With the holidays quickly approaching, it’s easy to be more overwhelmed at work than usual. Here are FileBound’s top 10 productivity tips to help you stay focused.
The State of the Workplace Productivity Report by Cornerstone found that 37 percent of employees say an enclosed office is the most productive. If you can’t close a door to quiet the noise, try using noise-canceling headphones or talk to your coworkers about the noise.
3. Don’t Bring Work Home
The report found that a majority of employees say work overload is harmful to their productivity. Keep work-time and downtime separate to recharge and be more productive the next day.
4. Relocate
The Cornerstone report also found that 43 percent of employees say impromptu coworker visits are the biggest productivity killer. Moving to a less accessible different location – even in your own office building – can help you get your productivity back.
5. Sit up Straight
Scientists say that the body influences the mind in what is known as “embodied cognition.” One study found that sitting up straight can help you think up positive thoughts. Good posture has also been shown to decrease fatigue, which helps you make fewer mistakes. Pay attention to your posture at work.
6. Stay hydrated
Dehydration can have a negative impact on mood, according to research. People who were mildly dehydrated experienced symptoms such as fatigue and difficulty concentrating. Drink eight, 8-ounce glasses of water to stay hydrated and help you stay productive.
7. Get Started Early: Don’t procrastinate
Procrastination can lead to unnecessary stress and scrambling. Hold yourself accountable by giving yourself enough time to properly do your work. Starting earlier will give you more time to make any changes and catch any errors.
8. Break Big Tasks into Smaller Ones
Several smaller projects are easier to complete than one large one. If you’re losing sight of the big picture to dozens of small details, shift your focus and work on a smaller piece of a project.
9. Take a Break
A recent study found that the most productive employees work for 52 minutes and then take a 17 minute break. DeskTime, which conducted the study, found that the highest performing employees were using their breaks to walk, talk to a coworker or exercise. Taking a break isn’t lazy, it’s better for your productivity.
10. Reward Your Accomplishments
Make it through a big project? Have a successful meeting with your coworkers or a client? Celebrate your accomplishments. It will give you the motivation to take on your next task.
In a perfect world, the transition to new software programs would increase employee productivity and provide a quick return on investment. However, integrating any new technology can be difficult if not done properly. In the worst possible scenario, the new technology and its potential benefits could be abandoned because employees are unable to use the new system. Here are three tips to help ensure a smooth software integration process:
Provide employee support
IT leaders should focus on making sure that employees are able to easily adapt to the new software. One survey found employees were 17 percent less productive due to the adoption of enterprise software.
Training is key before the deployment of new software. The same study, which recommends focusing on the user, says to start the software adoption process before the actual software deployment. Companies that involved employees in the early stages were more successful than companies that waited to involve users until later.
Training also shouldn’t stop after the software is deployed. One IT consulting firm engagement manager told CIO he recommends providing ongoing training, both for new employees and anyone who may need a refresher course, as well as when new features are released.
Involve leadership
Leadership clearly plays an important role in getting all employees to adopt new software. If executives are using the software, it sends a strong message to other employees that the system has value, according to the CIO article.
IT leaders need to be effective communicators during all points of the software rollout. Answering employee questions is important to ensure that employees can confidently transition to the new software. One executive says managers should hold meetings to define changes, outline new roles, and state why the technology is being used.
Avoid silos and other software problems
Ensuring that employees are not faced with headaches requires both proper training and clear communication. However, leadership needs to be aware of potential silos and try to avoid them while picking a new software. For example, silos could cause duplicate data or inaccurate reports. A 2014 study found that although SaaS cloud solutions are growing, there are still a significant number of in-house software systems to consider.
Picking the right ECM software will provide benefits for all users in the business.
Our parent company, Upland Software, is one of the largest providers of cloud-based enterprise work management software in the market. Get to know Upland and the rest of the brands in our Upland family:
Ernest C. Hughston, the Executive Director of Operations & Technology at Business Systems & Consultants, Inc., shares his experience with FileBound and why BSC is a proud reseller. Watch the video to learn more:
FileBound helped Furniture Row save time, share files easily, and protect important documents.
Successful home furnishings company, Furniture Row, is limited by congested internal services and lack of space for sensitive material. FileBound Document Management Solutions with hosting capability provides structure needed to get company up to date on the latest electronic filing software and increase daily efficiency.
Company Profile
Founded in the early 1970’s, this privately held retail company is one of the fastest growing furniture outlets in the country. Offering multiple name brand home furnishing stores in one location provides customers with unparalleled selection. With 31 locations and roughly 3000 employees this national company has a strong and successful background. High quality furniture and a knowledgeable sales staff provide unbeatable resources for continued growth.
Business Challenge
Though successful with customers and retail, the company began to feel internal strains through its continued growth. With expansion, the hiring of new staff and transfer of existing staff created complications in storing employee records and files. All employee records had to be stored in an offsite location, which consisted simply of stacked file boxes. These boxes took up valuable space and created a cumbersome process of retrieving a specific file, especially if the file was in a box located at the bottom. Also, the inconvenience of an offsite storage center was an insecure way to store sensitive data and time consuming to retrieve data and share documents. While aiming for an innovative electronic filing system, the company lacked onsite technical staff to properly maintain any sort of complex system.
Solution
In 2007 the company was able to successfully address all individual needs with one compact solution using FileBound Document Management System. Overcoming the lack of a technical department, the FileBound On-Demand option was chosen allowing hosted electronic file storage. Hosting alleviated the initial capital investment from the company and provided security for sensitive employee records. FileBound On-Demand allowed company employees to retrieve records data through a secure Internet connection and processed file requests infinitely faster than if done manually.
Initial implementation of FileBound software was complete in less than a week and scan-on-demand abilities allowed newly scanned documents to be available the same day. Through the secure Internet connection and easy usability, employees were able to retrieve documents instantaneously increasing the overall efficiency of day-to-day operations. Within months all paper records were scanned and stored at the host site to eliminate all hard copy records, creating usable physical storage space and reduced costs.
Business Benefits
The successful furniture retail company was able to greatly improve the ease and efficiency of daily operations. Documents became readily available to employees at multiple locations at the same time. Sharing of information increased employee’s ability to process service requests more quickly and improve communication networks. The FileBound solution increased qualitative and quantitative aspects of business in multiple ways:
Drastically reduced costs associated with rental of storage space and mailing fees to move documents to locations around the country
Increased security of company sensitive information
Cut document retrieval time down from hours to minutes
Allowed employees to share files within minutes instead of days, greatly improving internal employee service
Though the company had already proven its ability to address the needs of customers, FileBound gave them the ability to properly address internal issues as well. On-Demand scanning capabilities and host storage of files has allowed this company to improve overall internal structure and prepare for the opportunities of the futur
FileBound Touch is the perfect solution for the on-the-go user. Submit and approve expense reports while traveling, and access your most important documents from anywhere. See what else you can do with FileBound Touch, no matter where you are.
FileBound’s drag-and-drop form designer now makes forms even easier to build and share. Customize templates or create them from scratch to collect and input all the necessary data you need for any task or project. Watch the video below to learn more about how FileBound forms can help you streamline your workflow processes:
Mid-tier solutions are still customizable for users and applications, but are preconfigured to perform certain functions on specific systems.
Document management software is generally priced according to server licenses, additional module requirements and individual client seats.
Mid-Tier Solutions
Mid-tier solutions, while still being quite customizable for individual users and applications, generally require far less coding (if any at all) to perform that customization. They are generally quicker to deploy because they come preconfigured with many of the features and capabilities most users expect. Mid-tier solutions also tend to run exclusively on standard windows computers and servers, while at the same time still maintaining an enterprise level of functionality.
These solutions also come with a modular architecture, but the feature set of each module is clearly defined in terms of its functionality, and usually quite complete. Thus modules are not for programmability like they are in a high-end solution but instead are self-contained feature sets such as workflow, records management, and enterprise report management. This provides customers with the flexibility to eliminate functional components that their particular application does not need.
Software pricing generally starts at under $20,000 and can go as high as several hundred thousand dollars depending on the number of users and feature requirements.
The Heartbleed bug was a popular topic in the industry this week, and FileBound shared a preview to its upcoming conference.
This week’s important resources:
1. Rest assured, FileBound has not been affected by Heartbleed, but some of your personal accounts still may be at risk. Here’s a quick overview of everything you need to know about the bug. cnet.co/1gwFBbI
2. The recent buzz about the Heartbleed bug has prompted many to change their personal passwords, but be sure to protect yourself against these other potential privacy intrusions too. http://huff.to/1hFyrpN
3. If you’re heading to the FileBound conference this month and you missed yesterday’s preview, you can still check out the webinar on our website. http://bit.ly/1tadPdV
4. With frequent fliers continuing to push for better in-flight Internet access, airlines are investing in new technology that promises a much stronger and faster Wifi connection. http://yhoo.it/1kE3ens
5. Hunt for your Easter eggs online this weekend, and see what treats Google has hidden within some of its searches. http://on.mash.to/1nuchXY
In case you missed our latest blog:
High-end document management software solutions can be worth the high price for businesses looking for a highly customized product. Learn more about high-end solutions on our blog. http://bit.ly/QeEw1K
High-end document management software solutions can be worth the high price for businesses looking for a highly customized product.
High-End Solutions
Document management software is generally priced according to server licenses, additional module requirements and individual client seats.
The pricing structures for “high-end” solutions can be quite daunting easily reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars, and requiring a considerable investment in professional services in order to determine functional requirements, custom code, install, implement, configure the solution, and integrate it with line of business applications. High-end solutions are typically designed for a maximum level of customizability, high degree of integration capability and intensive level of performance. The software is therefore highly modular. Modules are usually interrelated such that the need to implement one set of features may also require the implementation of several modules, each one of which provides powerful functionality but also adds considerably to the system price. Pricing is usually determined by the number of users, and the variety of modules or add-ins provided as part of the server installation.
Most high-end solutions come as On-Premise only, require desktop installation for each user, and come with strict named user license agreements, or enterprise seat licensing models.
