Over the last few years, simplicity has quickly become the go-to organizational buzzword. The shine of speed has worn off at last, and exhausted employers and work teams are now seeking a different path to productivity, one that aims to do more with less. Here are a few ways your office can benefit from a healthy dose of simplicity.
The vast array of digital tools ensures that today’s entrepreneurs can do just about anything they put their minds to, but this doesn’t mean that all of those things should get done. This is where many work teams have gotten lost today, and many companies are searching for simple ways to make sure their priorities are in order.
Priorities, of course, are the non-optional tasks that must get done for your business to survive, grow and thrive. Not only must they get done, but they must get done well.
Keeping these tasks at the forefront of the workload can be difficult when working with a lot of moving pieces, so how do companies make sure these most important of plates keep spinning? Many companies invest in data management dashboards that allow them to see as much data about their business as possible so they can make informed decisions about their workflow. By streamlining tasks, your priorities can get done with plenty of time/manpower to take care of the other, less crucial work.
How many times have you found yourself in a meeting that seemed to be going nowhere and accomplishing nothing, all while knowing your inbox is filling up with emails back in your office?
Depending on your position, statistics indicate you may spend anywhere from 35 to 50 percent of your daily work time attending meetings. That is a lot of time, especially when you consider that 67 percent of executives surveyed say that time spent in meetings is essentially wasted time. How can we avoid this?
It’s hard to cut out meetings entirely, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make them more effective. If you must have a meeting, you can make it a requirement for the presenter to meet certain criteria. For example, if you have 30 minute meetings, you might limit presentations to 20 minutes with 10 minutes for questions. If you have meetings to simply share data, you might invest in tech solutions that allow everyone to have access to the data when they need it so you only need to meet for larger questions or problems.
Over time, many companies build up quite a bit of red tape in their policies and procedures. While much of it is necessary for legal and financial reasons, it might be worth looking into removing some of the less crucial restrictions. You may have arbitrary rules about the filing system, emails, or anything else that affects the workflow of the office. Even if it’s just for a small team, or short-term basis, you may find that simplifying restrictions or removing them altogether might make your operation better. You’ll likely come across some justified red tape, but you may be able to throw unnecessary or complicated rules in the round receptacle and watch your employees flourish.
The more complex your worksite is, digital or physical, the more training your employees will need to do their jobs correctly. Every step adds an additional margin of error, which also translates into a harder learning curve, more mistakes to correct, and a lot of wasted time.
The complexity of work processes and decision-making can really stand in the way of reaching goals. In an overly-complex environment, employees are essentially getting paid to do less work, less productively. If you find ways to simplify your software, hardware, tasks, or otherwise, however, the opposite is the case.
Finding ways to simplify your business can be difficult, but the simpler your practices are the easier it will be for you to succeed. Focusing on simplifying processes, restrictions, and even your goals can make it easy for your company to prosper.
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