Alterations to the way your business operates can make the company far more productive
Good process management is necessary for businesses to function efficiently. Every member of the team must participate for the organization as a whole to succeed.
Sometimes, it’s clear that a process isn’t working because of issues like poor leadership, inadequate planning, a lack of goals, or employee training issues. Fortunately, organizations of all sizes can make simple business process alterations to streamline their operations and move toward reaching their goals.
Here’s a look at the changes businesses can make to achieve greater productivity and become more successful in their industry.
Key takeaways:
- Inefficient business processes can slow a company down.
- Identifying the underlying cause can help you develop a solution.
- Hiring offshore talent is sometimes the most effective way to improve efficiency.
1. Don’t assign unnecessary tasks
Before giving an in-house employee a specific task to complete, make sure it adds value to the organization. Some employers make the mistake of assigning tasks just to keep employees busy throughout the day. This often leads to them performing overlapping jobs that decrease overall organizational efficiency.
It’s up to managers to analyze their processes and eliminate non-relevant tasks. Maximizing an employee’s time is very important to achieving business goals.
2. Give employees a voice
Your employees probably know your day-to-day business processes better than anyone and can point out inefficiencies. By empowering your workers to speak up and give recommendations, you can work toward improving your company as a whole.
Encourage your employees to look at their jobs and identify better ways to maximize their time. This strategy not only increases productivity but it makes your workers feel like important members of the team, which can breed loyalty and efficiency in the future.
3. Provide adequate training
If your employees don’t possess the necessary skills to complete the tasks at hand, your business processes as a whole could suffer. However, it’s important to remember that you might have hired these workers with a completely different job in mind and it’s up to you to provide the necessary training to ensure they can complete all the work you’re asking of them.
Investing in proper training for new hires also helps in this regard. Rather than trusting your employees as a group to train new hires, assign the job to a single trusted worker with experience working through all your business processes.
Unfortunately, sometimes an employee just isn’t good at a certain job, no matter their amount of training. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) can be very helpful in a case where you don’t have the right talent for a certain job. A BPO firm can interview and find the right talent to complete the jobs you need to be done.
4. Analyze your businesses process
Where are your business process issues arising? If you can find the pattern of a specific step that’s creating a bottleneck, you can work toward alleviating it.
For example, if customers frequently complain about slow shipping times, you can look into where the process is lagging. It might be a simple fix, like an employee not knowing how to use the system most efficiently. In that case, quickly showing the individual a more straightforward method could eliminate the bottleneck.
You might also find that the system is the problem or that you don’t have enough staff to handle the demand. Either way, identifying where the issue is originating allows you to make changes that can maximize efficiency.
5. Consider outsourcing
Outsourcing is a wonderful option in situations where lagging processes are slowing everything down.
Utilizing outsourced talent can help you optimize productivity and increase output without sacrificing quality. You can build an offshore team to handle all kinds of work within your organization, freeing your existing staff to deal with specific tasks and preventing them from becoming overwhelmed.
You can find outsourced talent to handle jobs in customer service, bookkeeping, accounting, sales, accounts receivable, web development, graphic design, email marketing, project management, and software engineering, to name a few.
Much of the outsourcing industry touts labour savings as the ultimate benefit and it is, but it’s not the only one. BPO can help greatly with process optimization through time-tracking and process mapping tools (such as robotic process automation technology) that bring visibility into bottlenecks and task cost.
Expanding your team with new, efficient talent, whether on a project basis or full-time, is reason enough to give this option a try.
Becoming a more productive business
In some cases, streamlining your business processes only takes a few minor changes. In other situations, a complete overhaul could become necessary. If you can identify where you’re coming up short, you can make the required alterations and improve your company’s outcomes.
DOXA can help you solve part of the puzzle by connecting you with overseas talent from the Philippines to provide the expertise and personnel you require to maximize organizational efficiency. Whether you need assistance running some of your business processes or extra workers to free up your full-time employees for other tasks, we offer the solution to meet your needs. Reach out to us to set up a free consultation or make an appointment to speak with candidates today.
