PR, communications and productivity: staying focused in the new hybrid world
As we approach World Productivity Day (Monday 20 June 2022), it’s worth revisiting whether our processes and procedures are effective enough. Public relations and communications professionals must be at top of their game to ensure productivity and smooth communications, especially with the world of work still in flux.
It’s far too easy to lose track of quality communications, and we often come across businesses that are so busy, their communications – both internal and external – are negatively impacted by a lack of structure and organisation.
Changing world
Covid 19 has changed the landscape of work and communications on a grand scale. A great many businesses and organisations still have not returned to the office on a full-time basis, with some preferring to maintain a hybrid working environment for flexibility and convenience.
However, with the changing working atmosphere still emerging, we should be prudent over how we’re communicating with each other – particularly internal communications – and ensure that productivity is encouraged by using the optimum tools and techniques so that you and your team flourish, not flounder. Wellbeing will be a key action point for the workplace going forwards.
Productivity or just busyness?
A good definition of productivity in the workplace:
“Workplace productivity relates to the amount of work that your staff can produce over a certain period. In other words, it’s the measure of the total output (goods and services) versus the total input (labour and costs) … Developing a greater understanding of factors that impact workplace performance is essential for company leadership. A productive workplace often leads to more engaged employees and improved performance metric.”
Being productive shouldn’t be confused with being busy, which is often seen as a status symbol of success. Busywork – defined as “Work that keeps a person busy but has little value in itself,” – can contribute to feelings of disillusion, lack of worth and eventually, burnout.
We’re probably all guilty of busywork, with people being sucked into it without even realising. But how can we nurture quality work without losing focus?
Tools to help find the balance
There are plenty of tools and platforms out there to help you channel your focus on the important stuff, and side-line the less valuable work.
And if you believe every tool, app and influencer, their tool is just the ticket for a magical work-life filled with perfect communications, super-duper productivity and sparkling creativity!
So which platforms are helpful for communicators in particular? A good place to start is to make a list of ‘wants’ or issues that you need help with resolving.
Here are three platforms to try if you need to maximise productivity without the overwhelm.
Trello
Trello is a great visual project manager that allows you to communicate and collaborate with others, from small tasks to larger projects. It uses a card system to organise and helps keep team members accountable for tasks.
It’s literally a drag-and-drop to create cards, that can be used as task lists, links, and attachments, with the ability to add specific names to the cards as required.
Trello also has a Power-Up feature, with integrations for apps like Mailchimp, Twitter, Zoom, Teams and others.
If you love visual workspaces that are simple to use, Trello is a great option to try. You can get a free trial if you’re a new user.
Slack
Slack is a great communication app for teams as a group or one-to-one through DMs (direct messaging). It allows for different channels and easily helps keep track of projects and client work, even when you’re on the move. It saves a lot of faffing around in your email inbox hunting for information, as conversations can be better tracked through the app and its individual channels (threads). It integrates nicely with Google Calendar and you can set reminders for deadlines.
If you’re looking for better organisation within communications, Slack is a definite one to try. A free trial is available and a free version for smaller teams.
Notion
Notion is a clean, clever workspace where you can do everything – project manage, collaborate, journal, organise, goal setting, spreadsheets and databases, make and manage lists…endless possibilities to work within and from Notion. You can access templates to use or build your own workspace. It’s mid-level in difficulty to get to grips with and allows for different views and layouts, along with integrating a calendar. You can get a free trial of Notion and it’s free for up to five users, so an absolute bargain for small teams.
Need help?
These are just three tools of many that are great to help organise communications and productivity within your business. As always, we’re here to help. If you’d like to find out how we can work together, please drop us a message. Contact Michael Gregory on 0845 625 0820 or use this contact form here.