Has your Middle Tennessee business taken off in 2013? Are profits soaring?
No?!?
If your company isn’t running at peak efficiency in this economy, you may find yourself struggling to maintain competitiveness, speed and quality. Efficient systems and processes help ensure that, as your business grows, that growth is both sustainable and profitable.
So if you haven’t recently examined your company from an efficiency standpoint, then this quick post is for you. Today, Wood Personnel offers five ideas for retooling your company to make it leaner, meaner and more efficient than ever:
- Do: Eliminate redundant management tiers. Having too many cooks in your company’s “kitchen” is bad for business. When you have multiple layers of micro-managers stepping on one another’s toes, you wind up with a war of egos which kills productivity. Make sure your chain of command is lean – that every manager has a well-defined role that complements, not hampers, other managers’. When your managers are more efficient, their reports are, too.
- Don’t: Adopt new technology, before you thoroughly test and understand it. Don’t be seduced by the dramatic improvements software or hardware is supposed to make in your company. A talented salesperson can easily entice you with strong testimonials or impressive data. What you need to know is: is that shiny new technology really suited to your staff and its business needs? If you’re thinking of adopting new tech to improve efficiency, be a savvy consumer. Request a demo and test it in-house. Weigh the potential benefits and pitfalls with end-users. Bottom line, make sure the software or hardware really lives up to its promises before expending the time and money to adopt it.
- Do: Incorporate your employees’ best ideas. Senior executives aren’t the only staff members who come up with great ideas for improving efficiency. In fact, front-line employees, since they’re involved in the day-to-day work that drives your business, offer unique perspectives on how things get done. So if you’re looking for ways to do things better and faster, ask your staff for ideas – and listen to them! They may provide some killer suggestions that will not only improve efficiency, but morale as well – because your workers are part of the solution.
- Don’t: Overburden your employees. The Great Recession caused companies throughout Middle Tennessee to cut their workforces to the bone. Now that business is picking up again, it’s tempting to save money by merely piling more responsibility on your already lean staff – but your company may wind up paying a different kind of price. Once your employees reach a certain “saturation” point, adding more work reduces their efficiency exponentially. Be careful not to dump too much on your staff without providing the support they need.
- Do: Work with a Cool Springs staffing service like Wood Personnel. Our workforce experts can help you analyze staffing and hiring in your business and identify opportunities to: complete non-core or mundane tasks more efficiently; manage production peaks without adding overhead; hire top talent more quickly and cost-effectively. Contact TRUE Group today to learn how strategic staffing and direct hire services can help your business thrive.
