Enabling Your Workers to be More Efficient
As a busy company, it’s natural that you are always looking for ways to save money and time. The more efficient you can make your business, the less money you need to spend and the more you can produce. However, striving to make your company more efficient isn’t always straightforward. You will need to work with your employees and your managers, motivate them, drive them, and provide adequate training to ensure the entire team meets their goals.
Learn to Delegate
As your business grows and you take on more staff, you might not always be happy to give some of your tasks over to your managers. It is understandable, after all, you have grown this business from the beginning, and you want to make sure it is running smoothly. However, if you don’t learn to delegate some of your tasks, you will be causing delays that can be costly to you and your customers. Look at the tasks you are currently doing and see if there are capable employees that can do it for you. It will take the pressure off you and enable you to concentrate on other things. It will increase your productivity and make your company work more efficiently.
Match Your Tasks to the Right Employee
You and your management team need to think carefully about the types of tasks you are delegating to your employees. When you recruit, and as they get started, you will find out what type of person they are. You can then match them to jobs that will meet their skills. It is an important part of the training and deployment because a worker that isn’t fulfilling their potential won’t be as efficient as one that is. For example, if you have a worker that is confident and can think outside-the-box, then you might want to utilize them in sales or dealing with clients.
Maintain Effective Communication
Everyone in your company knows the importance of communication, not only to your customers but also your employees and managers. However, although they know its importance, are they (and you) using it to its best effect? You might think that emails are the best and easiest ways of communicating, but it is also the most time–consuming. A study found that almost 28 percent of staff’s time is spent dealing with their emails. That is a sizable chunk of time that could be used to better effect elsewhere. Instead of relying on emails, try using an effective team-based communication app like Slack so they can discuss things even when they are away from the office. Another idea is having face-to-face or telephone meetings. It can be an effective way of relaying a lot of information, and it won’t take as long as hours of emails back and forth.
Focus on Your Goals
How can you encourage your workers to be more efficient if they don’t know what their goals are? If you let your employees work at their own pace, then they are more likely to be less efficient than if they had targets and goals to aim at. Let them know exactly what you want from them and the standard you expect them to achieve. You might be surprised at the response you get because many people like to have guidelines and targets so that they can judge their performance. One way to do this is using the “SMART” method; this stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. When you are assigning a new task, look at the SMART guidelines and see if it fits in. If it doesn’t, then you need to look at the task and adjust it to meet those guidelines.
Make the Best Technology Available
Sometimes it isn’t always the way your employees work that causes delays and inefficiency. It can be the tools and technology they are using that causes these problems. It can be frustrating for your workers as well as you, and it can upset your customers. To improve this, you need to try and acquire the latest technology and the most up to date software. For example, if your administration staff can use the latest tax software like UltimateTax, then they will be able to complete their tasks quicker and with more accuracy.
Use Incentives
One of the best ways to encourage your employees to be more efficient and to work harder is to use incentives. By giving them something to work towards, you make them feel appreciated and know that they have done a good job. As well as praising them and giving them public recognition, you can also offer them other incentives. You can take them out for a meal, offer them a bonus, give them coupons, or consider giving them additional time off. All of these are great ways to reward your staff, and they will appreciate the extra effort.
Improve Your Training
Your existing employees will need to have additional training to help them become more efficient. For your new employees, you need a fully prepared training team that can instill the new ways of working that you want to use. The training needs to include the new software and technology you are using and also inform them of the new incentives that are in place. If you are then using existing staff to complete on the job training, then they need to have been retrained so that there is no conflict of information or processes.
Accept Feedback
Your employees’ are the experts at their job, so they can often see and relay problems that managers cannot. For that reason, you should allow your staff to give you, and the management team feedback on how the processes can be improved and made more efficient. That way, you can adjust your procedures and also ensure that your workforce is happy and feel valued.
If you are looking to increase your productivity, and grow your company, then part of the solution will be to make your company more efficient. With the help of your employees’ and management team, you can achieve all of those things.
About: Dan Cormac knows how to make his money go further. A freelance financial journalist, Dan is passionate about personal finance. Whether you hope to escape the chains of debt, to save for a house, or to retire within a decade, Dan explores the most effective ways you can achieve your financial goals.
