The ongoing crises have put an unprecedented amount of stress on companies of all stripes. Many have already fallen by the wayside – and the ones that aspire to remain functional need to be at the top of their game if they don’t want to follow suit.

Boosting Efficiency in Your Accounting Department

This means that businesses need to reimagine and optimize how they operate to ensure that they’re as productive as possible. Thinking outside the box will be necessary for improving every aspect of a company – from production to distribution to marketing.

Finance and accounting will be especially tricky, with customers reining in their spending habits and the economy slowing down due to lockdowns and other restrictions.

However, there are ways to deal with such problems – for instance, by enlisting the help of expert financial professionals like the London accountants Howlader & co., as well as implementing good practices in your accounting department.

Minimize Distractions

There isn’t really a simple answer to the “workplace distractions” problem. Tightening discipline is one way to curb distractions, but instilling it in employees may be difficult in a remote environment.

Training and motivation can be effective at making workers more focused, but they can only take you so far. Placing restrictions on access to communication with the outside world may be a good idea in some circumstances, but it is not possible in many cases.

Additionally, it’s trendy to scapegoat social media as the biggest cause of distraction at the workplace, but that’s not necessarily true. Furthermore, banning it can cause resentment and discontent.

Employers will have to experiment with all of these practices until they can hit the sweet spot that works for them and their particular business model.

Streamline Workflow

Managing your business processes correctly is one of the cornerstones of success in modern business. Keeping an eye on both individual tasks, segments of the process, and how processes interact with each other is key in this regard.

To do so effectively, you will need to implement some sort of system that enables communication and transparency.

Doing so is crucial for identifying bottlenecks in your workflow, and once you spot them, you should have an easier time removing them and improving productivity.

Implement Powerful IT Tools

In today’s day and age, using paper isn’t just quaint – it’s actively counterproductive. Writing things down in situations where it isn’t absolutely necessary is not only harmful to the environment – it slows down your business dramatically.

Implementing a decent set of IT-based business organization tools can speed all your business processes dramatically.

Be it business management tools, communication, and task organization platforms, or using specialized software that automates menial tasks can boost productivity dramatically – so consider investing in it.

Use Cloud Services

On the same note, cloud technology is a great boon for companies, as it allows instant access to information to the right people. Instantaneous communication and the transfer of data, in turn, speeds up your business process, which leads to greater efficiency.

Cloud services, as well as the Internet in general, present companies with invaluable business tools. Don’t shy away from using them at every opportunity.

Cut The Time Allotted For Meetings

Meetings are the necessary and preferred means of exchanging information in a company, and it is important that you incorporate them into your business model.

However, gathering everyone in one spot is no longer the only way for people to brainstorm, report on progress and track tasks, as well as discuss company affairs, or give meaningful feedback.

This is why experts advise that you use all the tools you have available to you to cut unnecessary content out of any meetings you hold.

Any point that doesn’t concern everyone involved or can be successfully outsourced to another medium should be removed from the agenda and dealt with separately.

Clearly Define Tasks and Collaboration

Cross-functionality and redundancy are certainly useful qualities for teams to have, especially in times where employees can drop out of the workforce for extended periods at a moment’s notice.

However, having the skills to pick up the slack in a pinch is one thing, and driving every aspect of multiple business processes is quite another.

Doing the latter as a matter of course divides the attention and efforts of the employees and distracts them, which drives productivity down.

This is why it pays to clearly define the tasks and responsibilities of each employee with their position and abilities in mind and outline where they need to collaborate.

Upskill Your Workforce

Improving the qualifications of your workforce is a matter of necessity nowadays. You will inevitably need to implement new and powerful tools to stay competitive, and you need to make sure that your employees can utilize said tools to their full potential.

To this end, make sure you invest in upskilling and re-skilling employees way before the need to do so become pressing.