5 Ways To Improve The Efficiency Of Your Employees

For a business to function efficiently, it’s employees must also be efficient, and it’s your job, as the owner and manager, to ensure that they are. When most business owners are confronted with this task, they bring on new employees or offer overtime to current ones, but longer working hours don’t necessarily mean increased efficiency. With this idea out of the window, improving the efficiency of your business seems nearly impossible, but it isn’t. Here are five things that you can try.

Set Clear Goals

Your employees are never going to be as efficient as you hope they will be if they have no idea what they’re working towards. They need clear goals to keep them focused and heading in the right direction. These goals should, of course, be achievable, and they should also be as specific as you can make them. To do this, you should outline exactly what you expect from your employees, how this will help the company,  and how long they’ve got to meet their targets.

Give Sensible Tasks

If you give employees tasks that they’re not capable of completing, then their efficiency is clearly going to drop. Before you delegate any tasks to any of your employees, it’s vital that you take into account the individual’s training, skill set, and how long they have to complete the job. If any of these things make the task unachievable to this specific individual, then give it to someone more qualified instead. This way, you won’t waste anyone’s time, which will save you money.

Provide Effective Training

Rather than expect employees to learn everything they need to learn about your business on the job, you should provide effective training, both when they are first employed, and refresher sessions every six months to a year. You could use corporate video production in your training, to help them better retain what they’re learning. You should also offer additional training opportunities, like seminars and courses, to help individuals develop new skills.

Offer Individual Incentives

Every business owner knows that offering rewards for hard work is a great way to keep your employees motivated and efficient, but what most don’t realise is that it’s a lot more effective if your incentives are personalised to each individual. Rather than offer the same reward to every employee, consider the needs of each individual. This shows that you care and have taken the time to consider everyone separately, rather than offering a mass “thank you” email.

Allow Telecommuting

Most business owners completely dismiss the idea of telecommuting, as they assume that employees will be less productive when they’re not being watched by you and other employees. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Telecommuting saves your employees time, as they won’t have to travel into the office each day, and also allows them to keep working if they can’t get to the office, because of a sickness, storm, or other reason.

Your employees are one of the most vital parts of your business, so it’s essential that they’re working as efficiently as they can be. By utilising some of these tips, you can ensure that your staff are as productive as possible and that they don’t fall behind on their work.

Harmony In The Office: How To Keep Your Staff…

If there’s one thing that’s important when you’ve got a busy office to run, it’s everyone working like clockwork, supporting each other and making sure that all of the tasks for the day are completed on time and properly. However, like with any job you can come across tension in the office which can greatly disrupt the flow of work and affect how smoothly your business is run. It’s important to make sure that everyone in the office is remaining professional and getting on with work, but working relationships are also important too because working with someone that makes your life uneasy can affect how productive you are. That’s why you need to ensure that there’s harmony in the office, so take a look at these tips on how to keep your staff running like clockwork.

Build solid working relationships

As mentioned above, working relationships are important and usually, they are formed without any interjection from the boss. However, with so many different personalities around the world you cannot expect these to always form naturally. You should make time to get all of your staff together so that you can do team building exercises together. This includes learning to be able to trust everyone that you’re working with and also airing out any problems that you or your staff feel are lurking. Read here why team building is important so that you can get a better view on how important it is to build solid working relationships.

Provide for your staff to gain the biggest returns

It’s no secret that if you’re given something from your boss that you will immediately respect them more. This isn’t to say that you should be bribing your staff, in fact it’s far from the opposite. Giving them everything they need to keep themselves alert and focused is imperative to a smooth running business. Simple things like providing free refreshments for them to help themselves to will immediately earn their respect. While you don’t want your staff constantly meeting around the kettle it’s also important to have them alert so that they can produce high quality work. All you need to do is find the balance.

Revamp the office

Sometimes the problem isn’t necessarily within your team, it could be the office itself that’s distracting and causing people not to produce their best work. Make sure that the office isn’t too bright or too dark, that there’s fresh air and enough warmth, and also that there isn’t anything that could be distracting like large artwork or sounds from outside. Revamp the office so that you and your staff have higher productivity levels.

Communication is key

Finally, be sure to include all of your staff in a weekly meeting so that you can praise them for their hard work, update them on need to know information, and also address any issues that have cropped up. Effective communication will allow you to have permanent harmony in the office and have everyone working like clockwork.

Take the Hassle out of Finding the Best Supplier…

If you run a company that regularly requires the use of a third-party supplier, then you might be wondering how you can find the best value for money. It doesn’t matter if you’re running a hairdressers, a bakery or even an office–you need to keep in mind the value proposition when supplying your business.

However, finding the “best” supplier is often more than a question of price. It’s about the level of service you get, the reliability of their service and also the relationship that you foster. There are many ways to find the right suppliers for your business, and here are a couple of tips to help make that process easier.

Speak with businesses that are willing to negotiate

There should never be a set price on anything especially if you’re planning on buying in bulk. Things should always be negotiable, but if you do find a business willing to discuss payment plans or discounts, then try and build a healthy working relationship with them. If you’re able to find businesses that want to talk instead of just stick to the same pricing structure, then it means they’re willing to invest their money, effort and money into growing a business relationship with you. This is admirable and the opportunity shouldn’t be passed up.

If you work in construction or a similar industry, you can find dependable suppliers that can also help your business fulfill promises to clients. Researching reliable lifting services gives you the option to rent rather than buy outright, which can save your business money and enables you to focus your investments on better quality materials.

Reaching out to multiple suppliers

One of the most devastating things that could happen to a business is to run out of supplies because their supplier no longer exists or no longer supplies something crucial they need. In cases like this, you’ll need to look for other suppliers and the race to equip your business with all the right equipment and tools will cause mayhem. If you’re unlucky, then it will also cause your own business to slow to a crawl as you recuperate and try to find a new supplier. To remedy this, you’ll need to reach out to multiple suppliers.

Always consider local over global or national

Local businesses are usually always better to contact as opposed to national or global businesses. For instance, if you’re a construction company or work in carpentry, then a local timber supplier such as George Hill Timber is far better than hiring a company overseas. While the costs may be slightly higher at a local business, it’s much easier to see the product yourself, to see how it’s collected or manufactured and it also means faster delivery times.

Some final words

Finding the right supplier is always a challenge. It’s a time-consuming process that involves a lot of trial and error and communication with different businesses, but if you’re willing to pour in some effort then it can save your business a lot of money in the future. The relationships you create with other businesses are important and you need to use your network of contacts if you want to be a successful company.