Throughout history housekeepers welcomed the arrival of winter’s end by throwing open the windows and scrubbing away the detritus of daily life. Business could learn a lot from those hardworking domestic goddesses. The ritual of spring cleaning begins with preparation.
Authoritative sources like Forbes, GoDaddy, and Inc. tout the benefits of giving your business a thorough review and decluttering—and they don’t necessarily mean a physical dusting off of the filing cabinets and scouring that nasty film from the coffee pot in the employee break room. Before revamping those policies and processes willy-nilly and before you invest in a wholesale upgrade of equipment and software, take the time to review and evaluate them.
- Identify wasted time. Track where people—yourself included—spend those hours in the office. Know how much time is dedicated to what tasks and see where expectations and reality don’t meet. Then figure out why. Don’t automatically assume your employees are incompetent or lazy: extra time spent on tasks may be related to work assignments that don’t fit a particular person’s skills, a bottleneck in the review and approval process, overloaded software or hardware, slow or late-paying clients, or other factor. Maybe you have a client or six that routinely demands—and receives—services beyond the project scope. Solutions to time inefficiency may lie in equipment updates, better delegation choices, fee breakdowns, raised fees, process adjustments, and employee training. Problems tend to be multifaceted, so don’t expect a one-size-fits-all solution.
- Outsource to experts. Entrepreneurs who run micro- and small businesses tend to rely upon themselves to get everything done, regardless of whether they have any expertise in a particular task. Focus your efforts on your strengths and outsource the rest to those who are experts in those tasks. You’ll have more confidence that the work gets done right the first time. Invest in that which not only saves your time and exasperation but also minimizes errors. Once you identify what you ought to outsource, confer with your employees—yes, they do know professionals you don’t—and peers for recommendations. Line up those referrals and prepare to bring them onboard.
- Talk to your employees. Most business and corporate leaders understand their businesses from a bird’s eye view, but not the sequence of effort that actually goes into doing the business. Ask your employees what they need and/or want to improve how they can do what they do. Listen with an open, nonjudgmental attitude and take heed of patterns of complaint, even if something specific isn’t identified. Employees may fear reprisal and be reluctant to specify the supervisor, manager, or pet project that negatively impacts their performance or creates a toxic environment. Or they may hint at something that would enhance job satisfaction, but doubt they’d ever receive, like birthdays as paid holidays.
- Create a schedule. Even with an army of employees and consultants assisting you, everything cannot be completed at once. Decide priorities and tackle those first. Know which big, hairy messes will take the most time to fix and then dedicate that time necessary to fix them properly. Some actions must occur before others begin to avoid system breakdowns. Coordinate efforts so that you don’t have people trying to update databases while IT is upgrading or replacing database software.
This effort prepares your business for that cleansing gust of fresh air. Next week, we’ll discuss the execution of your spring cleaning plan.
The Heggen Group not only specializes in helping businesses develop processes that improve their operations, but in analyzing the operations managed by those processes. Contact Jayne Heggen for more information.
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