Creating and managing the right Workflow in your office can make life much easier for you and your team.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re getting things done in your office in the most inefficient way possible? This can also happen when you’re collaborating with your team, which transfers inefficiency to the entire team. Well, you’re not alone. It’s way too easy to be unorganized and unproductive.
Taking your time to construct a calculated workflow system can give you and your team a big advantage. The better a manager clearly defines a regulated process, the more efficient the team becomes. This significantly reduces work time and reduces stress or frustration.
Here are some Innovative Office Solutions for maintaining a regular workflow:
- Prevents miscommunication, stress and confusion by keeping everyone on the same page.
- Try to automate processes we do regularly. There are many apps available for this.
- Eliminate time consuming bottlenecks which is a huge time killer that can eat up to 5 hours per week per employee. This can include time being wasted by a team member waiting for information.
- Spend time on what matters rather than following up.
The key is to keep things simple and less complicated. Take your time to observe how your team is currently getting stuff done in the office. Below are some ideas to consider.
Central Intelligence
No team member has all the answers. If they have questions, they need a place to go to find answers without creating an overload or wasting time for a response. It’s always hard to ask someone for help if that person is busy and we do not want to interrupt them in the middle of their work. If there is a hub for knowledge and documentations, we can eliminate a lot of miscommunications and distractions.
Design a Workflow
Every workplace is unique and no two are alike. Take time to appraise your current workflow in order decide on a system and tools to improve the process. Once a system is in place, you won’t have to think about it again.
Monitor how your workflow is working by checking up on it at least once a month and make adjustments accordingly.
Once your workflow is defined in you roffice, all members should know their roles and how they contribute to the big picture. This is a great way to create productive people.
One solution we highly recommend is Ricoh’s Cloud Workflow Solutions to easily streamline your office production digitally without any complex IT issues.
Create the Best Environment for Success
You can find data all over the internet to hear that a significant percentage of American workers are not fully engaged at work. If a team member feels important and has genuine decision-making authority, you begin to see a valuable increase in energy and focus. Motivation has huge value in the office.
Communication is key. A large majority of employees feel that their managers do not spend enough time sharing goals and deliverables. Openness and feedback is of utmost importance. Employees need to be heard and their thoughts need to be taken seriously. Establish a hierarchy for each project to assign decision-making responsibilities.
Make it a Habit
The more decision you have to make, the more difficult it is to make the right decisions. And vice versa, the less we have to worry about little things, the more we have to focus on the bigger picture. Creating habits will reduce the thought process and allow us to avoid these decision making bottlenecks.
Here are some healthy office habits to develop:
- Always know what’s the end goal. When is it due and what is the result of a task?
- Set clear expectations for tasks and eliminate wasteful back-and-forth questions which is a major time killer.
- Know who’s responsible for what. As easy as it seems, it is one of the major problems people face in offices every day. This results in a ton of wasted time and confusion.
Learn to Communicate
The number one problem and the biggest cause of lost revenue in the average workplace is a simple “lack” of communication. Start by creating routines and habits that can help you avoid costly miscommunications and improve collaboration.
There are key defined ways to communicate in the modern office: In person, Phone calls, Email, and Chat. The rules are pretty simple. If it’s urgent – ping them in Chat, If it’s less urgent – send an email, If it’s complicated – talk on the phone, in person, or use Video Chat.
