Politics and Business

Keep The Business Cogs Moving In Eight Steps

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A company that is running smoothly is one that is going to be successful. And yet, even the smoothest running companies can always achieve more, and things can be better. The more a company grows, the harder it is to keep things running smoothly. The demand for a business and its processes from customers becomes too high, and trying to keep your business as efficient as possible while that demand rises is hard. Not only that, but those projects you have going on that are delayed because of a process along the line going wrong? Those projects are dragging on, and it is not easy to regain that traction.

The efficiency issues that you have in your business can be improved with some careful focus. Between boosting productivity with the methods put in motion by Peter Peterka, your business can run better and do better. You can spend time focusing on the improvements that you can make with regard to your efficiency, and do better in the long run. It would help if you had your business to be as efficient as possible to be able to be a success, and we’ve got eight steps to help you to get there.

  • Rely On Automation

Your business can be far more efficient when processes are automated. Automation gives you a chance to get tasks done faster and without the possibility of human error. Humans making mistakes are the top reasons that processes go wrong in a business. Efficiency relies on things going right, and automating the dull, monotonous and repetitive tasks can ensure that they go right. It keeps your business more productive when you rely on technology to help. It can be more expensive to implement automation throughout your business but in the long run? In the long term, you’re looking at smaller costs and better efficiency all around.

  • Cut The Waste

A big part of what Peter Peterka talks about in Six Sigma is the cutting of waste. If you are spending your time sending emails or running online chats at work, you’re going to be wasting time. It actually takes far less time to walk to the right person and get an instant answer, than it does to send an email and wait for a response. By encouraging face to face conversation, you can cut out the waiting around for a reply, cutting wasted time out of the equation. Of course, you don’t want to encourage water cooler conversations happening all day, as it invites another kind of waste into the equation! There is a balance to be found, but it can be found when employees are comfortable and able to solve their problems straight away.

  • Stop Interrupting

The working processes are only working when they are allowed to run. If you are running a manufacturing floor and making products, you wouldn’t keep pausing it all to get a cup of coffee. You wouldn’t keep stopping your working day to go to the store. So, if you wouldn’t prevent your day to day working processes running for a break in manufacturing, then you shouldn’t keep pausing it for the office, either. Regularly scheduling meetings within the working day is creating interruptions in your business processes. It’s not just meetings, either – it’s continually checking notifications, and it’s software that fails. There are plenty of things that cause interruptions in your business, and the constant pauses are the reason for losing your flow.

  • Efficient Meetings

Do you need two hours to complete a company meeting? Probably not! What you want to do is stop blasting out chunks of your date as we mentioned above. Instead, learn to plan for shorter meetings that can be completed within ten minutes. All you need is ten minutes to cover the bases, and you can do this just before work and keep everyone well-versed on what’s going on with the business. Any new changes in the company can be discussed, and this enables you to be more efficient. It’s the goal, here, as you want your business to run better.

  • Embrace Single Tasks

Everyone loves to think that they are a multitasker. They love to feel that they can get everything done and spin all the plates themselves. It’s not how things work! People who multitask aren’t being any more productive than those who single-task. By focusing on one task at a time, people can often get more done. Moving onto more projects before the first ones are complete makes for a harder working day. There is no need to run more than one project at once, and you can prevent the projects from going out to pasture because of the continuous halting and stop-starting.

  • Listen To Your Employees

One of the best ways to know how to improve the efficiency of your business is to talk to the people on the floor and in the face of it. You need to know that you have done everything possible for your employees to make their working day as smooth as possible. If you are not working on the main office floor, then you need the opinions of those who are. Your staff can tell you what they need for their roles to be more efficient. You need to listen and take it on board, and you will be able to run a more productive company when you do so. 

Your employees are going to be the ones running the cogs of your business machine, so if you’re not listening to them, you’re not going to be able to run your business processes smoothly. Ask and pay attention to the response that you get – it’s so crucial that you listen if you want to do better.

  • Establish Processes & Stick To Them

One of the worst things that you can do to any of your business projects is to try and rush them. You want to do things right to prevent having to cut corners. When you cut corners, things are missed, and then you have to spend time away from your business processes fixing them! It would help if you thought about establishing the right procedures, and then sticking to them. When things get missed, that’s where mistakes are made, and those mistakes will cost you your time and even more of your budget. However, if you stick to the established processes task by task and project by project, you will be able to find success.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you have to always stay stagnant in your business. You can do so well with change as time moves on, but if you are changing up processes, do them after careful planning and with everyone who needs to be on board, on board with the change. You should have excellent communication with your team and keep them in the loop about any processes that you would like to do differently. This way, you can continue to run a business of efficiency and not one that can’t stick to things!

  • Implement The Right Software

As well as the right processes in place, it would help if you looked into task management software to ensure that everyone works together well. While you can’t communicate everything with email, you should use a task management software that will ensure that your work progress is in one place where everyone can communicate. You can ensure that team by team; your business is streamlined and running well.

Efficiency isn’t something that happens overnight. You need to work carefully as a team for this to go right!

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