The Overlooked Office Bottleneck: Your Equipment
Walk into any office and you’ll probably hear it. Someone muttering about a jammed printer, or the copier refusing to wake up. We tend to shrug these things off as part of office life. But over time, these small hiccups stack up. When you look closer, equipment problems aren’t just annoying – they affect how teams work. They slow people down, cause delays in client work, and can even create security risks that slip under the radar.
Here are a few signs your office tools might be working against you.
- If employees have figured out little tricks to make a machine function properly—like printing from one specific computer because the others “don’t work with it”- that’s a red flag. Workarounds are just signs of broken processes.
- An office scanner that can’t send PDFs to the cloud might not seem like a big deal, until you realize people are printing, signing, scanning, and re-uploading documents. In most cases, the problem isn’t user error, it’s equipment that hasn’t caught up with how people actually work now.
- A surprising number of office devices still don’t have proper security settings. Some store data. Others stay connected to networks without any real protection. It’s worth asking: who has access, and what’s being saved?
- Too often, businesses wait for machines to stop working entirely before rethinking their setup. But by then, the cost isn’t just the repair, it’s the days or weeks of slowdowns that came before it.
None of these problems are dramatic on their own. But when they happen every day, they start to shape the way people feel about their work: frustration, slowed down, disconnected.
Paying attention to how your office tools are used (or avoided) is one of the simplest ways to support your team and spot inefficiencies early. Sometimes the real fix isn’t new equipment, it’s just rethinking how you use what’s already there.
About the Author:
Erik Braden, Managing Partner at Braden Business Systems, blends deep roots with broad horizons. He grew up working in the family business, taking on everything from sweeping floors to building its first online platform. But before returning home, he carved out a high-level career in finance, holding positions at JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse, and Bear Stearns. That Wall Street experience didn’t just add polish, it brought a sharp, strategic lens to the local company’s operations. Today, under his leadership, Braden Business Systems is pushing forward in areas like cybersecurity, where Erik was recently recognized with the 2025 Fortress Cybersecurity Award for Leadership. It’s not just about keeping data safe; it’s about redefining trust in the digital age.
ebraden@bradenonline.com | 317-522-2122