Redundancy in your company’s workflow can be a killer for your bottom line. Needless repetition will not only waste money but also increase worker burnout and diminish outcome quality. Here are five ways to make sure your company does not fall into this trap.
1. Utilize Software for Streamlined Processes
There are many types of help desk software that can boost productivity on multiple levels. Look for ones that can serve several functions, like inputting customer data from every platform into single profiles for employees to view in an instant.
This, paired with a centralized messaging system that allows your team to respond to clients on any platform in one place, creates a streamlined way to quickly engage customers on a personal level and increase effectiveness.
2. Automate Simple Tasks
If your employees are spending time doing tasks that could be automated, that’s a sure sign that you’re losing money. Answering the same frequently asked questions, typing large data sets into spreadsheets or personally responding to dozens of similar emails are just a few examples of extremely time-consuming jobs that are not worth your employees’ time.
Besides saving time and money, automation is also incredibly important to reduce human error. While your employees are likely highly-skilled, no one can ever perform with the infallible consistency of robots.
When researchers studied the accuracy of people performing simple data entry tasks in a study in 2008, the results were shocking: the average rate of human error was between 18-40%. It’s easy to see how much, on a large scale, this many errors could cause confusion, decrease productivity and even cause expensive mistakes.
3. Track Employee Projects
Keeping a close eye on each project is key to ensuring no inefficient tasks are being done. It may seem overwhelming to try to oversee every single person’s work, but your goal here is just to check in with each project and double-check that the work is being done in the right way.
Teams failing to communicate or not sharing the same goals could result in a lot of unnecessary and repetitive work. Ensuring that no one is working on the same thing without knowing it, for example, is one very simple way that your teams could accidentally cause redundancy.
4. Ensure There is Good Communication Between Teams
Ironically, your desire to increase communication within your company may actually increase repetition. The average employee spends around 31 hours per month at unproductive meetings, according to one study.
But meetings are absolutely critical to a smoothly functioning company, so how can you make sure to strike a balance between too much time communicating and not enough? Well, plan ahead. Only invite essential team members to each meeting. Create an agenda of only the most critical information, and make sure that no “fluff” material is discussed.
5. Prioritize Employee Creativity
Each role is different, and some may not seem very creativity-oriented. However, everyone is unique, and some and may be better suited to work on different tasks than others. Recognizing each employee’s strengths and talents is important to make sure that the best person is placed into each position.
Another thing to avoid is creating a culture of busywork, where long hours and looking busy are prioritized over inventing faster and more efficient solutions to problems. When ingenuity is prized more than staying at the office late, your employees will be much more engaged in their work and likely to produce maximum efficiency outcomes.
Overall, your team will thrive when you reduce the redundancy in their workflow. From less burnout, to a greater interest in their work and a higher rate of success, implementing these changes will improve your team’s productivity exponentially.
