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Teamwork

Tips for Managing IT Team Effectively

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How to utilize your team effectively
Your team can either lead the company to success, or failure, which is why you need to utilize them as best as you can.

Teamwork is essential for creating the foundation of a high-performing business. Good team ethic leads to the success and smooth operations of your company. By identifying employees’ skill sets and assigning tasks that are well suited to their abilities helps to improve team efficiency. An effective team includes skills such as good problem-solving skills, decision making, communication and interpersonal skills. Here are some tips you can use when managing your team to benefit your company.

First, behind every successful business lies a great team. Teamwork maximizes the individual strengths of team members to bring out their best. Selecting individuals with the proper skills for the job is an important part of building a strong and successful team. When the right people are in place, work is always a priority and projects are completed effectively. You can find this out by:

  • How they embrace challenges
  • What motivates them
  • How the work with others
  • What their strengths and weaknesses are
  • How they handle stress and negative situations

When an effective team is set in stone they ensure success for your company operations.

Second, communicating the idea of success you’ve developed to your team in a way that clarifies both goals and expectations. All team members should trust, respect, and support each other, once the team is established and each member should know the value of their personal contribution to the team goal. By involving team members in the decision making process, it helps to limit conflict and complaints related to projects and tasks. The quality of decisions made will improve when the whole team is involved. Team decision making is beneficial, as it offers a diverse set of views that work towards creating a positive outcome for the company.

Third, conflict often arises when team members focus on personal issues rather than work related issues. Building a positive relationship with your colleagues can make for a much less stressful environment and work to reduce conflict. Teams who work particularly well together enjoy each other’s company and get together outside of the office from time to time to socialize and have some fun. This will lead to more productivity and success in the long run.

Finally, motivation can be in short supply during times of stress for some employees. However, if you have employees that approach work with a positive attitude and complete their tasks, other employees with recognize their hard work. Seeing others working productively will encourage underperforming employees to work harder as well. This will help to increase motivation and efficiency in your workplace.

Overall, these tips help to create an effective team and successful company!

Why Centralized IT Management Improves Team Productivity

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IT team using the same system

Centralized IT Management systems store important project tasks and support ticket information, provide communication lines, and create harmonized employee assignments and schedules in one location. These systems can be used to manage your company projects and support increasing IT members’ efficiency and productivity.

Are you finding it nearly impossible to get organized and keep track of documents, schedule project tasks,  and maintain customer service satisfaction simultaneously? 

Using a centralized IT management system can solve this problem. This system consists of multiple IT services and is operated from one location. The organizational advantages provided by this system such as scheduling, messaging systems, time tracking, resource planning, and many more allow your team to successfully reach goals at a higher efficiency rate. This simplification service can provide benefits to your company’s productivity rates and here is why. 

Reduce Multiple Platform Use

Managing multiple systems can become very disorganized especially when multiple communication platforms are being utilized. Important information can be missed due to a pileup of messages in different locations. However, with a Centralized IT Management System, notifications are organized in one location for communication with ease. Each team member will be notified of date tasks and news to achieve synchrony within the project at hand.  This means all correspondence such as uploaded documents and task updates sent between team members will remain within the system. This makes referencing and locating previous work simple. This will enable you to provide a greater line of communication between you and your team. 

Effective Scheduling

As you may already know, managing your employee’s schedules can be a difficult task. Scheduling becomes daunting when you are faced with an unexpected disruption that you as the manager must mediate immediately. Without a Centralized IT Management System, this type of disruption can draw too much of your valuable time away from other important work responsibilities. However, you can swiftly take charge by determining who you can delegate to unexpected support issues and communicating these changes in a timely manner with employees via a single platform. This system allows for more complex scheduling where co-workers can view each other’s schedules to see who they are working with in advance. In turn, this allows the employees to plan their day-to-day work with team members independently, therefore simplifying scheduling.. 

Productivity Improvement

Locating documents, reports, and emails can become an extremely tedious task when using a non-centralized IT management system. The amount of time spent looking for a document could be used much more efficiently. Using productivity software you can combat this issue. Your important documents are stored systematically in folders which all team members have access to through a simple spotlight search. This rules out the headache that comes along with relentlessly searching for unorganized documents. Employees can dedicate more of their time to the task at hand, increasing overall productivity. 

Maintain ebb and flow 

Using a Centralized IT management system is extremely crucial to maintaining efficiency within your team. When such a system is not being used, small miscommunications and disagreements can continue to compile and lead to greater conflict further down the line. The use of a productivity system enables all employees to communicate with higher-ranking individuals to be heard and feel that their ideas are valuable. This leads to greater harmonization among all employees increasing the productivity, efficiency, and success of your company.

What Employees can do to Help the Boss

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Across the hierarchy of the business world, co-operation and teamwork are vital. As the crew works hard on the front line, efficiency is maximized when they do their best to assist the managers and bosses who keep the operations in check. To further improve the overall health of a business, some employees go above and beyond to help their managers handle the workload. It is this kind of employee that can send productivity through the roof, increase relationships among all types of workers, and overall profits. To these workers, benefits come in the form of favourability among superiors, increased value as an employee, and higher chances of getting a raise or promotion. To become one of these so-called workplace superheroes, follow these tips on how employees can make their boss’s life easier.

Beat Your Deadlines

While it may seem simple, one of the best things an employee can do to help out their boss is to exceed the expectations set on them for time management. By putting in some more effort, picking up the pace, and avoiding procrastination, time spent doing the work assigned can easily be reduced. As an initial goal, try to make the most out of the time you are given and cut time spent on tasks by 10-15%. Let the manager know that you have finished, and take the extra time to get started on a new task or help out your co-workers. If this is done consistently while the quality of the work is maintained, it can really help the company and will catch the attention of your superiors.

Forget the Words “Free Time”

Continuing on the aspect of time, employees who sit around and twiddle their thumbs after they have finished a task will stick out like a sore thumb to managers. Even when they have finished everything required, their bare-minimum attitude towards working will often catch them in a bad light from the boss’ perspective. In contrast, proactivity will always attract a positive opinion from superiors. Once a task is finished, ask what you can do to make better use of your time. If you can assist your manager with whatever task they are doing, then extra points for you. Either way, always be sure that you are providing as much value for the company and the best working experience for whoever is working above and beside you.

Fix Problems Before They Become Problems

To most managers, one big difference between a good employee and a bad one is their ability to think and act independently. If you see a leak that can be fixed or covered easily, do so before you alert your boss. If an angry customer can be comforted with an incentive that you have the authority to give, give it to them. The majority of small troubles within a workplace can be solved by the lowest levels of employees with some common sense. However, this isn’t to say you should hide issues from your boss. If it is a problem that could recur or an issue that requires further attention, notify them immediately after doing what you can to provide a solution. Situations are much easier for management to deal with when they have already been handled. When superiors know that you have the ability to deal with complicated matters on your own, they will see you as more capable and able to move up the ladder. Even if an issue does not need to be reported, your bosses would recognize your responsibility and will once again see you in a positive light.

How To Utilize Your Team More Effectively

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We’ve all heard the saying “the more, the merrier” and in some cases, it’s true! Teamwork is essential to a company’s success when it comes to decision making. Of course, there will be conflict and disputes; although, without a team, productivity levels and success rates plummet. This is why you need a great team to work with and help make you and the business more successful. Here are ways you can use your team to benefit your company.

FIRST, you need to make your team the best of the best. That requires the right people. To build a strong team, you need to select the best people for the job and cut those who don’t have what it takes. This way, work is always a priority and projects are getting completed efficiently and effectively. You can find this out by:

  • understanding the way they work
  • how they’re motivated
  • how they work in stressful and negative situations
  • their overall attitude towards others
  • what their strengths and weaknesses are
  • how they’ll benefit you in the workplace.

Once you have the desired team, you’re on the road to success, with a high foundation to build off of. Having a good team can either make or break your company.

SECOND, you and your team all need to be on the same page about how goals are going to be completed, strategies that will be used, and company policies that are expected to be followed. Overall you need to be working well with one another. Once everyone knows what the common goal is, you can all come together to agree on important decisions to help benefit the company. By making team decisions, you actively help to eliminate conflict and complaints regarding projects or events. Sometimes choices are better created by a team rather than by one person. This is not only helpful to get feedback from others, but it can also help things run smoothly in the future.

THIRD, we all frown upon co-workers who can’t keep their conflicts separate from the workplace. It can affect the productivity of the individuals and make the work environment uncomfortable for other employees. To avoid this, use your team to build stronger work-related and social bonds with one another. This can be achieved by doing team building activities or going out for company dinners. Having a team that gets along is more likely to be successful in the long run. This is because it won’t allow conflict to get in the way of the critical tasks at hand.

FINALLY with those groggy Monday mornings where you don’t feel motivated are the absolute worst. However, once you enter the workplace and see others being productive, it automatically makes you motivated to do work. Seeing others being productive around you will make you productive as well, which is very helpful when work needs to get done. Therefore, try using your team to keep each other motivated and on track.

In the end, your team is what can either lead the company to success, or failure, which is why you need to utilize them as best as you can to be successful.

How to Achieve Team Buy-in For Your New IT Support Software

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When a company transitions into anything new, a common challenge they face is the lack of team buy-in.

Key people in the organization such as IT technicians are often the nay-sayers for new support systems because it means having to let go of a practice that they’ve used for years and have already “mastered.” They may question if a new system is necessary and worry about the amount of time it will take them to learn it.

To remain relevant and ahead of the competition, change is needed. Many managers look forward to change as it often means progress. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for employees to fear it and fight it. And for any company to be successful, it’s important to value everyone’s opinions and to work towards a middle ground when there is conflict.

How do you achieve buy-in from those you lead? Here are three tips to help ensure that the transition to your new IT support software goes smoothly:

1.    Have One-on-One Meetings

If you suspect resistance, nip it in the bud. And involve HR if required. It may seem like a small problem now, but one rebellious employee can poison the others who have already bought-in.

Ask the employee in the presence of HR why they are countering the change. Are there opinions more personal than they are technical? Remember that their feedback is valuable and while their views may not put a halt on the transition that is already underway, it’s important that they know that their voice matters.

2.    Assign Rotating Key Roles to the Team

Give everyone on the IT team the opportunity to test out the new software by assigning them rotating roles. Let an IT tech be the Problem Manager and give them tough problems to solve and let them get the work done. In this way, they’ll see how the new software will benefit them in the future.

Related Content:
Hiring a Help Desk Technician

3.    Start Early

To ensure buy-in, you should involve your team in the planning process. You can’t just deploy a new solution and expect everyone to jump on board naturally. When you involve them from the start, from discovery to planning, they feel invested.

A good time to introduce your team to new IT support software is on the first day of a demo. Unified project management and service desk software, TeamHeadquarters, offers a personalized demo for your team to test. Your team can explore their tools such as project management, service and help desk, asset management and time management.

By involving your team during the demonstration phase, you can put their fears of change to rest by allowing them the opportunity to express their concerns. And once they are more accepting of change, they can contribute their ideas towards the successful transition of the application.

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