Is All This Extra Tech Actually Making Your Team More Productive?

You should want your team to be ready and able to accomplish as much as possible. So, when a team member approaches you with a request for a better laptop or a dual-monitor setup and the wish to do more with their time, you should agree. However, there may be that little voice in the back of your head, whispering, “Was that a wise investment?”

It can be hard to balance the need for employee satisfaction with your budgetary restrictions, but it must be done. Let’s go over the considerations you need to make… as well as the pitfalls that must be avoided.

Your Existing Technology May Be Holding You Back More Than You’d Think

Whether your employees are requesting new or additional technology or not, you must maintain your technology over time, upgrading it as necessary. Exactly why it is so vital becomes clear with a few simple calculations.

Let’s assume that an older computer burns through an extra five minutes of the user’s time every day, just because of slow loading times, restarts, and laggy boot times. That’s obviously frustrating, but it only gets worse when you start looking at it on a macro scale.

If an employee works about 250 days each year and loses five minutes each day, they lose 1,250 minutes each year. This equals 20.8 hours, half of a work week. If this impacts your whole team, that’s suddenly months down the drain.

So, ensuring that your team has the technology that reliably works really does make a difference.

The benefits don’t stop there, either—back in the 1920s, studies indicated that productivity could be measurably boosted if workers felt their needs were being noticed and met. Essentially, the study demonstrated that prioritizing the well-being of a workforce was sufficient to motivate that workforce to perform more effectively. This means that simply providing your team with new equipment can help boost productivity.

How Modern Productivity Can Be Measured

There are a few key signs that your productivity has improved, if you know where to look. Here are some places to get you started:

  • Support tickets – The number of support tickets that come in for specific issues can indicate if productivity-sapping problems have been solved. For instance, if you’ve suddenly received far fewer tickets concerning Internet connectivity issues after you’ve updated your router, you’ve improved productivity by taking away a problem.
  • Task time – If a task took 25 minutes to complete, and it suddenly takes 12 minutes after new tech has been introduced, that’s an opportunity to consider how your productivity has been improved.
  • Employee feedback – Simply ask your team members if they’ve noticed anything changing after you’ve made improvements.

We Can Help You Manage Your Hardware!

Instead of having to make the decision when the duress of a desktop conking out or a server’s hum fading into silence is adding pressure, why not plan for it ahead of time so the panic doesn’t have to set in? White Mountain IT Services will be there to help you design a predictable schedule to refresh your hardware, allowing for more effective budgeting and standardized IT across your business.

We’re dedicated to helping businesses invest in the correct tools for their needs and ensure that their teams are able to maximize what these tools can do. Let us help you next. 

Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to get started.

White Mountain IT

Related Posts

Why You Need to Use a Surge Protector, Not a Power Strip

It’s easy to look at a power strip and a surge protector and question if there’s anything that actually makes them different. After all, they both give you extra plugs, right? Yes, but there’s more to it than just that. Let’s review some of the important differences between the two that make one a far better choice for your business’ power delivery needs. What’s So Different About Surge Protec...

The True Value of Automation for IT Efficiency in Digital Signage

Take a quick walk through your business. When you look at the screens on the walls, what’s actually on them? If it’s a generic weather widget, a “Happy Monday!” slide that’s been up for three weeks, or a “No Signal” box, you aren’t looking at a technology investment.  You’re looking at a $10,000 screensaver. For a lot of owners, digital signage is just a box to check because the office lo...

IT Should Be Everywhere, From the Server Room to the Boardroom

You’ve likely looked at your business’ technology bills and seen nothing but dollar signs leaving your bank account. For many, IT feels like a necessary evil or a cost center that only gets attention when something breaks. The hard truth is that many businesses fail to scale because their technology wasn't built for the growth they planned. At White Mountain IT Services, we believe it’s time to stop reacting ...

Even the NSA Recommends Rebooting Your Devices, But Not for the Reason You Suspect

Rebooting your device presents several benefits. If you ever experience an issue with your device, rebooting it will likely improve it. Heck, even the National Security Agency (NSA) recommends you do this… but why? Today, we’ll explore why the NSA recommends this practice and some of the many ways it can contribute to a better-operating device. The Popularity of Mobile Devices Makes Them a Cri...