Blog
The Great Debate!
From articles circulated and conversations overheard, opinion has it that both scenarios, the Office or Working from Home, have their positive and negative aspects! Most likely you have expressed your thoughts, whether as a Small Business owner or employee or both!
But isn't the answer simply, ‘finding the RIGHT balance for optimal productivity in any work environment’?
YES!
Don't wait, act now! Smart Businesses tailor their approaches to suit the needs of employees and provide ongoing support to get the best results and outcomes for all parties.
In essence, where there is the opportunity, the solution lies in offering various working models, Office, Home or Hybrid arrangements.
But let’s take a closer look and examine the question considering the arguments, the pros and cons of both positions.
The Advantages of Working in an Office Environment:
- Provides the opportunity for Teamwork, collaboration and social connection and the benefits found as part of the office culture.
- Fosters increased productivity by providing peer support, and face to face interaction that allows for better communication and problem-solving.
- Greater overall career development and growth opportunities in this setting
The Benefits of Working from Home for Increased Productivity:
- The advantages include providing personalised workspace, flexibility in routines, and reduced stress with efficiency gains in time and travel avoiding long commutes.
- This model is particularly suited to the self-motivated, highly organized and disciplined worker.
- There was increased productivity in occupations that required a high degree of focused or independent work such as software engineers.
The Challenges of Maintaining Productivity in the Office Situation:
- Office distractions include the unrelenting ‘chatterbox’, unnecessary meetings and interruptions, along with office politics and conflicts, all affecting productivity and output.
- But all these ‘issues’ can be addressed by developing and implementing counter strategies.
The Struggles and Solutions for Staying Focused when Working from Home:
- Struggles include unplanned, unrelated distractions and interruptions affecting attention to the task, along with a lack of suitable ‘office’ tools, equipment and resources that can hamper both output and work satisfaction.
- Additionally, feelings of disconnection, isolation and loneliness, being away from the office hub can emerge, affecting focus and concentration.
- To lessen these impacts research suggests the solution lies in having skilled Managers. Those prepared to listen, act and support their employees to achieve better results and outcomes for all concerned.
6 Top Tips for Maximising Productivity in all Settings, Office and Home, Remote arrangements:
- Engage with your Team, Employees to design and adopt effective communication strategies
If you are a Small Business most likely you are experiencing a change in consumer behaviour as cost-of-living pressures impact their spending habits.
As an operator you can't afford to ignore or wait! Now is the time to think, act and adapt to the situation. Human behaviour is ever changing just as too is the marketplace.
Key to your Business survival is understanding those behaviours and developing agile Business strategies to make you fit for purpose, for now and the future!
It’s understanding the changes and finding ways to respond to have, get and keep market share.
Tick-box Tips for Businesses How to Respond Effectively:
- Enhance Customer Communication and Engagement
- Rethink Pricing Strategies and Offerings
- Provide Value-added Services & Benefits
- Develop Your Team
- Explore Collaboration's and Relationships
- Embrace Technology
Enhance Customer Communication and Engagement: Put a face to your Business, share your Company’s story, vision, personalise interactions, and take a social but professional approach in your communications. Be active in the social media space, show, tell and sell your Business, the web is your oyster.
Rethink Pricing Strategies and Offerings: Importantly be prepared to explore the various pricing strategies (Cost-plus pricing; Competitor based pricing and Value-based pricing) and adopt what approach best suits your Business and situation. Asking customers and staff for feedback shouldn’t be overlooked they are at the forefront of your service.
Managers, leaders, staff, we are all included! We can always find ways to improve productivity!
Did you know, results show that outstanding work productivity comes from a Business culture that empowers its employees to find and develop their own style to achieve maximum performance.
Makes sense that smart Businesses support methods encouraging best practice and habits to improve individual and Team output. Everyone’s a winner, greater satisfaction, better outcomes!!
Read on to find our 6 Tips on ‘how to increase and generate the highest return on work productivity’!
- Create a Culture of Productivity
This begins by cultivating the best possible environment to support it. Features include:
- Lead by example with your work practices
- Reliability and accountability are essential
- Have healthy boundaries around deliverables and deadlines
- Have a balanced daily routine
- Be organized. Review your calendar weekly
- Daily, check tasks progress, completed, unfinished and reschedule as needed
- Avoid distractions
- Stay focused
- Aim for Achievement
- By setting goals and targets with measurable milestones
- Track your time, effort and output
- Unravel the result in terms of ‘value’, importance to the Business and personal goals
- Purpose and passion are key to personal growth and success
- Revise Business practices
- Revise, refine practices if needed
- Choose the appropriate means of communication to suit the situation, text, call, email, meeting
On 9 May 2023, as part of the 2023–24 Budget, the Australian Government announced it will improve cash flow and reduce compliance for small businesses by temporarily increasing the instant asset write-off threshold to $20,000, from 1 July 2023 until 30 June 2024.
This measure is not yet law.
Small Businesses, with aggregated turnover of less than $10 million, will be able to immediately deduct the full cost of eligible assets costing less than $20,000 that are first used or installed ready for use between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2024.
The $20,000 threshold will apply on a per asset basis, so small businesses can instantly write off multiple assets.
Assets valued at $20,000 or more (which cannot be immediately deducted) can continue to be placed into the small business simplified depreciation pool and depreciated at 15% in the first income year and 30% each income year after that.
What are Routines and How Can They Benefit You
Routines are a sequence of actions that we do repeatedly. A series of activities performed regularly at a particular time, in a particular way.
Simply, a routine is a set of activities, actions and behaviours when implemented help shape, balance and maintain our lifestyle.
Examples are everyday activities, such as brushing our teeth, doing a daily morning run, or following office procedures.
A routine can be repeated as frequently as needed, daily, monthly, with the aim of helping us be more productive, organized and focused.
A daily work routine is a set of behaviours and actions aimed at accomplishing tasks in the most efficient way when undertaken regularly. The weekly shopping, taking the dog for a daily walk, or monthly Team Reporting Meeting, it’s about getting things done in an orderly and efficient way!
The Benefits of Effective Routines include:
- providing structure in our daily activities that can help in reducing stress, lack of concentration and anxiety.
- can help in times of uncertainty and unpredictability by giving us direction and meaning.
- helps reduce the need to plan on a daily basis by taking the guesswork out of what is needed to be done.
Your Accounting Partner
Your Management Accounting Partner
Your Expansion Engineer
Your Special Projects Partner