The modern office is loaded with technology. Of course, that doesn’t mean that every modern office worker knows how to best use or fix that technology. That’s why we have I.T. departments. These departments are often underrated when it comes to the efficiency of a company as a whole.
If you want to improve your business, then I’d suggest investing some more time and money in this department. If you want to improve it, check out this quick guide!
Workflow solutions
Sometimes, improving your I.T. department doesn’t in itself require in-depth technical solutions. Sure, new computers and a better Internet connection can definitely help. But the best equipment and connections in the world aren’t going to help a team that simply aren’t working very efficiently.
Now this could be due to incompetence. In which case, you know what to do. A lot of the time, however, it could just be a problem with general workflow. Perhaps communication isn’t as smooth as it should be. Maybe the workers keep getting bogged down with emails and minor tasks. Their long-term goals might not be clear to them.
You should be looking at simpler workflow solutions before moving onto more expensive solutions.
Equipment
It works both ways: great equipment can’t make up for a bad workflow. But a good workflow is never going to be found if the equipment isn’t any good! Your IT department don’t necessarily have to have the best computers in the office. For many offices, engineers and designers are usually the ones that need insane amounts of processing power.
But they definitely need to be working with strong equipment. They also need to have a good Internet connection – no-one can do work properly with the Internet as slow as a crawl! Make sure you speak with the I.T. workers. They’ll probably know best what they need to do their jobs properly.
Getting help
Of course, if you’re a startup then you may not have the employee count for an I.T. department! After all, hiring people isn’t exactly cheap. But if something goes wrong with the technology in your office, then what exactly are you going to do about it? You should be considering a look into outsourced IT support.
Hiring a reliable team via this method is definitely a good way of “investing” in the department. (Even if your department doesn’t strictly exist!) If you are going to start hiring people for your own department, outsourcers can help you set up the system those employees will need.
Use employee feedback
Do you know where you can usually get the best information about the I.T. department? Everywhere except the I.T. department. I’ve worked in offices where literally everyone in the office knew more about the computers than the I.T. guys.
At the end of the day, it’s the other employees that this department is going to be helping most. So you need to speak to them in order to find out if there are any problems with competence. Speak to your developers, your project managers, your designers. You’ll get way more information this way.