by Helium01

Created on: September 18, 2009

Whether you are a large corporation or a small business, keeping employees productive through proactive digital measures can go a long way to improving work morale and your bottom line. Although flexibility in the workplace is important, keeping employees connected only as much as is needed for work is best for optimal performance. Below are some tips to accomplish this objective.

1. When in a meeting, set your Instant Messaging applications to "meeting" mode, such that pop-ups do not come up when you are in the meeting. This eliminates interruptions of instant messages of "are you available?" and "Can you take care of this?" These messages are especially disruptive when sharing a computer screen or remotely connecting to a work computer and clients and colleagues are watching.

2. Teach employees to never use the reply all function. The only thing worse than a message one does not need or agree with is a dozen other people replying with the same idea, with everyone on the mailing list being bombarded with their responses.

3. Set mailing list memberships up so that users can click on a link on the bottom of the email sent to that mailing list to be removed. This reduces the membership maintenance work of the list administrator and removes a common cause of "reply all" messages from users who want to be removed.

4. Place a "think before you print" disclaimer on the bottom of all messages, reducing the printed paper output of many offices. If users need to forward or send a set copy of a document, teach them to print to Adobe PDF, then email the PDF.

5. Employees can use instant messaging to discuss company matters between themselves. However, corporate networks should be set up to prevent instant messaging with individuals outside the company. This maintains the instant connectivity of "instant messaging" while reducing SPIM (instant messaging SPAM), fantasy football league discussions, and "whatcha doing?" messages from personal friends.

5. Maximize spam filtering of corporate networks. The less spam the employees receive, the less they have to wade through. Companies can also clearly state that users cannot forward jokes, chain letters or other forms of internal "spam"; non-value added messaging.

6. Unless they are recruiters or marketers or corporate communications staff, blacklist social networking sites for employees.

7. Have a set list of required software applications per job title, and then allow only those software applications to be installed by users.

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