No matter what state your business is in, there are going to be ways that you can improve efficiency and effectiveness. The following will explore some adjustments you can be made to help run your business more effectively.
We're going to assume that you've already got your business running. Therefore, the reason you're reading this article is that things aren't going as smoothly as you want. Or, maybe things are alright, but your entire life revolves around work, or things are going great, and you want them to be even better. No matter what stage you're in, learning how to identify things that aren't working can save you time, money, and energy. Any alteration you make can be targeted towards this problem.
Stop throwing things against the wall, hoping one thing will stick, and sort out what you've got going on. Soon, you'll be able to take aim and hit precisely where you mean to. A big part of this step involves observation (free of judgment, interaction, or micromanaging at this point). It also involves asking employees and colleagues about their biggest pain points. Find out where they think there's room for improvement. This is key to running your business more effectively.
Nine times out of ten (honestly, probably even more than that), a meeting accomplishes nothing other than making people feel like they're productive. If an email would suffice, send an email. Don't schedule regular meetings. They should only exist if you need them for a specific reason. If only two people need to actually be talking, let them talk it out. Then, send everyone else an email when they've come to a conclusion. Avoid large meetings and make it clear that anyone who doesn't feel like they need to be there or isn't adding value or receiving value from the meeting can leave. You will be shocked how much time you and everyone else can save.
You and your employees don't need fifteen apps in addition to email and shared documents and phone calls and meetings. Ideally, you want to have two main lines of communication to run your business more effectively. This way, it's far easier for people to stay on top of what's going on and what they need to do. If someone has to check three or four platforms to get all the information, things will slip through the cracks.
Let's say they read their email and get to work on the task needed as it was marked urgent. For forty-five minutes, they're working. They miss three messages in the group chat productivity app. If those messages came through email as well, they'd have seen them because they're on email. Besides, having half a dozen tabs open makes people lose their focus. It can also ruin your mood, which then depletes productivity.
We've all encountered it. You hire someone to create a product, or do graphic design, or maintain the premises, and somehow they end up with far more tasks than they should.
Occasionally, people love this, but more often than not, your artist doesn't want to be dealing with your customer calls. Your cleaning staff doesn't want to be leading clients around and waiting on them. Your maintenance team doesn't want to be watching the security cameras. If workload leech is happening, hire a virtual assistant or another staff member to take on these new, specific duties. Most people need time to focus on the work you hired them for, so have someone else deal with the distractions.
Human beings can only concentrate for a certain period of time before they need a rejuvenating break. According to Harvard Business Review, if you wait for burnout to schedule the break, you're too late, and productivity is lost. Beyond scheduling breaks where employees have time to stretch their legs and move their eyes away from what they've been looking at for hours, you also need to think about what outside of work hours actually means.
Ensure that your staff get a full day each week where they're uninterrupted by work. Especially where they don't have to think about it at all. Ideally, you want two days like this per week. If your company has a two weeks on, one week off structure, you're probably already set up well in this department. Just make sure people aren't working on that week off. Employees with energy are better at every part of their job.
The above points should help you streamline your business and encourage everyone on your team to feel productive, focused, creative, and energized. As with all changes in the workforce, roll things out slowly and don't expect 100% adoption without any hiccups.
