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Your Top Office Irritations Revealed!
Despite most businesses being flooded with
junk emails every day, it is not the part of
office life that small businesses find most
irritating. A BizHelp24 survey of almost 400
small business owners and employees has
found that slow and unreliable computer
equipment is the most annoying thing about
modern office life (Voted for by 28%).
Not only do slow computers reduce
productivity, they frustrate employees,
thereby reducing productivity further.
Unreliable computers can be even more
infuriating, and they risk you losing
important work and data.
Here is the full list of the irritations
along with our tips to help solve them:
Slow/Unreliable computers - 28%
When there’s
a fault, work slows down or stops
completely; and you don’t always know when
it will be back up again. Low cost PC’s
usually have insufficient memory (which
slows them down), and usually use cheaper
(as well as slower) parts which are more
likely to go wrong. Upgrading old or cheap
PC’s is like buying an old second hand car,
‘As soon as one thing is fixed something
else will probably go wrong.’
Spending a
little more to buy quality PC’s can pay off
in the long run, providing you with longer
lasting and more reliable equipment. It is
also important to replace or upgrade
computers when they start to become slow or
unreliable; waiting until they break down
and prevent your employees working will cost
you more than most replacements!
Junk
emails – 16%
These are
still a problem, but not as much of a
problem as they used to be. Most people have
learnt to deal with it using anti-spam
software, speed deleting, setting rules in
email programs, filters provided by internet
service providers, and the most effective
method of all; completely ignoring them.
Unwanted phone calls – 13%
Dealing with
unwanted phone calls is much simpler than it
used to be. The Corporate Telephone
Preference Service (CTPS) allows you to
register your number, once you have done
this it becomes an offence for any company
to cold call you; and they can be fined
£5000 for every call they make to a number
on the list.
The CTPS website is here.
Another way
to prevent unwanted calls is to make sure
you state clearly on your web site that your
phone numbers are not for marketing calls.
This is especially important for 0800 or
freephone numbers, which is something that
we have plenty of experience of; paying for
a freephone number to help our customers,
and then being inundated with marketing cold
calls from businesses taking advantage.
Colleagues' irritating mobile ringtones –
11.5%
Everybody
needs to distinguish their mobile phone, but
by using the vibration facility and keeping
the volume down; you (and your colleagues)
can minimize the irritation they cause.
Mobile phones left on during meetings – 10%
If you make a
point of turning your phone off, it gives a
strong hint to others in the room; and
reminds those who may have forgotten. If
someone is waiting for an urgent call
however, it may be an irritation that you
just have to put up with.
Colleagues sending emails when sat next to
you – 7.5%
If they are
sending you emails for no good reason, then
set up a rule (if you use MS Outlook) to
deposit email in delete folder; unless, of
course, the person emailing you is your
boss.
You could
also try responding to all of their emails
by talking to them; eventually they will get
the idea!
Colleagues not sharing tea/coffee duties –
6%
Still make it
for them, but make it taste horrible. Then,
when they get fed up and decide to make it
themselves; quickly add “While you are up, I
wouldn’t mind one…” Again, this probably
shouldn’t be done if the colleague in
question is your boss!
Colleagues choosing a bad radio station – 4%
Get in early
every day and put the radio on something
good! When your colleague complains, explain
that’s what it feels like for you every day.
Why not swap stations on specific days, or
have one in the morning and one in the
afternoon? Of course, if you enjoy listening
to Bavarian Folk music, it’s probably your
colleagues who should be complaining!
Colleagues being away on instant messaging
services – 3%
Try emailing
them, phoning them, or sending them a text
message. If you still have no luck, try
walking across the office to find them. If
they are in another office, you will just
have to wait!
Important but missing email attachments – 1%
We all forget
to attach documents sometimes, and it can be
highly embarrassing. The best solution is to
get into the habit of attaching the document
first.
This result shows that saving money buying
cheaper, lower specification or second hand
computers may actually end up costing you
money. Likewise, if you are reducing costs
by not upgrading old computers, then you may
be actually be losing money over the long
term. With reasonable PC’s costing from as
little as £300-400, you should take an
active approach in preventing your employees
being frustrated by slow or unreliable
equipment.
Here are
some
real life examples of how slow technology
can reduce your productivity:
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In an electrical store, the computers
used to search for stock and make sales
were so slow that staff were often
forced to apologise to the customer for
the delays. This reduced the
productivity and confidence of staff as
well as frustrating customers.
-
In a top travel agent, the monitors the
staff used to process holidays were so
old that they had to repeatedly move
around the screen to find different
options. This meant that their
productivity was reduced by the monitors
despite the rest of the computer
equipment being brand new!
One bit of good news is that our
free BizStart24 software is designed to
work even on very slow PC’s; so you can
benefit from our excellent letters and forms
before you upgrade!
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