Do you feel that you are getting too busy at work doing mundane, time-consuming tasks that honestly do not require much brain power, but are really draining at the same time? Do you feel really tired at the end of each work day, but yet feel that you are not as productive as you would like to be?
As Business owners, HR managers or even team leaders, the core requirements of our job scope, in essence, are to manage teams and achieve growth. However, countless unexpected issues and surprises can easily pop up every day. Eventually, you will find that you are spending the entire work day tending to all these sudden matters, and pushing to do all your actual tasks after working hours. This sort of lifestyle is not sustainable in the long run. Luckily for us, in this digital age, there are plenty of solutions that you can find on the web to help solve the workplace problems that many of us face.
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In this article, I will share about 10 common issues that many of us face in the workplace, and how these issues easily be resolved with the use of accessible online tools.
1. Backup of files
It is important to back up (aka keep a duplicated file in a safe place like a hard disk) your files. However, it can be time consuming to constantly back up your files in a manual way. Being human, there may be a chance that you forget backing up your files. Also, there is a high chance that your backed up files may become corrupted (due to the external hard drive getting old or your laptop suddenly dying).
The best way to save your time and also prevent unwanted scenarios when it comes to your file backups is to use a Cloud-based backup service like Dropbox or even Google drive. All you need to do is to sign up for the cloud-based backup service of your choice, and then establish a daily or weekly time for a background backup. No more setting aside half a day to save files to an external hard drive!
2. Shared drives
Gone are the days when there would be countless duplicate copies of the same file in your company’s on-premise shared folders.
Reduce unnecessary tension that accidently overriding other colleague’s hard work can cause by using cloud-based shared drives and office tools instead.
Shared drives such as Dropbox or Google Drive are extremely useful for companies that require employees to work closely together. This applies to practically all tech/media/creative/engineering/design companies out there. Shared drives are also very useful for companies where the staff are always on the move, such as construction or law. This is because the teams can easily share files with each other and edit their files from anywhere, as long as they have an internet. connection.
3. Securing everyone’s time for a meeting
It can be really time consuming to have to ask each meeting member one by one if they are available at the time slot that you have chosen. This can often occur if you do not have an overview of your colleagues’ work calendars. Having a system where everyone can see each others’ calendars can help to reduce the unnecessary time the meeting coordinator will need to spend to check whether all the meeting attendees are available at the assigned time.
An easy way to view everyones’ calendars is to use Google Calendars. You can even use Google Calendars to book a meeting room!
4. Resource Management
One of the issues that many workplaces struggle with is resource management. It can be tricky to figure out how much work each employee has. Also as time passes, it can be difficult to track back to see what everyone in the company has been doing each day at work. Good news is that there has been a number of online softwares that are specifically catered to resource management.
One such software is the Float Resource Management tool. The Float Resource Management tool is especially great for teams that are project design designer, development or copywriting teams). The unique thing about float is that it is not meant to assign set times for each task. Rather, a specific time frame is catered for each task (to be gauged by the project manager) and it is up to each individual to decide what time they should complete the tasks that have been assigned to them for the day. Float allows you to keep track of whether an employee is underworked or overworked, and also allows you to track back on everything that your team has done overtime.
5. Claims
If you are still collecting loose receipts from your employees, I highly recommend that you switch to a claims platform to collect your receipts instead. Using a good claims platform helps you save time and also keep track of ALL past data related to the claims that your employees have submitted. With Krowme’s claims module, you can even generate all sorts of claims reports, and sort your claims into the categories of your choice.
6. Time Attendance
Still using a timesheet to track your employees’ clock ins and clock outs? Loopholes can occur if you continue doing so, e.g. your employee can get another employee to help them clock into the timesheet. It is also easy to not state the correct clock in and clock out time if there is no one else monitoring the timesheet for the whole work day. Therefore, a clock in and clock out software like Krowme’s eAttendance is especially useful for your company’s clock in and clock out needs.
With Krowme’s eAttendance module, there is much more you can do other than tracking the clock in and clock out status of your employees. You can generate all sorts of time and attendance reports and also sync the eAttendance module with your Payroll software, so that salary adjustments can be made based on concrete data, if an employee has been clocking in late way too often.
7. Announcements
Have you ever felt that your company announcements get lost or forgotten about, just like an email from last week or a facebook post from last year? Krowme’s dashboard has an announcement block for you to post all your important announcements. This ensures that all your employees can easily access your latest announcement whenever they log in to the Krowme platform to clock in for the day.
8. Leave Management
“When is he off again”, “Why is my leave balance zero”, “Hey, I never took off that day!”, “Oh no, everyone is on leave” ← All these are common poor leave management issues that can lead to unnecessary tension. A good leave management that has self-service functions is essential if you want your employees to be more responsible when it comes to their leaves, and also to reduce the time spent overseeing leave matters.
With a good leave management system such as the Krowme cloud-based eLeave module, you can also generate all sorts of leave reports that can help you identify employee leave patterns such as time of the year with highest amount of leaves, who constantly takes sick leave, who constantly requests for time-off and so on.
9. Project Management Software
Sick of managing your team project via email only? I certainly do not miss those days where I had to spend hours scrolling through past email threads to track back on what was discussed on a project, and to constantly have to keep my own notes about the status of the project. There were plenty of times where miscommunication or double work occurred because not everyone was notified about various updates and changes. With Project Management Tools like Asana, Trello or Teamwork, it is so much more efficient and productive as everyone involved can track ongoing/pending/completed projects, see at a glance who the team members are, see how detailed the project is, and so on.
10. Appraisals
Instead of conducting an appraisal based on feelings, it is much more constructive for both parties (manager and employee) to conduct an appraisal based on KPIs and facts. It is a good idea to keep a record of the employee’s history within the company, so that the team leader can have a much more productive appraisal session with their employee.
Having an appraisal that is based on KPIs and facts and not feelings will also reduce the chances of the employee thinking that what they got was an unfair evaluation. This reduces the chances of any tension that may arise from the appraisal.
The best way to conduct a constructive appraisal is to go through an employee review checklist. Going through an employee review checklist helps to ensure that everything that needs to be discussed is discussed, and that the appraisal session does not go out of point.
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