Five ways to make your workers more efficient.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics had two big announcements last week: The nation’s productivity rose at an annual rate of 6.6 percent from April through June of this year, and labor costs fell by 5.9 percent during the same time period. The former is the largest increase in six years; the latter, the deepest drop in nine years.

It’s good news for managers who have endured budget-cutting headaches for what seems an eternity. Has your company seen the gains? Here are five examples of ways some of our customers have increased their productivity.

Productivity isn’t just a fashionable buzzword.

1. Problem: Caller needed to remove data validation from an inherited spreadsheet but had no idea where to begin.

Solution: She called us, and one of our consultants helped her with her issue right away, within five minutes. While she was on the call, she also learned how to use Excel’s Autofilter feature and how to protect her worksheet so formulas are not modified.

Productivity gain: Without assistance, she would have spent at least an hour trying to solve her problem. Add to that what she learned about filtering data and protecting worksheets, and she saved at least four hours a week. Scale that over a year, and she saved her company more than 200 hours of lost productivity. Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Worker Productivity Help Desk, productivity, software support, US Bureau of Labor Statistics