Improving Business Efficiency In 10 Ways

How To Improve Your Business Productivity
Has your business productivity reached a plateau? Want to know how to level your business operations up? Look no further if you want to solve these problems by improving business efficiency. These tips here have been put to use by many reputable organizations, so you know you are in good hands. For more efficient payment schemes, here is a gallery of different pay stubs designs.

The future of automation

In such a competitive business landscape, it is considered a necessity to automate any task you are able to. Automating your basic operations like disseminating payslips or invoices can save a lot of time both on the employer and employee’s part. This will therefore free up time for your employees to perform more pressing and productive activities that automation cannot achieve. 

Do not worry about the initial costs of incorporating automation into your business operations, as they will eventually be reduced. Automation is a long-term investment and you will definitely see increased productivity and efficiency!

In-person communication

This might seem like a contradictory point to the above, but it is not. Communication between employees when solving problems, clarifying a certain issue, or answering queries can be sped up through a face-to-face talk rather than through emails. It takes more time for one to read, process, type, and send an email than when you are talking to someone. Not only does it save time for simple queries, but it can also be clearer when problem-solving is needed.

Miles Jennings from Recruiter suggests that having the habit of talking to each other when necessary will ensure that the flow of information is clear and steady. So it is very important that your employees do not have a problem with communicating with one another so that you can run your business smoothly. There will no longer be any unnecessary bumps on your road to efficiency.

Be open to communication

Efficient communication requires more than just talking face-to-face with each other. You have to promote a habit and culture of open communication, where your employees are able to provide constructive feedback.

Raymond Kishk from Interstate Air Conditioning & Heating, for example, states that his company experiences exponential growth because they are free to communicate ideas for improvement between their departments.

This is critical because you are not omniscient and cannot try to make your company perfect alone. Having your employees to be your eyes and ears help you to improve in areas you missed out on. Making a culture where people are comfortable to voice their opinions thus boosts efficiency as well.

Concise meetings

Another way to reduce time wasted is to reduce your meeting times. Meetings are essential, but more often than not, meetings can drag on unnecessarily and impose on working hours. One way to solve this is to implement a daily 10-minute meeting.

This 10-minute meeting covers the gist of your company’s performance, accomplishments, and areas of improvement. Not only does it prevent wasting time, but it also keeps your employees up to date and focused on the tasks at hand. You no longer have to hold long meetings for no reason.

Reduce any interruptions

Talking about meetings, do not make the mistake of dispersing several meetings and placing them on different days because they can serve as interruptions to your employees’ work. Instead, Alexander Moore from Boomerang reveals an insight that their company allocates several meetings on a single day so they can work uninterrupted. This can reduce distractions so your employees can focus more on their work, instead of having multiple tasks compete for their attention. 

However, there are more distractions in the workplace as well. Notifications from emails, messages, and projects can all serve to distract and interrupt your employees while working as well. Though they may be minor, it could take some time before your employees continue their workflow after checking a notification. Thus, it is best to mute or reduce any unimportant or non-urgent notifications to help them work more efficiently.

Get rid of unscheduled meetings

LSEO’s Kristopher Jones says that impromptu meetings are usually the most inefficient because they pull away from productivity. Any short, impromptu meeting will always drag on longer than expected and disrupts your employee’s workflow and schedule. This is what Jones labels as poor management of time.

Scheduled meetings with an exact date, subject, and duration can easily solve that. Remember, keep it face-to-face as well!

Avoid multitasking

That’s right, sometimes multitasking can be a hindrance instead of helping one to complete more tasks. Multitasking does not always lead to increased productivity, so it is encouraged to employ a habit of single-tasking instead, which the company MeetEdgar does. Get your employees to complete one task before moving onto another for greater efficiency.

The way that single-tasking improves efficiency is that you avoid procrastinating on nearly-completed projects or tasks. Multitasking can therefore give one the false impression of completing more activities within a shorter amount of time, but you are not actually completing anything because they are left to publish or finalize at the last minute.

Don’t swerve from your lane

Have you ever tried to change and take shortcuts when you are finishing your project? This can actually hurt productivity and the result instead! Angela Harless of AcrobatAnt suggests to stick and stay to the way of doing things. Taking shortcuts could lead to incomplete tasks because you miss something out, and trying to rectify that cost you even more time, effort, and money.

However, that does not mean that you should never innovate. The point here is that you should innovate with a purpose in mind and not to speed things up.

Introduce a task management software

Sometimes, emails can affect productivity, as employees need to refer to emails countless times. Using a task management software can thus allow you to allocate employees to work on a project together on the same page so they can be more efficient. Not only that, it can help you to track progress simultaneously.

Have a break

Humans are not machines that can operate tirelessly. When your employees burn out, they stop working productively. Thus, it is important to know when to give them breaks. This is especially so if your company is a start-up, as it could help you unlock your growth. So even though efficiency and productivity are important, you should not let it override goals like attaining growth.

Conclusion

All of these tips work together holistically to help you drive up efficiency in your workplace, and ignoring one may hinder it instead. Getting your employees to help you on this journey, however, will no doubt make a difference.