One of the things about present-day technology that vexes some the majority of tech-savvy people is the fact that conspiracy theorists and skeptics seem to deliberately ignore the positive sides of technology. They forget that fire, wheel, clothes and basic agricultural tools were, at one point in history, ground-breaking technological marvels but they don’t seem to accuse them of alienating the humanity or moving it backwards. On its own, the main purpose of technology is to increase productivity, raise life standards and make our lives easier. Here are five most notable examples of how this can be achieved in a 2018 office.
Collaboration Tools
The very fact that collaboration tools are as sophisticated as they are opens up a whole world of new possibilities and prospects. For instance, while most automatically assume that collaboration tools are there for telecommuters, freelancers and remote workers, this is not necessarily the case. Think about it, by having the entire in-house team on a single platform, you’re avoiding a ton of unnecessary foot traffic. Instead, you would have people running around with their USB drives when you can simply help them share ideas on a single online platform. Moreover, comments, ideas and files remain on the platform, which makes it a lot easier to keep track of the progress or recollect something.
Dual Monitors
The next trend that gives a direct boost to your team’s productivity is dual monitors. First of all, it should be self-explanatory how this works, seeing as how alt-tabbing is a flawed multi-tasking technique, to begin with. While doing so, you’re not just losing a few seconds of your time but also losing focus at a critical moment in your creative process. With dual monitors, you can avoid this problem altogether. From the standpoint of a budget, you don’t have to provide every single employee with two 4K Ultra HD monitors. In fact, it would be much smarter to get a high-end Samsung monitor for your main display and get a somewhat cheaper (inferior) monitor for a second screen.
Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC)
MCC is an office trend in a very loose interpretation of the word. Why? Well, because most of the time you’ll be using it will be outside of the office. This is not only a direct boost for the individual employee but also an indirect boost for the team as a whole. Imagine a scenario where an employee went on a holiday, only to find out that there’s a problem with the project they were working on. In fact, it’s the part that they were working on that seems to be an issue. It’s quite possible that they could help their team resolve an issue with a line or two, yet, if they were unavailable, this wouldn’t be possible. Needless to say, this is where MCC steps up.
AR and VR
Augmented reality is there to provide employees with an increased immersion in the visuals of the project they’re working on, but also to help management improve and design an office as a whole. Working on the layout of your office in platforms like SketchUp might sound like a good idea, yet, you need to pause for a second and imagine just how more efficient this would be with AR and VR on your side. The possibilities are endless.
Silent Peripherals
At the end of the day, here’s one more trend that boosts productivity in a traditional sense (same as dual monitors). Namely, the more employees there are in the office, the more passive noise there is, and noise can be incredibly distracting. We’re not talking about the noise made by employees who are chattering instead of working but about the inevitable noise caused by things you can’t control the volume of. Things like breathing and keyboard slamming. With silent peripherals like keyboards and noise-canceling headsets, you just might make this work.
As you can see, tech trends can be used to revolutionize an office without causing any downsides for the employers or the employees. Of course, there’s always the matter of price for implementing such innovation. However, you need to look at it as more of an investment than a waste of money.
