Category: Productivity

Your business faces all sorts of threats that can disrupt your operations. A comprehensive continuity plan can help address them.

Carrying on with business as usual is easy when nothing out of the ordinary is happening. But the fact is, crises can strike anytime. And when it happens, you need to be ready to pivot your operations quickly, safely, and efficiently.

That’s where a well-thought-out business continuity plan comes into play.

It prepares you for the worst, such as market nosedives and governments shutting down entire countries. And in these cases, your plan allows you to embrace remote work, enabling you to keep functioning and servicing your clients. It also lets you support your team at home and make them feel comfortable through various predicaments.

These are just some of the key benefits that a business continuity plan can bring to your business. And this article will delve deeper into its significance and explain how to create one for your company.

WHY YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS A CONTINUITY PLAN

A business continuity plan details a process that your company should take to neutralize and recover from different threats. It can also help protect your business’s assets and personnel during disasters, allowing them to function uninterruptedly.

Business continuity plans are usually developed as part of a company’s overall risk management. This means you should consider creating this plan ahead of time, not in the middle of a crisis.

The most significant benefit of creating a business continuity plan is that it provides a clear picture of how to proceed should those threats happen. It also tells you how those circumstances can impact your operations and how to implement procedures to mitigate them. Furthermore, it helps you check if the systems work and are up to date.

Another tremendous advantage of having a continuity plan is its ability to ensure secure and continued access to your systems. It dictates how your team and IT service provider can reach critical platforms, the available bandwidth, and whether you need to boost their network capacity.

The overall effect can be a reduced risk of losing your business and team members.

It can safeguard against financial loss, lost productivity, and a damaged reputation. On top of that, it helps protect your employees from injuries or death in case of threats.

But what specific threats can you address with a continuity plan?

Here’s a quick list:

THREAT #1. PANDEMICS

Pandemics can affect your business plans in numerous ways.

For example, they can force your employees to work from home, increasing demand for some services, and reducing demand for others. Moreover, they can prevent you from distributing your offerings due to supply chain problems.

A business continuity plan can help you overcome these bumpy periods.

It formulates how your team will communicate throughout the period and perform business off-site. And it can also provide several options in terms of service distribution.

THREAT #2. NATURAL DISASTERS

Natural disasters are extreme geographic phenomena, including tornados, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, and earthquakes. They’re tricky because they’re hard to predict and can leave disastrous consequences within seconds.

Like global pandemics, they can disrupt the supply chain in affected areas, which is why you need a business continuity plan.

THREAT #3. UTILITY OUTAGES

Water shutoffs and loss of communication lines or power can hinder your daily operations. It’s especially true if such outages are predicted to last long.

Without a continuity plan, the risk of asset damage and productivity loss is drastically higher.

THREAT #4. CYBERSECURITY

Cyberattacks are computer-based attacks on your technical assets. The most common examples include data theft, ransomware, distributed denial of service, and SQL injections.

In the best-case scenario, your infrastructure will function less efficiently until you resolve the issue. But in the worst-case scenario, you could lose access to all business data.

CREATE THE BEST CONTINUITY PLAN FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Developing a foolproof continuity plan requires a systematic approach. Here’s what your strategy should involve:

#1. IDENTIFYING GOALS

Business continuity doesn’t just comprise your IT systems. It encompasses all essential business functions, like public relations, human resources, and operations.

Since your company is unique, you’ll need to create a plan according to your specific goals.

So, determine the most important processes and figure out how to back them up with recovery strategies.

#2. SETTING UP AN EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS GROUP

Choose several cross-functional managers and anyone else who can contribute to the plan, such as your IT service provider.

Determine the emergency response leader and make it clear they’re in charge of moving things forward when disaster strikes.

#3. BUSINESS IMPACT ANALYSIS AND RISK ASSESSMENT

Identify, research, and analyze your potential threats thoroughly. Discuss them with your team and see what would happen if you had to reduce, eliminate, or modify certain services.

Make sure to document all issues along the way.

#4. FOCUSING ON CUSTOMER SERVICE

Your clients need empathy and transparency during crises. And the only way to meet their expectations in such trying times is to ensure your customer support team understands your continuity plan.

If necessary, hire more people to answer client inquiries.

#5. ADDRESSING BUSINESS FUNCTION

Your plan should incorporate critical business functions. These include business risk, impact on customers and employees, emergency policy creating, community partners or external organizations, and financial resources during disasters.

This is vital to ensure business operations are functioning asap.

#6. STAFF TRAINING AND PLAN UPDATES

Present your continuity plan to stakeholders and promote a proactive approach through trial runs to verify the plan works. This way, you can pinpoint any weaknesses or missing aspects. Then, based on your findings and feedback, train your staff to make the implementation smoother.

Following this tactic doesn’t leave much room for error.

Besides helping you maintain business operations and the supply chain, it also builds customer confidence. If your response to emergencies is effective, your customers will appreciate it. This allows you to preserve your brand, prevail over your competition, and mitigate financial loss.

DON’T LET CRISES CRIPPLE YOUR BUSINESS

Disasters can be the ultimate test of your leadership abilities.

That’s why instead of leaving your company to chance, create an in-depth business continuity plan before emergencies arise. Make sure everyone is on the same page, and you’ll be able to come out stronger after any predicament.

If you need more insights into developing a continuity plan, get in touch with us today. Let’s set up a 10-15-minute chat to determine your goals and how to achieve them.

Article used with permission from The Technology Press.

Enhancing Office Productivity With Google Chrome: The 12 Best Extensions To Improve Your Workflow

By David Littrell

On January 12, 2021

In Microsoft, Productivity

Working from your computer or smartphone is convenient, but it can also be distracting. To maintain productivity, you should install effective Google Chrome Extensions.

Google Chrome is arguably the most popular browser on the planet. It’s best known for allowing faster loading of websites, optimized performance, and an intuitive interface. As a result, it can help your team complete their daily duties much faster.

However, it raises the same concern as other browsers – ample room for distractions.

Your team members can easily switch to YouTube videos or social media, lowering their productivity. And it can often get out of hand, preventing your staff from meeting deadlines and reducing customer satisfaction.

That said, you can help your employees get back on track and maintain productivity. All you need to do is incorporate practical extensions into your browser.

This article will list the 12 best Google Chrome extensions that can help increase office productivity in your business.

THE 12 EXTENSIONS

EXTENSION #1 – BLOCKSITE

BlockSite can enable your team to stay focused by blocking harmful or distracting websites. This extension is perfect for team members who tend to drift away due to all the online activities that seek their attention.

Some of the web pages you can block access to with BlockSite include social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But if you don’t wish to block them completely, you can limit access to them during breaks.

EXTENSION #2 – ADBLOCK

AdBlock is one of the most widely used extensions for Google Chrome. More than 10 million users rely on it to remove most ads by preventing them from showing up on their screens.

It can also help your team avoid malware-ridden ads, improving their experience in turn by increasing browsing speed.

EXTENSION #3 – LASTPASS

Remembering your passwords can be extremely challenging. Thankfully, LastPass can provide an efficient solution.

LastPass is an effective alternative to your browser’s built-in password manager, generating new passphrases whenever you log into a web page.

In addition, the extension can synchronize passwords across various devices, providing easy access to accounts, credit cards, and form filling.

EXTENSION #4 – EVERNOTE WEB CLIPPER

Although Chrome has a convenient bookmark feature, Evernote might be even more powerful. You can use Evernote Web Clipper to save your internet content for later viewing.

This extension enables you to easily save your web content and transfer it to your account. With just a few clicks, you can obtain images from any website, create summary links, save a distraction-free version of web pages, and make annotations.

EXTENSION #5 – POCKET

Another effective way to track your online content is through Pocket. This extension can also let you save articles, web pages, and videos for later use.

Whenever you come across interesting content, hit your Pocket extension and you’ll automatically save it on all your devices. You’ll then be able to access it whenever you want, even if you’re offline.

EXTENSION #6 – MOMENTUM

Momentum isn’t a standard extension. Rather, it’s a custom-made page to replace your default landing page.

It has a robust, personalized dashboard with a beautiful scenic background, inspirational quotes, weather reports, widgets to favorite sites, and to-do lists. Therefore, it doesn’t just help enhance productivity – it can also motivate your team members to keep grinding.

EXTENSION #7 – GOOGLE KEEP

Google Keep is a powerful extension that can allow your team to organize their data neatly. Its primary purpose is to help users create to-do lists and take notes. It also works great for saving pages, images and adding notes to them. Plus, it can make voice memos to simplify notetaking.

To further improve note organization, users can market them with colors and labels. This way, there’s no time wasted when looking for crucial notes.

EXTENSION #8 – CLOCKIFY TIME TRACKER

Monitoring workplace performance is critical, and Clockify Time Tracker is the ideal extension for this.

As the name suggests, it tracks time spent on specific activities. Your staff can later use the results to analyze their productivity levels and determine their weaknesses.

The extension lets users schedule break intervals, operate in pre-set work periods, detect idle time, set reminders, and integrate with more than 50 business apps.

EXTENSION #9 – STAYFOCUSED

If you want your team to stay away from distracting websites but don’t want to remove them altogether, StayFocused may be the answer.

This extension can help your employees avoid distractions by limiting the time they can spend on them.

What’s more, StayFocusd comes with a handy Nuclear Option. It sets the time during which your team can’t access certain websites. Once you activate this option, there’s no way to deactivate it until the time expires.

EXTENSION #10 – NOISLI

The main purpose of Noisli is to enhance your team’s productivity. It allows you to select the sound combination your staff finds most inspiring. This can include falling rain, storms, wood noises, wind, crickets, fire crackling, and coffee shop chatter.

Noisli can be particularly useful if your team works in open offices where background noises often cause distractions.

EXTENSION #11 – HYPERCONTEXT

Hypercontext is an extension that can help teams maintain high performance by combining engagement measures, quarterly priorities, and weekly meetings.

The platform enables you to create collaborative, one-on-one meetings, access conversations starters, and elicit feedback from each team member. You also get a feature that can help limit social media distractions and encourage your staff to prepare for their meeting.

EXTENSION #12 – TODOIST

Todoist is a straightforward yet helpful task manager. It can help users monitor their projects and tasks by delegating or organizing them from your browser.

This extension is a terrific option for tracking multiple deadlines. After all, it can set due dates and help you prioritize specific tasks accordingly.

TAKE YOUR PRODUCTIVITY TO NEW HEIGHTS WITH GOOGLE CHROME

Streamlining office productivity isn’t just about providing your team with cutting-edge computers and advanced software. It also has to do with installing appropriate extensions on your web browser.

We’ve given you many options for Google Chrome with this article. It’s now up to you to decide which ones work best for your company. Remember that by incorporating them into your business, your workforce should become more efficient.

Give us a call if you want to find out other tips to help boost employee productivity. We can have a non-salesy chat about it.