate and adopting more effective practices – it’ll take small but concerted efforts to do it.”

“We found that businesses that have improved the most, plan and take specific action to improve. Making small changes in the right place can lead to outsize performance improvements.”

New credit ‘unaffordable’

Worryingly, 43pc of small businesses also said that new credit is ‘unaffordable’, which is the highest percentage since Q1 2015. Fewer than 15pc of successful credit applicants are using external finance to grow their firms, down ten percentage points compared with the same period last year.

Mike Cherry added: “With so much uncertainty afoot, caution among lenders is understandable. They seem happy enough to issue new credit in some cases but are upping premiums to cover themselves.

“Against this backdrop, it’s more critical than ever that the British Business Bank is properly equipped to build on its vital work in providing start-up loans and enabling equity investment in small firms. A sudden withdrawal of European Investment Fund support for small businesses without a suitable domestic replacement would be catastrophic.”

Read more

20 free apps to improve your small business productivity

The post 70% of businesses put investment on hold because of Brexit uncertainty appeared first on Small Business UK.

Solving Britain’s productivity puzzle is vitally important if the UK is to compete against other, stronger economies, experts agree. Small business technology is key to unlocking this puzzle – especially as we move towards a screen-based attention economy.

Productivity in Britain has been flat over last 10 years, partly because of low wages, which has weakened the business case for technology investment.

Figures released in May 2019 by the Office for National Statistics revealed that British productivity has improved by just 0.5pc per year since 2008 and lags 15pc behind other G7 countries.

According to a Small Business survey sponsored by Dell Small Business, nearly two thirds of small business owners are losing sleep over their company’s lack of productivity.

Lesley Giles, director of thinktank The Work Foundation, says: “Part of the UK productivity problem is that our employment levels are high, and they’re divided between high-value roles but also low-value jobs.”

However, given the talk about extending the living wage, and if Brexit turns off the supply of low-cost labour, The Work Foundation argues that the business case for automation and digitalisation becomes more compelling.

In any case, argues Richard Blakesley, co-founder of tech fund Capital Pilot, trying to compete against other manufacturing countries is a race the UK can never win.

Blakesley says: “When we look at our productivity statistics – the amount of things we can produce compared to the number of people we have in manufacture- it’s always to look awful, and, frankly, it’s only ever going to get worse on the basis that the rate at which we can improve our efficiency at producing widgets is unlikely to match the rate at which other prime manufacturing countries can improve their efficiency.”

Technology innovation

When business experts talk about boosting productivity what they often mean is technological innovation.

A Yorkshire Bank survey has found that high-growth businesses are more likely to be tech-driven, with 71pc finding technology to be a key driver for growth.

Blakesley says: “Improving productivity has nothing to do with how good we are from old economy stuff, which is in decline. It’s about how we can create more value in the economy by doing new things. Productivity is about efficiency and our ability to produce value and generate growth, which is function of technological innovation – much more so than manufacturing efficiency.”

This need for technological innovation can only increase as Britain increasingly becomes an “attention economy” – businesses make money by holding your attention online with either a product or service or information/entertainment.

Blakesley says: “The attention economy is a subset of the wider technological piece. If attention is a scarce resource, certainly as far as marketing and selling to consumers is concerned, you need to market in a more efficient manner, and that’s obviously about software.”

Productivity driver

It’s not as if employees of small businesses haven’t got the message or are averse to working with new technology.

• Seventy per cent of UK employees agree that there’s a direct link between technology provided to them at work and their level of output, with new technology being the biggest single driver of boosting productivity going forward.
• More than half (53pc) think new technology will be a key driver of improved productivity in the future.
• One third of small businesses think that artificial intelligence will become a boon to their business yet only 2pc of Federation of Small Businesses members have adopted AI.
• Nearly half (46pc) of 5,000 employees surveyed across 12 countries for the Dell and Intel Global Evolving Workforce Study said technology has increased their productivity and enabled them to communicate faster.

Indeed, the Dell and Intel study found that one out of four employees globally say they would consider taking a new position if provided better technology that helps them be more productive.

Last year’s Work Foundation report on productivity agreed that up-to-date, fast and performing IT is required to make the difference between enhanced productivity and inefficiency.

One respondent cited: “My technology at work is always slow, not up-to-date, unreliable, it’s rubbish – I lose a day because my laptop is so old.

The Work Foundation’s findings are backed up by the Small Business Dell Small Business survey, which found that 17pc of small businesses blame out-of-date IT for hampering growth.

Megan Wright, small business technology advisor, Dell, says: “Productivity is key to the livelihood of your business, if you have anything that is going to give that hiccup in your business like a system being down, or software that might not be compatible with the trends of technology, that’s going to cause your business to take a pause.”

Technology resistance

Often it is not staff of small businesses who are resistant to new technology but owners of businesses themselves.

Lesley Giles, director of The Work Foundation, says: “We found that the UK is below average in adoption and effective use of technology in different processes, whether that’s understanding customers to people management through to marketing, we’re behind other European countries. We’re not near the leaders on any adoption of technology for business processes. And for the small business piece, the levels of adoption are even lower.”

Nearly one third of FSB members – who on average employ just seven staff – have yet to take advantage of any digital technology aids such as cloud accounting, e-commerce and CRM packages.

Giles says: “There’s wide variation in adoption and use of technology and often that is around tried-and-tested technology as well; it’s not about using technology in an advanced way. It’s things like cloud computing, shared platforms for collaborative working, CRM … basically being able to make use of data that digital provides to intelligently understand your business.

Dana Elman Vishkin, senior policy advisor at the FSB, says: “We want SMEs to be more aware of what cloud could mean for them.”

Often, it’s the managing directors or CEOs of small firms who are the ones lacking the confidence to employ new technology.

Says Elman Vishkin: “Business owners need to update their own skills; if they do send trainees to get training, they don’t send themselves. We found some lack of confidence in digital skills among business owners. There’s scope for improvement in how SMEs adopt digital technology.

“Almost one third found digital technology too challenging for them to make a decision about whether to invest in it or not. You could argue that a small business needs to innovate to survive. But significant innovation requires time from CEOs.”

Giles agrees that, while technology is only one piece of the productivity puzzle, developments such as cheaper IT hardware and software-as-a-service (SaaS) have made staying up to date more affordable.

“These things are definitely getting more efficient, effective and more cost-effective,” she says.

The message is clear: as UK increasingly pivots around a screen-based economy – whether you’re selling physical goods online or selling digital subscriptions to services – your IT must be up to date if you want to compete.

Dell Small Business is focused on boosting businesses productivity. Dell Small Business advisors help SMEs keep their technology be up to date, so their employees can be more productive.

For more tips on boosting your business productivity speak to a Dell Small Business Advisor anytime at: Dell.co.uk/smallbusinessadvisor

The post Why boosting productivity means innovating small business technology appeared first on Small Business UK.

A gym on the roof. Extensive gardens with areas to relax and unwind. Employees bringing their dogs into the office. This might sound like a modern, cutting-edge workplace experimenting with measures to boost engagement, but it actually describes the US Department of Justice under Robert Kennedy.

And just as modern businesses are discovering now, these measures had a huge effect on morale, according to Larry Tye, Kennedy’s biographer. Ultimately, Kennedy demonstrated that he trusted his staff to let them use their time effectively; to step away from their desks regularly during the working day. The lesson is clear: flexibility and trust create loyalty and engagement.

The lesson is similar for productivity. Empowering employees with the choice to work from a range of locations provides a real fillip to productivity. Research from HSBC, for instance, has found that nine in 10 employees feel that the ability to work remotely has the greatest effect on their productivity.

And where Kennedy may have been something of a workplace pioneer in offering flexibility in the working day, nearly 60 years on, remote working is all the rage. The traditional desk-based nine to five is giving way to a remote, flexible world. This isn’t just the reserve of the coder typing away in the local café, but also includes busy CEOs of large corporates firing off emails from the airport lounge, too.

Seamless working

Powered by the latest technology – be it super-fast Wi-Fi, VPN or video conferencing – employees are now able to seamlessly clock in, log in and work from a range of locations. In fact, according to JLL’s Distraction or Disruption report, 56pc of employees work from other company premises at least once a month.

Of course, such developments are having a profound effect on real estate. Across the world of business, increasingly flexible working patterns are driving our offices to become increasingly flexible: be it businesses providing their employees with access to external multi-membership coworking spaces; smaller companies offering flexible incubator hubs; or businesses redesigning their existing workplaces to curate more mobility and connectivity between teams.

‘The flex office space sector has more than doubled in size since 2014’

To put this growth into perspective, JLL’s research has found that the flex office space sector has more than doubled in size since 2014, and looking ahead, predicts that by 2030, 30pc of corporate portfolios will be flex space. The future, then, is flexible.

Knowledge flow

For those who embrace flexible office space, the rewards for productivity are potentially great. After all, as Robert Kennedy found, employees respond well to being able being able to step away from their desks. What’s more, research by Deskmag has found that coworking can provide a significant spur to creativity and collaboration, particularly important for smaller, growing business using multi-membership coworking spaces, which enables employees to rub shoulders with other like-minded individuals from other companies, allowing for networking and the flow of ideas and insights. For larger businesses, who may be using internal coworking hubs, we’re talking about marketing sitting alongside accounts, or legal next to HR. The potential for knowledge flow is profound.

What’s more, the rise of flex space has transformed the traditional to a similar degree. In the age of remote working, where employees have the choice to work from a range of locations, people are demanding vibrant offices; collaborative hubs, crammed full of hospitality-style amenities. Put another way, businesses are transforming their offices into places employees actually want to spend their time: spaces where they can work productively and flexibly alongside colleagues.

The benefits of flexibility go further still. For a business thinking about embracing flex space, it is a question of culture and what kind of business you really want to be. Flexible working arrangements have the potential to support a diverse and inclusive workforce: providing returning mothers or fathers, for example, with the ability and space to return to work, easily able to slot back into a flexible working environment with a range of working options in the office and beyond. Remote working and flex space combined can enable greater diversity and inclusion.

Culture sets the tone for a business and is crucial in driving engagement and attracting and retaining staff. Creating a flexible culture empowers employees, embedding choice throughout an organisation, enabling the creation of an inclusive, diverse team. HR teams and corporate policymakers should see flexibility as an essential accelerator for business, not an optional extra.

Greater choice

And when it comes to creating a flexible workspace, choice is king. Business should start by looking at the kinds of spaces they offer employees. From community space in the office and to incubators or flexible homeworking arrangements, giving employees greater choice over how they work gives them greater control over their working day and builds flexibility into an office’s and company’s DNA.

Of course, there are challenges, and not every role can be performed remotely. But, with careful planning around technology and security, and consideration of the compliance requirements, businesses can reap the benefits of embracing flexibility. Employees value choice, and by adopting flex space as a way of catering to these demands, it is also possible to boost productivity. Businesses shouldn’t be afraid to flex.

Tom Carroll is head of EMEA Corporate Research, JLL

Further reading

Co-working space versus traditional office – which is better?

The post Flex space: why your office is the key to boosting productivity appeared first on Small Business UK.

Nearly two thirds of small business owners are losing sleep over their company’s lack of productivity.

Sixty-five per cent of SME owners surveyed by Small Business said that their business productivity — or lack of it — keeps them awake at night.

Productivity has been dire in the UK since the financial crisis, sitting around 16pc lower than peer economies. The outlook remains grim, with a recent US study predicting that Britain will be the only advanced economy to experience falling productivity growth in 2019.

Finding and retaining the right staff is the overwhelming factor holding British SMEs back. Forty per cent of small businesses say that not having the right staff is hampering growth. When asked what was the one thing they’d change to improve their company’s productivity, one respondent groaned, “Hire a few more assistants” while another said they wanted somebody to help with sales and marketing.

Old-fashioned processes (28.4pc), out-of-date computer systems (16.2pc) and cramped offices (15.3pc) were also cited as other factors reining SMEs in.

Lack of cash flow to expand is seen as the biggest business challenge over the next 12 months (63pc) followed by finding and retaining staff (15pc), late payment from clients (13.9pc) and out-of-date IT (8pc).

Again, lack of money is the biggest barrier to small British businesses upgrading IT. Not enough money was cited by 79pc of respondents, with lack of digital skills, the other (21.2pc).

In terms of specifically what technology would help boost British SME productivity, the majority plumed for up-to-date business software (43.6pc), with 26.6pc citing being able to work away from the office, being able to store documents in the cloud (18pc) and implementing artificial intelligence to handle repetitive tasks (11.8pc).

“The one thing I’d change is having enough cash flow that myself and my partner aren’t relied on being on-shift all the time,” said one reader. “I’d like to upgrade my IT software to work more remotely and fast enough so that we can focus on in-store sales growth.”

“We need better technological solutions to enable better use of time and increase audiences,” agreed another.

One respondent said that lack of project management was the thing eating into their SME productivity. “Project management software tends to be aimed at larger companies with large projects. Being a small company undertaking smaller projects, this software is difficult to effectively utilise. Implementing an app that would allow us to track project management and time-manage staff would help decrease ‘downtime’ and increase productivity.”

The good news is though that British entrepreneurs keep up to date with technology (53.3pc) and an overwhelming 83.7pc of respondents care about the world we live in and want to be environmentally conscious.

This article is brought to you by Dell Small Business. To find out more, click here

Further reading

How to make your office technology work for you

The post Nearly two thirds of SME owners lose sleep over lack of productivity appeared first on Small Business UK.

For more than a decade, the UK has been mired in a “productivity puzzle”. Ever since the so-called credit crunch and the financial crisis which followed in 2008, businesses have struggled to become more efficient.

As you might expect, economic growth, employment levels and total hours worked all slumped during the recession; but within a few years they returned to near-trend levels. Productivity got left behind.

According to the latest official figures, UK output per hour fell 0.1pc in the final quarter of 2018 compared with the same three-month period in 2017. It was the second consecutive decline and further evidence of an unprecedented stagnation.

That’s despite all the astonishing office technology advances that have taken place in recent times, including software as a service (saas) and cloud computing, plus ever-more sophisticated smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops, not to mention the constellation of new online services designed to power businesses forward.

“UK small businesses are not as productive as they could be,” says Shaun Shirazian, UK head of product at Intuit QuickBooks. “The gap in productivity between the top and bottom 10pc of firms is 80pc larger in the UK than it is in the US, France and Germany.

“However, the UK also ranks among the top five countries with the highest number of registered new businesses and attracts more venture capital investment than any other European country.

“With this in mind, it is crucial that the UK improves its productivity output. One of the main factors in achieving this is the wider adoption of digital-led strategies which have the potential to transform small businesses across the UK.”

Why UK productivity has fallen

Experts have long-debated the reasons why organisations aren’t able to forge ahead. One theory is that cheap labour from the European Union has offset investment in better equipment and tools. But, with Brexit on the horizon, this could all change.

At time of writing, the UK is enjoying its highest ever level of employment. That’s good news for job seekers but less so for organisations looking for talent, especially with mounting evidence that EU immigration is slowing dramatically.

Without easy access to recruits, bosses must equip their existing workforce with the tools, training and direction to get more done during the average working day.

Andrew Moyser, partner at chartered accountants MHA MacIntyre Hudson, says government help is at hand. “Tight labour markets will force businesses to invest to boost productivity. They should develop a strategy now,” he suggests.

“We’ve already seen the government assisting in recent years through the introduction of R&D tax reliefs and the increase in the annual investment allowance to £1 million. In the coming years, I would expect even more incentives to encourage businesses to change.”

Together with complementary legislation – such as the Enterprise Investment Scheme, which encourages investment in fast-growing technological start-ups  — these fiscal incentives provide a handy war chest for businesses looking to upgrade.

Government help for SME investment

On the other side of the coin, there is an ever-growing array of technological wonders designed to aid communication, business development, financial management, marketing and HR. Many offer a subscription model of payment, which means businesses no longer have to fork out lump sums for new office technology.

According to Mathias Mikkelsen, the founder of AI-based productivity suite Memory, it’s not the availability of technology nor the means to pay that’s the problem; it’s many businesses’ failure to plan that trips them up.

He explains: “There is significant lack of strategy on how to adequately use the technology that is available to us all, which collectively slows us down and wastes a considerable amount of valuable time.

“Specifically, a lot of SMEs invest in technologies but do not have the right strategy in place to implement it correctly, and this potentially highlights an important deficiency in terms of management and leadership skills.”

If leaders lack the skills to plan effectively, it’s perhaps not surprising that people across the workforce feel underequipped to take full advantage of technology.

How can I learn new digital skills?

Research by the Open University found that 94pc of SMEs are struggling to find workers with the right skills, while a study by Lloyds Bank found that nearly a quarter of small businesses lacked even basic digital skills.

According to Accenture, the digital skills gap is responsible for a £141 billion shortfall in UK GDP growth. Henry Stewart of IT training firm Happy says upgrading IT is only half the equation. The other half is an implementation strategy and training, which ensures staff understand what’s in front of them and how it can benefit them individually, as part of a team and business-wide.

“When we come into a company, often they’re aware of the digital skills gap,” he says. “We do a productivity audit, explaining how much more they could be getting out of the software. This technology should be enabling, empowering, helping them to do their jobs better but even three decades into the personal computing revolution, staff still find it frustrating.”

Mikkelsen at Memory agrees: “It’s vital that businesses spend their time and resources on putting the necessary policies in place to develop their existing staff, ensuring they have enough options available to reach their full potential.

“The best means of doing this is to implement a programme of training and education, as well as other policies targeted at improving workplace culture such as mentorship schemes and career development.”

Making your technology work for you means a lot more than just buying the latest kit; it means understanding the benefits to your business, conveying these to your people and investing time in helping them drive up efficiency.

This is where a rounded office technology strategy comes into play. Businesses taking a scatter-gun approach won’t feel the full benefits, while those that plan upgrades and assess the outcomes honestly will see the difference clearly.

ActiveInbox founder Andy Mitchell thinks organisations should be realistic about tech migrations and get the basics sorted first before reinventing the wheel. His business helps email users plan their working day more effectively.

“For small businesses, every second you’re paying people to be unproductive affects your bottom line. Question the need for every meeting. Don’t be tempted to jump on the latest communication tool bandwagon.

“There are businesses out there whose communication is increasingly fragmented across multiple platforms and then they have the responsibility of tracking it all in yet another tool. Forget that.

“Email is still number one for business as it’s platform-agnostic, so it’s used by everyone. Instead of adopting multiple apps I’d recommend some simple plugins that work within your email, so you’re communicating in a consistent environment. “

But his overriding message is that “tech doesn’t trump people”, meaning IT should work for humans and not the other way around.

Three questions you must ask

So, if you’re planning a major tech migration, or you’re simply worried that business output isn’t where it should be, when it comes to office technology consider three key messages:

• Plan your upgrade, asking honest questions about where technology is needed and why.
• Create a strategy for implementation. Communicate with staff and ensure they receive the right training.
• Assess the new system and work out if it has achieved your goals. If not, investigate the reasons why.

When it comes to office technology, a little thought goes a long way. By taking time to get it right, your business could help the UK edge closer to a long-overdue solution to the productivity puzzle.

This article is brought to you by Dell Small Business. To find out more, click here

Further reading

7 ways to improve the output of your small business

The post How to make your office technology work for you appeared first on Small Business UK.

Flexibility

Half a century ago workplaces were static uninspiring floors with bosses metering out hard and fast rules. We’ve come a long way since, but some businesses are evolving faster than others. Allowing people to work in their own way will drive up loyalty, productivity and retention rates.

James Lintern, Co-Founder at RotaCloud:

“At RotaCloud, we recently formalised and extended our flexible working policy, with our core hours now set to 10-3:30pm.

“In other words, most staff can start their eight hours of work at any time from 7:30am to 10am, whatever works for them. Early birds and night owls both benefit, with an extra productivity boost first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening when the office is a little quieter.

“We’ve also been able to extend our support hours as a result of this policy, offering an improved service to our customers. A member of our marketing team has even written an article on the benefits of this policy.”

Agility

Agile has been a buzzword for some time, but a business’ capacity to adapt in the face of change – whether threat or opportunity – is a key ingredient in its ability improve revenues and growth. Agility means being able to serve changing needs and pivot to take advantage of emerging trends.

Nigel Davies, founder of digital workplace Claromentis:

“We’re an agile business which means we have a flexible and thought-through approach to getting things done. The main principle is empowering self-organised teams so there is no need for a ‘supervisor-type’ person standing over people telling them what to do. Our teams run themselves and can react quickly to change if required. We’re highly organised but not rigid.

“Being agile is energising as it keeps the focus on achievable sprints of focused activity rather than repetitive boring tasks or targets that always seem unreachable. Crucially, everyone in our business has visibility of tasks and progress that’s being made, using a kanban board.

“We also have an annual ‘innovation week’: a hackathon that gets the whole team away from client work and building something fun, interesting and challenging.”

Autonomy

Rigid, hierarchical management structures can demotivate workforces and act as a suppressant on ideas and innovation. By trusting people to get the job done, you offer them the chance to use their imagination, create new things and become inspired.

Andy Mitchell, founder of The Inbox Foundry:

“At the Inbox Foundry [which develops productivity apps for business] we keep our productivity levels high by having clearly defined goals and ensuring our team members have complete autonomy over their area of responsibility.

“Autonomy in the modern workplace is the ultimate motivator and it removes many of the bottlenecks that unnecessary hierarchical structures bring.

“Fostering an autonomy culture within a business can be a challenging transition, it takes trust and a change of mindset from the nine to five, but the productivity is evidenced by things getting done on time and a low employee turnover, which brings real, measurable value to a business.”

Innovation

Never be afraid to innovate, otherwise the competition will do it for you. Testing, working on small projects and investing in hunches all keep a business fresh and ready for change. It also develops new competences, adding dimensions to your business. If an experiment fails, you have learned a valuable lesson, pack it up and try something new.

Andrew Moyser, partner at MHA MacIntyre Hudson:

“We have developed an innovation strategy to ensure we’re looking into technology improvements which will increase in productivity. For example, we’re currently looking at the adoption of robotic process automation (RPA) and data analytics software. These technologies will help improve productivity.

“We’ve set-up a team to work with staff on improving the user experience of software and making sure we use the full capabilities.”

Motivation

Workplaces are defined by their culture, so make sure your business is set-up to motivate the team. If your employees dread Mondays then you’re doing something wrong. Conversely, if people are excited about the prospect of coming to work then it’s likely they’ll do a good job when they get there.

Mathias Mikkelsen, the founder and CEO of Memory

“I think it’s imperative that companies actively work towards creating a healthy and positive work culture that detaches itself from the traditional culture of hierarchical bureaucracy. This is essential as it improves the communication between employer and employee, and enables the creation of a clear and shared company mission.

“Another important factor companies should focus on is to ensure that their employees remain motivated. This requires companies to reassess their leadership and management skills and ensure that they are not micromanaging their employees.”

Consultation

It’s important to accept that you’re not always the expert. If you’re unsure about something, speak to a specialist. In small doses, consultants can problem-solve, inject new ideas and steer your business on a path to growth.

Few CEOs are IT experts, for example, so if you’re looking to make a big investment in your IT platform, talk to people with experience of doing so before you spend the big bucks.

Gavin Davis, partner at MHA MacIntyre Hudson:

“Organisations often fail to fully understand how technology can help them grow and become more efficient. It’s not uncommon to find that a business has sought out their local computer superstore or dealer, only to find that their systems don’t work as expected, or fail to save costs.

“Businesses should engage with experts who will understand their business and find solutions that work for them now and in the future. We often find that IT systems were installed when a business was much smaller, but as it grows, IT systems can become unwieldy and difficult to manage. Typically we see systems and applications that were added when the business strategy was different or absent.

“A detailed understanding of what the business needs now and in the future is vital for success. IT underpins the operations of most businesses so it needs to be seriously considered as part of the growth strategy and not left to chance that it can be put right later.”

Learning

Learning is a critical ingredient of growing a business. That means assessing why mistakes happen and developing your knowledge of the market, competition, clients, strategies and technology. By engaging with your customers, for example, you can deliver better products while creating a bond that will benefit your business for years to come.

Andy Mitchell, founder of The Inbox Foundry:

“Like most software companies we deliver product features to our customers incrementally in versions. As the customer uses our products we use both analytics, customer feedback and competitor analysis to further develop the product to meet our customers’ needs.

“I’ve always liked the maxim ‘listen to your customers, not your competitors’. In other words, don’t try to out think others, let yourself be pulled towards what your customers need. Communicate consistently with them. Involve them in the decisions you make about your business and they will become your biggest evangelists.”

This article is brought to you by Dell Small Business. To find out more, click here

Further reading

Five easy tech wins to improve SME productivity

The post 7 ways to improve the output of your small business appeared first on Small Business UK.

Lloyds Bank has revealed that British SMEs with low digital capability could unlock up to an additional £84.5 billion turnover if they were to embrace technology.

However, many entrepreneurs baulk at having to buy expensive software packages outright or license Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) when the bill could run into thousands of pounds each year for small businesses on razor-thin margins.

Yet there are plenty of office productivity solutions out there that don’t tie you in to contracts.

Providing your workstation – whether it’s a desktop or mobile – is up to date, there are plenty of free alternatives to expensive software packages.

Some of these apps listed below use the freemium model, where entry level functionality is offered for free but you have to buy bolt-ons to unlock the full potential of what the app can do.

Some platforms are funded by advertising while others offer a free version as a way to scale up quickly.

Here are 20 free options for boosting your business productivity that don’t involve tying up hard-earned cash flow:

Office suites

Google

Google’s suite of online tools places more of an emphasis on collaboration than other suites out there. You can select people to work with you on the same document, spreadsheet, presentation or form, and you can all make changes in real time. The beauty of G-suite is that it interconnects with Google’s other offerings, such as Google Drive share drive, which offers 15GB of free storage, and its Google Analytics tools, which shows you how web pages are performing.

Microsoft Office Online

Office is the ubiquitous business suite, offering staples such as Word, Excel and OneNote. Microsoft Office Online is a hobbled web-based and free version of its Office 365 software because it wants you to upgrade to unlock more functionality. That said, you can store up to 5GB in its OneDrive back-up service. To find out more about the full version of Office 365 go here.

Zoho

This basic superfast web-based suite is aimed at entrepreneurs and small businesses. It’s fine for simple tasks but you’re going to need to look elsewhere for more sophisticated features. Zoho offers a word processor, spreadsheet builder and a presentation program. It stores all of your documents in its free online storage space (1GB), and allows you to share them with (member) friends via email invitations. Zoho Writer has some nifty touches like a dark mode and a clacking typewriter sound to liven up a quiet office, while Zoho Sheet – its version of Excel — also allows real-time collaboration. .

LibreOffice

This is an open source office suite, which means any of its millions of users can improve functionality. Available in over 100 languages, LibreOffice includes apps such as Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing).

Email

Gmail

Web-based Gmail takes some getting used to if you’re used to the functionality of Outlook. However, once you get your head around it, it many ways it’s superior. It has a modern interface, integrates perfectly with other services in the Google ecosystem and is very good at blocking spam. Clever features include the option to “snooze” emails, send and request money via Google Pay, send emails with expiration dates, and others which can only be read using a one-time code.

Outlook mail

Microsoft’s Outlook Mail is the world’s second most popular email provider after Gmail. While not packed with quite as many as powerful features as Gmail, Outlook.com is still a solid free email service provider choice. It’s a simple stripped-down version of Office 365 Outlook and its design is even more minimal than Gmail. You can easily customise the reading pane. If your business is already comfortable using Microsoft Office products or if you find the features of Gmail confusing, Outlook.com may be the best email provider for your needs.

Yahoo

Yahoo email is the third biggest emailing service, behind Google’s Gmail and Outlook. Over 227 million people use the Yahoo service every month. Each new user receives an impressive terabyte of free storage for email. And Yahoo Mail is probably the best email service when it comes to aliases – you can create up to 500 disposable addresses that are linked to your main email address but don’t contain your name or any other personal data, which is useful if you’re often signing up for web accounts and don’t wish to have your regular inbox spammed or filled with useless email.

However, it isn’t the most stable email platform, with users often complaining about frequent outages and crashes.

Zoho Mail

Just like its Zoho office suite, Zoho Mail easily stands in for a full desktop application like Office 365. It includes up to 5GB email storage for free (you have to pay for storage of up to 1TB beyond that) and, unlike the free version of Outlook, is ad free. Best of all, it allows you to customise your email address to username@yourdomainname.com.

Yandex

Russia’s Yandex Mail has a pleasant interface, with a simple layout making it easy to read. Useful features include a scheduling widget so you can send emails when you want and a customisable interface. Your email login enables access to the rest of the Yandex platform, which offers an image library and up to 10GB of cloud storage for free.

Accounting

Wave

Canada-based Wave is a free web-based accounting, customisable invoicing and receipts platform which you can sync with your bank account. You can send invoices from your business email address. Receipts can be scanned using its free iOS and Android app, recording receipts as accounting transactions.

Where Wave makes its money is if you use it for online payments: the service charges 1.4 per cent plus 20p for each transaction on European-issued cards (2.9 per cent plus 20p for cards issued elsewhere).

Pandle

Pandle has been developed from the get-go with British small businesses in mind. Only 20 per cent of small businesses in the UK currently use bookkeeping software, with the remainder using spreadsheets or manually kept records.

Easy to understand drop-down menus allow you to enter transactions and suppliers, create quotes and customisable invoices and export figures to Excel. The platform allows you to create profit-and-loss, create balance sheets and file VAT returns to HMRC through its Making Tax Digital initiative.

Pandle makes money through paid-for bolt-ons such as payroll plus you have to pay for multiple-user functionality.

However, Pandle is not designed for large volumes of transactions and the bank import/explaining process is not that sophisticated.

Collaboration and project management

nTask

nTask is a project management tool that is especially good for creative projects. It’s an online calendar-based platform that enables you to create tasks, bundle those tasks into projects, convene meetings, flag issues and create timesheets. Nifty features include seeing what percentage of each task or project has been completed.

Overall, nTask keeps abreast of the functionality of other, more expensive and complicated workflow management platforms.

Agantty

Agantty from Germany is also calendar-based, enabling you to add tasks, projects and assign team members, adding to a use-flow Gantt workflow chart. You can toggle between what needs to be done today, this week or this month. And it interfaces with popular cloud storage sites such as Dropbox and Google Drive.

Workplace communication

Slack

Slack is a simple to use instant messaging system that enables much faster communication than interoffice emails. It enables you to group messages into theme-related “channels” such as “new project” or “export plan” – anything you want – keeping workplace conversations organised. It interfaces with cloud storage solutions including Google Drive, Dropbox and Microsoft Online. And it also feeds into project management systems such as Asana and Trello. British companies that use Slack include the BBC, Ocado and News UK. However, the free version only stores up to 10k worth of messages (paid-for plans allow unlimited message storage).

Flock

Flock’s simple, colourful interface allows you to have private or public conversations with workplace colleagues, upload files and create opinion polls with colleagues. It also connects with other commonplace apps such as Google Drive, Twitter and Trello and also has a nifty video conferencing feature. The free version is aimed at small teams getting started. As with Slack, the free version stores up to 10k worth of messages and 10GB of storage. The paid-for version offers more functionality and is, according to Flock, two thirds cheaper than Slack.

Mobile

Evernote

At its most basic, Evernote allows you to create to-do lists but it can do much more than that. You can create notes that are then stored in notebooks for easy reference. Evernote Business adds features enabling collaboration and links to Google Drive, email systems such as Outlook and CRMs like Salesforce. The business version costs £11 a month. Over 224 million people worldwide use Evernote for business planning — or just making a note of a favourite recipe.

Doodle

If you’re on the road and juggling client meetings, Doodle – available on iOS and Android – is a fast way to check participant availability and fix times and dates.

The ad-funded free option offers basic scheduling suggests times, let’s you invite participants, pick the best option and lock the meeting.

It also integrates with your favourite calendar, whether it’s iCalendar, Outlook or Google.

The premium business version – used by Apple, Amazon and Google – costs €59 per user annually and allows you to send reminders, send calendar invites, add your company logo and scrape participants’ contact information.

Social media management

Hootsuite

Digital marketing via social media is crucial for any small business, whether it’s for launching a new product, customer engagement or simply ensuring you stay front of mind.

However, it’s also important to monitor what people are saying about your brand, competitors and your sector as a whole.

With so many proliferating social platforms, keeping on top can feel daunting.

Hootsuite is a sophisticated social media management dashboard that connects with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and others which enables you to schedule posts and analyse how they’re performing. Importantly, its analytics function allows you to track and improve social return on investment (ROI).

The free single-user version allows you to connect to three social platforms, have two RSS feeds so you be instantly updated about what the internet is saying about your brand and gives 30 free scheduled messages.

Professional plans start at £25 a month allowing you to connect to 10 social media profiles and, crucially, let’s you automatically schedule posts.

TweetDeck

Trying to make sense of any business’s Twitter stream can feel overwhelming. One widget that puts your Twitter feed in order — and is completely free – is Twitter’s own Tweetdeck. You can add as many Twitter feeds as you want — searching for competitors or what people are saying about your sector – and you can manage up to 200 Twitter accounts from one dashboard. Helpfully others apart from yourself can also see the same Tweetdeck page, and monitor or send tweets without having to share their passwords. Oh, and you can schedule tweets as well.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides you the information needed to improve your website and make it the best it can be.

This free Google tool enables you to see who’s coming to your website, whether it’s organic search, paid digital advertising or referrals from other websites. This way you know whether your digital marketing campaigns are working.

You can also discover which of your website pages are performing better than others, which pages users linger on and how many they’ve seen in total — again, helping you tweak that marketing ROI.

Further reading

Best payment apps for small businesses

Top nine business apps for busy business owners

How to improve productivity by investing in the right office furniture

The post 20 free apps to improve your business productivity appeared first on Small Business UK.

Reducing your carbon footprint doesn’t just help protect the environment, it can also boost your company’s productivity and bottom line in unexpected ways.

Flexible working

Flexible workspaces, which you hire by the hour, day or week, have made inroads into how many of us work.

According to workspace provider Instant, the number of flexible workspaces in Britain grew by 10 per cent in 2017, offering 824,000 desks across the UK. London alone grew by slightly less at 9 per cent with more than 1,300 flexible office locations available across the capital.

What this means is that your office can expand and contract on a day-to-day basis, according to the needs of an increasingly self-employed workforce.

Staff do not have to travel in to a fixed office, saving their travel time — which they can then use to be more productive off-site.

Julien Parven of IT services business Daisy Group, says his team has already adopted this way of working.

“Snake People want to work beyond the 9-5:30 and they work when and where they want,” says Parven. “Flexible working improves productivity because it increases employee satisfaction, empowering them and making them feel more fulfilled.”

Another plus is that the latest generation of flexible office space incorporates energy-saving smart lighting and heating, saving you money – and helping to save the planet.

Cloud computing

According to Eurostat, 17 per cent of small businesses in Europe already store information, documents and data in the public cloud.

Here in Britain, Amazon Web Services dominates the public cloud market with a 54 per cent share, with Microsoft Azure is catching up (41 per cent).

Apart from security – no need to worry if your server goes on the blink, your data is safely being warehoused offsite — cloud computing lowers your energy bill — you don’t have to use all that electricity feeding an ageing hungry server 24/7.

Rather than using power to run expensive air conditioning to cool that server – and having somebody permanently on site to troubleshoot problems – cloud computing has another green benefit: external data centres take advantage of more energy-efficient systems and better cooling technologies.

Says Parven: “There’s a legacy comfort in having a server winking away in one corner but having more companies sharing a server in the public cloud means greater efficiency. Being able to share services via fibre or ethernet is a long way removed from having a server cooled by air conditioning.”

Teleconferencing

Travel, particularly international air travel, contributes to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Reducing the amount of travel that your company has to do is hugely beneficial – and technology can help. Think of all that time wasted travelling to and from airports.

Video- and teleconferencing systems have been around for a long time.

‘In today’s money, the three-and-a-half-hour conversation cost a staggering £105,000’

In fact, the very first teleconference call took place in 1915, when US President Woodrow Wilson took part in a shared telephone conversation with executives of AT&T instigated by the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell. The call, which connected New York and San Francisco, involved stringing copper wire across the whole of the United States. In today’s money, the three-and-a-half-hour conversation cost a staggering £105,000.

Today, that same video conference call right from where you’re sitting using Skype or Google Hangouts is effectively free. For shorter meetings, these are a good alternative to a face-to-face gathering.

Parven believes there is an age divide in offices between younger employees who embrace the idea of using Skype or Google Hangouts to conduct meetings, and older staff who still prefer to meet face to face.

Parven says: “Using Skype has reduced our travel budget over the last two to three years. Some of these technologies have yet to make their presence felt in medium-sized businesses. Yet adoption will absolutely increase as those costs come down, allowing companies to take advantage of video conferencing and sharing collaboratively.”

Latest generation laptops

Laptops and mobile devices are built with low-power components so that their batteries last longer. This means that they draw less power than a traditional desktop computer, reducing running costs.

One of the benefits of the latest generation of laptops is that they also automatically power down into energy-saving mode when not in use, again reducing energy consumption.

Also, equipping staff with laptops rather than old-fashioned desktops also reduces power consumption in that you’d have had to separately power the monitor and the CPU.

And, as we have seen above, mobile devices and laptops also make your business more flexible, with your employees able to work from anywhere at any time, boosting productivity.

Smart printing

How many of us are guilty of sending a document to print, only to realise that we didn’t need it anymore and it’s left to moulder in a pile of other unwanted documents?

Upgrading your printer means your new device will include smart functions, such as having double-sided printing as standard — reducing waste paper — and using security log-ons to ensure staff don’t just print-and-forget, adding to the waste paper mountain.

You might be unpleasantly surprised to learn how many sheets of paper end up in the recycling bin. Of course, it’s good to recycle, but you still need to replenish your stock of A4 paper, as well as ink cartridges, more frequently than you often budget for.

And then of course there’s the cost of the ink. The average cost of printer ink is $50 per ounce, which makes it more than three times more expensive than an ounce of silver.

Plus, a smart printer automatically shifts into standby mode to conserve electricity when not in use.

Encouraging staff to just print the document they need, rather than wading through reams of other people’s forgotten printouts, also means they spend their time more efficiently.

Parven says: “We used to carry around a lot of paper and there was a comfort in that. The latest generation of security-pass enabled printers reduce the need to print. And, when you think about it, the whole point of email is that it’s electronic mail – it’s not meant to be printed on paper.”

This article is brought to you by Dell Small Business. To find out more, click here

Further reading on business tech

• 5 easy tech wins to improve SME productivity

The post How reducing your carbon footprint can increase business productivity appeared first on Small Business UK.

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman’s declared that “while productivity isn’t everything, in the long run, it is almost everything”.

Poor productivity is seen as being one of the biggest (perhaps the biggest) economic challenge facing the UK. The UK lags behind G7 productivity by 16 per cent, according to Close Brothers. Britain’s poor productivity record has been highlighted by government figures showing the biggest gap with other leading western economies since modern records began in the early 1990s.

Small business has a vital role to play in boosting Britain’s productivity. SMEs make up 99.9 per cent of UK businesses and have a combined turnover of £1.8 trillion. Increasing their productivity could make a huge difference to the UK’s economic output.

In fact, British small businesses understand about how technology could boost their productivity. Nearly half of UK SMEs say new technology would increase overall productivity (46 per cent), improve staff efficiency (50 per cent) and help upskill staff (43 per cent).

However only 45 per cent of UK SMEs have invested in new technology recently, and three out of four have no plans to invest in up-to-date tech.

Yet there are so many easy wins as to how technology can improve your business’s productivity — and profitability.

“My advice to small businesses is this – don’t be afraid to invest in new technologies. The right technology can turn an SME from a niche player into a major threat,” says Conrad Ford, CEO and founder of SME finance comparison website Funding Options.

Here are five simple ways how tech can improve productivity:

Digitise you customer relationship management (CRM)

Modern businesses need CRM to flourish – even to survive.  At the heart of virtually all businesses lies a desire for growth. Business leaders know there are two fundamental ways to achieve it: increasing revenues and reducing costs. Whether this is accomplished by winning new customers, finding new ways to deliver more value to existing customers, or improving efficiency and productivity, it’s crucial to have good visibility of what’s happening in the business – and effective control over the key ways to improve performance. CRM gives businesses that visibility and control.

A digitised CRM system allows you to track the entire customer journey, including interactions with a customer across all channels, and across all departments. Every time they come into contact with your brand, or even show a flicker of interest, you’ll know about it. This real-time, comprehensive view of your engagement with a customer allows your team to be more efficient and helps them focus on delivering great service.

Digital CRM puts customer satisfaction first, making the life of (potential) customers much easier. Digital CRM helps your company become more customer-centric.

Improved communication and collaboration, automation of everyday tasks, and better reporting capabilities will all be invaluable to upping your productivity, but potentially the biggest boon is centralisation; having all your information will be in one place.

Another productivity boost comes from the availability of mobile and cloud-based CRM, which enables and reinforces collaboration throughout the entire business around the customer. Information is accessible anytime, anywhere from any device, for optimal business operations. CRM gives businesses agility and efficiency across marketing, sales and customer service.

Mark Hill, CIO of specialist CRM recruitment agency Mason Frank International, says: “A CRM platform is the beating heart of any customer-focused organisation. Good customer relationships should be at the core of your business model, and to build those relationships, your CRM has to be given the focus it deserves.

“It sounds so basic, but you can’t undervalue that. Think about much time you and your teams spend digging around for information from disparate sources. Think about all those times you could’ve provided exceptional service if you’d just had a full picture of the customer and their journey with your company. Digitising all your data, putting it in an accessible, unified system, making it searchable, and being able to share that information quickly and easily makes a massive difference.”

Do your bookkeeping online

Online accounting platforms offer an entire suite of tools for managing company accounts, from invoicing, payments to expenses and payroll.

Small businesses are getting ready to file all their VAT returns online from April onwards under the UK government’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) initiative. With the deadline looming for MTD when it comes to VAT, and eventually accounts, your business is going to adopt an online accounting package.

There is a wide array of online accounts platforms such as Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and many more. Each platform will have the tools for effectively managing accounts, however not all of the solutions on the market have been finalised for Making Tax Digital.

Furthermore, MTD has the power to catalyse an immediate annual £6.9 billion net gain in productivity for the UK economy, or £46 billion over five years, according to online bookkeeping system Intuit QuickBooks.

QuickBooks argues that by filing VAT returns online, companies will have better overview of cash flow in real time and manage human resources better, freeing time for more productive activities such as sales, marketing and training.

Furthermore, once SMEs feel comfortable with digitising VAT returns, they will embrace the full potential of digital and embrace other changes such as digital marketing and machine learning, adding another £11 billion worth of productivity to the UK economy.

“Once SMEs feel comfortable with digitising VAT returns, they will embrace other changes such as digital marketing and machine learning”

Matthew Porter, director of Nottingham-based digital marketing agency Kumo, says: “Our agency has utilised a cloud-based accounts platform since our incorporation, initially to purely manage invoicing. As the company grew, our entire accounts have migrated to the solution to reduce the amount of time wasted on manual processes such as tracking payments and storing physical copies of incoming and outgoing receipts. Our automated invoicing feeds in to a payment capture system and bank account integration, that in turn utilises AI or machine learning to aid in consolidating them. This has made the largest gains in time reduction, removing multiple manual processes.”

Monitor workflow using a digital platform

Many of us have to juggle complex projects involving multiple stakeholders on complicated timelines with many moving parts and deadlines.

Work management software enables you to keep track of project elements, deadlines and, most importantly, how much time/money has been spent on each step, so you know how to plan resources and manage clients.

It’s a digital platform that allows you to plan, track, organise and review both projects and with the goal of improving productivity.

Popular work management platforms include Basecamp, Trello and Workfront.

Every workflow management platform allows you to:

• Manage tasks and priorities and track your team’s work to stay within budgets and deadlines
• Communicate centrally
• Collaborate effectively
• Share and store files
• Manage your time more effectively

David Turner, senior director at Netsuite, says: “For smaller companies there’s a huge benefit to workflow management systems. When you’re a few people in the same office, it’s easy to know what’s going on but very quickly if you scale, you need to get consistency of process. Even very small companies are dispersed around the world, and that’s where workflow software and managing process is invaluable really. Workflow’s number-one role is about productivity and about consistency, which gives you traceability and compliance.”

Share documents easily in the cloud

Storing documents in the cloud, whether it’s for word processing, spreadsheets, slideshow presentations or sharing contacts is a huge productivity enabler. Being able to work on the same document in real time is a productivity boon. No more worrying about working on outdated versions of a document or worse losing it if your ageing PC crashes … keeping everything in the cloud means all your data is offsite, which can be crucial if your office suffers a power cut or if there’s some other disaster.

Also, file sizes are getting larger, which means it becomes increasingly difficult to email them.

Most small companies lead the choice of cloud-storage platforms up to the individual, whether it’s Dropbox or Google Drive or WeTransfer. Again, this can lead to clashes and out-of-date versions of documents being shared. Far better to spend money on a multiple-user licence, even when you are a small company. Having a single provider gives you consistency, compliance, visibility and recoverability.

Lindsay Hughes, head of SMB at IT supplier Stone Group, says: “Sharing documents in the cloud is perhaps the strongest tool we have in our arsenal for improving productivity within a business. The ability to instantly edit a document at the same time as a work colleague or customer who is in a different country, is much faster than the laborious process of emailing files backwards and forwards.”

Automate your marketing

Automated marketing amplifies what you’re already doing in marketing. It automates all the digital channels that you push messages out through. A decade ago, this meant scheduling emails. Today, automated marketing systems have become more sophisticated and broader, handling online marketing campaigns, whether it’s through Twitter or email or online advertising.

Marketing automation strengthens customer relationships, scales marketing campaigns and makes it easy to integrate lead generation efforts into the sales cycle.

Automating your marketing enables you to:

• Do something more creative with time saved
• More than pays for itself when implemented properly
• Harnesses hard-won marketing leads to sales
• Measure your campaign’s success

When your marketing team has three or four people, it makes sense to automate and personalise your marketing activity.

David Turner, senior director at Netsuite, says: “It’s a numbers game, pushing out huge number of messages through social media or email channels. To manage that effectively, you need to have automation.”

John Cheney, CEO of CRM solution Workbooks, adds: “When marketing automation is integrated with the CRM platform, marketers can quickly and easily profile and target customers, gather business intelligence and run email campaigns and events.”

This article is brought to you by Dell Small Business. To find out more, click here

Further reading on business tech

• How the right technology can transform your business

The post 5 easy tech wins to improve SME productivity appeared first on Small Business UK.

Gloucestershire-based Radioactive PR claims to be among the world’s first companies to implement a four day working week without cutting staff pay.

The news will no doubt resonate with the millennial workforce, with their penchant for demanding frivolity disguised as ’employee benefits’.

But with the UK’s productivity levels still languishing, can operational gains really be worked in by working less?

Radioactive PR seems to think so. Founder Rich Leigh says that during the trial, he’s won new business, witnessed an improved work-life balance for employees, and claims strong feedback from clients.

The approach may work, on occasion, for an industry that seems frequently to take Fridays off anyway. But it seems highly doubtful that the theme can be replicated across sectors.

In the main, companies can’t just stop servicing their clients for a day a week, especially those that have a competitive advantage in being ‘always on’. They’ll simply lose business to rivals that are actually responsive.

See more on productivity: Upping productivity: How UK SMEs can rival Germany

Advocates of a four-day week will also come to realise that, far from energising staff, employees will only have to squeeze the same volume of work into less time, increasing the demands on a workforce during office hours. For a population struggling to produce things as quickly as the French, for example, that’s not good news.

Aside from this, difficulties in finding childcare due to staff working later, and holidaying staff placing further strain on the already-stretched workforce, add to the list of detriments.

The positives of the four day week seem not to hold up to scrutiny. For example, are small businesses really going to see significant cost savings on security and maintenance, and utility bills, that successfully negate the risks? Are we really to believe that a three-day weekend will compensate for the pressure of ten-hour shifts?

Leigh says that, whenever the company wins more business that looks like affecting that balance, he ‘hires, and will continue to hire, as necessary’. Good for him. But tell that to a down-at-heel high street shop in Doncaster, for whom hiring anyone other than part time is a pipe dream, or a bootstrapping start-up with existing employees already wearing five hats each.

The four-day week seems to be a wonderful excuse for staffers to edge closer in spirit to their footloose gig economy contemporaries.

But if it’s at the cost of getting things done, we could be seeing our already miserable productivity stats spiral further out of control.

The post Is a four day working week really a boon for productivity and staff wellbeing? appeared first on Small Business UK.