Boost Your Productivity by Booting a Few Old Tactics and Technologies

Human beings don’t like change. We like to be comfortable and in control.

Businesses, on the other hand, need change. A business can’t afford to stay comfortable. Change helps it stay in control.

Nowhere is the impact of change on businesses more apparent than in the day-to-day technologies we use. Unfortunately, comfort with traditional tools and technologies can conflict with the productivity needed in today’s business world.

Is your business still holding on to a few old school tools or tactics that might be slowing you down? While they may have been cutting-edge back in the day, many of these practices and technologies have been replaced by things that are faster, more accurate, more efficient, and a lot easier to use.

Check out a few ways you boost productivity by booting some old technologies  today:

Ditch Help Wanted Ads by Using Online Recruiting Tools

Are you still running want ads in the local paper or leaving a big “Help Wanted” sign in your window? If so, you’re missing out on most of the best candidates.

Use of newspaper help wanted ads plummeted as online job boards and social media emerged. These free recruiting outlets offer employers the chance to provide more details about the jobs they’re seeking to fill and the requirements potential employees need to meet. Even an outlet like Twitter, which limits you to just 140 characters, can still get your business in front of thousands of qualified applicants; just include a brief description and a link to your website.

Job boards and other electronic recruiting outlets make things easier on applicants as well. Many of these platforms allow candidates to submit resumes online, which greatly speeds up the application and review processes. Employers also benefit from gaining access to LinkedIn profiles and online portfolios, which better showcase candidates’ true abilities than traditional paper resumes ever could.

Save HR and Accounting Time by Replacing the Time Clock With Biometrics

Do your employees still punch a time clock? Do you rely on accounting and HR to tally these hours and track leave times? If so, chances are your company is losing money every pay period. Miscalculation, extra time omissions, and “buddy clocking ” all lead to you paying out more than you should.

A biometric time clock system records work hours through a unique employee attribute, such as a fingerprint. These times, once logged into the database, provide an accurate tally of your employees’ hours. And, because no one can copy another employee’s fingerprint, a biometric time clock can greatly cut down on time theft. These logs can also document any unauthorized access or instances of suspicious activity.

Improve Your Social Media Outreach by Utilizing Automation Tools

Approximately 74 percent of Internet users  are on social media, and more than half of those people maintain accounts on multiple platforms. This means you need to be on multiple social media platforms to reach them all.

Sadly, research shows that roughly one in five small businesses don’t use social media at all.

Rather than manually posting on every platform, you can use social media management tools such as Hootsuite, VerticalResponse, and Sprout to update them all at once. These tools allow you to schedule posts in advance and organize interactions in easy-to-manage collections for review and response.

Save Paper and the Environment by Scanning Documents

According to sustainability organization Triple Pundit, an office of five people goes through roughly 50,000 sheets of paper in a year. That’s 10,000 sheets per person! Throw in ink, toner, and electricity, and the costs – both monetary and environmental – become outrageous.

Instead, start scanning documents. Rather than creating paper copies, you can create PDFs that can easily be shared via email, cloud fax, or Dropbox. You can further save on printing costs by sending your used printer cartridges to a refilling center. You’ll pay one-fifth the cost of new cartridges and keep solid waste out of landfills.

Boost Productivity by Reducing Travel Time and Costs

You don’t have to send your employees across town or across the country for meetings, training sessions, or conferences. That eats up a lot of time and money that can be better spent on other activities.

If you have a webcam, you can use apps such as Skype or Blab for video conferencing. Need something a little less formal? Try Periscope’s live streaming capabilities.

These apps promote the less stressed, more productive work-from-home trend and keep telecommuters more informed and connected to operations in the office and elsewhere.

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Brian Sutter is the director of marketing at Wasp Barcode Technologies.