When the clock strikes midnight and the evening sky is lit up with fireworks punctuated with the popping of champagne corks, you'll probably know what your resolution for 2018 will be. Maybe you're committing to visit the gym more, to try to spend a little more time away from your phone, or pick up that guitar you haven't touched in a few months.
But what about your workplace resolution? What are you going to do in the new year that will expand your professional knowledge and help your team?
If you don't know the answer – you're in luck! We've got a few ideas you're welcome to take.
Spend less time on administrative tasks
We've all been there: fighting through a flood of tasks that always seems to pull attention away from major projects that need to get done. Whether it's compiling meeting notes, sending reminders on upcoming events, or getting feedback on strategies and designs.
By investing in digital tools in that automate these processes, you can save time while creating a streamlined approach. For meeting minutes, create an online form that your team can access and input their notes with all submissions emailed to members of your team. If reminders have you down, creating an automation flow that automatically sends out reminders across channels at a select date and time will leave you with more time on your hands (and keep your team informed). If it seems to take forever to get feedback, try sending a survey with quick questions using different text boxes, rating matrices, or one-answer questions.
Become a digitization pro
Looking to become a more digitally-oriented professional? You can sign up for our free Digitize Your Firm daily email course and weekly webinars. We cover topics on everything ranging from email marketing to Facebook Ads, digitizing your office, and more!
Sign up today and start digitizing.
Try new communication tactics
If you're looking to diversify your communication tools, consider adding SMS marketing and voice broadcast into your mix.
Through SMS marketing, you can reach out to your contacts through powerful text messages that link to content or have them text shortcodes to instantly opt-in for mobile deals and promotions. If you want to get a little more personal, try recording and sending a message to your contact base or write your own script and have it delivered with initiative text-to-speech software.
Refresh your emergency communications plan
Emergencies happen. Whether it's a snowstorm bringing heavy snowfall, a fire at an office, or gas leak on a city block – you need to keep residents, employees, and everyone in between informed.
Make a point of starting off the year by reviewing your organization's emergency plans for natural disasters and crises while keeping an eye out for areas of improvement. Consider investing in a mass alert system, on-call scheduling software, instant conferencing tools, or bringing your plan to life with emergency management software like EmergHub. Not only will you be able to use a suite of unique tools that increase efficiency and communication, but you can create response plans for scenarios so you're ready almost any eventuality.
Try automation
Revolutionize communication both inside and outside your organization by investing in communication software that can engage contacts and employees with personalized, targeted messages. From mass marketing emails to social media management, internal surveys and external contact requests, you can do it all with hard statistics and analytics from one platform.
This year, your New Year's resolution SimplyCast – sign up today and join the automation revolution.