Tip of the Week: Use These Practices to Boost Your Business’ Efficiency

For every business, revenue generation is the name of the game. The more money your company brings in, the more it can spend, the more effective it can be. The problem many small businesses have is that they have a good business model, but they don’t produce enough fast enough to see solid revenue growth. Today, we will provide a few easy tips on how to build operational efficiency, and thus, generate more revenue.

When efficiency is a major problem for your business, the first place you have to look is at your workforce. What can you do (or provide) to get your people to work more efficiently and waste less time? Consider these:

Communication
The correlation between effective communication and productivity growth is well-documented. Simply put, if your staff communicates effectively, they tend to produce more. Encourage them to meet face-to-face so that there is no interpretation needed. If workers clearly know expectations, they’ll be more likely to meet deadlines and produce solid work.

Another communication tip that any company can use is the morning meeting. Everyone knows meetings are typically some of the biggest time wasters there are, but if you meet first thing in the morning and outline what the plans and expectations are for that day, it removes the need for impromptu meetings throughout the day to iron those plans out. With good communications more can get done faster.

Finally, ensure that your staff is comfortable voicing their concerns, giving feedback, and feels like an active part of the business’ plan for success. The more forthcoming employees are, the more actionable intelligence administrators have to make the necessary changes to the workflow or project planning.

Automation
Another way to improve efficiency is to automate some parts of your business. Think about every process your business completes every day, can some of those be automated? From billing to procurement, to any other task you can consider, getting a machine to do a consistent job may be a little more expensive to set up, but, over time, it will pay for itself.

Some companies utilize software designed specifically to cut down on inefficiencies. These programs automate a fair amount of day-to-day business management in order to move things along faster.

Limit Interruptions
One of the biggest productivity killers for the modern worker is the constant flow of notifications they need to address. Whether it be from inter-office communication or personal communication, if workers need to stop constantly to address notifications, there is very little chance that they will work efficiently.

You’ll want to consider this as you set up your organization’s mobile device policy, whether that includes providing company-owned devices to employees, or outlining a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy. The less distractions people have to deal with, the more focused they can be.

If you would like more information about how to boost your bottom line through efficiency, contact the IT professionals at Walsh IT Group today at (832) 295-1445.