Time is everything in business. As most famously said by Benjamin Franklin, it’s money. He goes on to say that anyone who wastes five shillings worth of time might as well be throwing that money into the sea. But take five minutes of your business. If you put together all the wages and expenses involved in paying for those five minutes, you’re paying a lot more than five shillings. Time can’t be wasted in business. You can’t afford it. So here’s how you reduce the time wasting going on in your own workplace.
Have a plan and stick to it. The first method of making sure that time is used wisely in the business is by making sure that everyone knows how they should be using it. To get employees better engaged in their tasks, it’s best to have them understand the objectives behind it. Engaged employees are a lot more likely to keep the focus on their task. So you need to learn how to communicate goals in the workplace. Make sure they understand the deeper meaning of the business. Not just the quarterly goal, but they need to have an core belief or a center to understand. Try using an Inspire/Educate/Reinforce framework for all future messaging. This can help them better connect with your plans.
Work smarter, not harder. Once they understand the objective behind their work, how are they doing that work, exactly? Moreover, how does your business handle new work in general? The key, here, is to work smarter, not harder. For some tasks that might be recurring, go over them with the staff whose responsibility they are. Try to find the most effort-free and timely ways to do them effectively. Take a look at different apps or techniques they might use. Then systematize it. Make it part of the employee handbook for any new staff taking it on. Or consider if your team should be using their time on it at all. It’s worth identifying the tasks that might better be outsourced from time to time. Don’t have your employees spend their time learning skills they won’t be using again.
Get rid of those distractions. Communicating and planning are part of one strategy for using the time of your team better. Another strategy is cutting down the amount of time lost due to various failings. One of those failings is the inability to spot and decrease distractions in the workplace. Some businesses will lose up to 756 hours each year due to distractions. Mostly, these distractions are external. People have their tasks interrupted by others’ tasks and put their work aside. You need to teach them the value of prioritizing their work. For instance, many people will use a To Do list to keep track of all the duties that come their way. You should also teach them to use a To Don’t list. On this list, they can move items that are lowest on their priorities. This helps them narrow down the tasks they really do need to do.
Spend less time on disputes. It’s hard for any business with a significant amount of people to go entirely without disputes. But burying your head in the sand is not the best way to save time on them. Instead, it’s best to pre-empt problems. A code of conduct can help you in spotting and having a format to review problematic behavior in work. Teams like Ellis Whittam can be useful in avoiding the tremendous time-drain that are tribunals, as well. Trying to go ‘off the cuff’ when dealing with disputes is not only going to waste your time. It’s legally unsafe to do so, as well.
Have some backup. Your employees and how they handle work are far from the only source of time lost in the workplace, however. Your hardware is more important than ever, thanks to the dependence on technology that has a place in so many work environments. If your data is disorganized or vulnerable, it can waste lots of time trying to find it again. Similarly, different kinds of backup can help you keep track of the data you need even when a small disaster hits. For example, Cloud storage will help you keep working on a different station if your current one fails. Meanwhile, using a physical data center will prevent you from suffering when the internet goes down. Backing up your data is a must for businesses today.
Don’t try to do it all. You don’t just need backup for your data. You need backup for yourself, as well. It’s easy for managers and employers to want to control everything. You can call them the ‘weightlifters’ of business. But this approach isn’t a good use of your time. It stops you from focusing on your own objectives and ends up with more time wasted on micromanaging. You need to learn how to recognize the most effective members of your team. Who knows the job best and is the best at communicating? These are the people you should be delegating to.
Keep track. Most importantly, you need to know which of the changes above are working for your business. Every environment is different and everyone has different concerns that waste their time. You need to measure how each change and new task in business affects the individual employees. The best way to do this is by creating SMART goals with them. Set them tasks that are measurable and see how they’re best able to do them under their current conditions. If they fail those SMART goals, then it’s time to take a closer look at why. Just make sure they’re not too pressured into completing them. If they have to go into ‘crunch mode’ just to fulfill your goals, they’re not an accurate measurement of productivity.
The more business time is spent on tasks that could be done easier or avoided entirely, the better. Thorough planning, risk reduction and measuring productivity are the tools you need to use. How you use them can make your business more efficient than ever.
Mia Guerra
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