8 Ways To Improve Operational Efficiency

Managing a team is far from being a walk in the park. Juggling between internal management, team monitoring, CRM-based tasks, document processing, and communications and messaging are part of your everyday life as an operations manager. To find ways to improve operational efficiency, you must be able to handle the stress associated with the responsibility to keep business operations smoothly flowing.

To help you improve the productivity in your workplace, we present you with several ways to improve operational efficiency in your team:

Streamline processes

Ambiguous processes lead to inefficiency, resulting in wasted working hours and repeated outputs. Even normally efficient employees can get frustrated and become less effective when put in a workplace with unclear guidelines.

Check loopholes, limitations, and flaws in your processes. See if there are areas that can be fixed or removed that just bog down employees from properly doing their tasks in the fastest and most efficient way possible. Consult your team for inputs since they are the ones that have first-hand experience in areas that need work.

Make communication easy

Productivity can be linked with the ease of communication that exists in the office space. A workplace where an employee finds it challenging to talk with their teammates may produce delayed outputs or inadequate reports.

Team building is one of the ways to improve efficiency in the workplace. This kind of activity fosters interaction between members, breaking communication barriers that might be hindering them from effectively working with each other.

An environment where people can easily raise their concerns, express their opinions, and positively welcome feedback can boost employee morale and improve engagement. Creating an enjoyable and transparent workplace benefit both the mental and physical health of employees, removing the need to always be on the guard for backlashes or reprimands.

Foster a happy workplace

Work itself is already stressful, so there is no need to add pressure by creating an unfriendly workplace.

According to research from the University of Oxford, happy employees are more productive by as much as 13% compared to those who dread every day that they go to work. Happier employees work faster, convert more sales, and may even go the extra mile on the tasks assigned to them.

If you are searching for ways to improve efficiency in the workplace, start by looking at your team. Check if they are content and happy with how things are run in the office. Ask them about how comfortable they are working in the office, from home, or with their teammates.

An office or home work environment with more natural light entering the space has been found to have positive effects on the health and efficiency of people working there. Decluttering and switching the layout are always welcome changes that can spark motivation to work. Ergonomic furniture and equipment will ensure people do not suffer from physical strains that can affect the quality of their outputs.

Minimise meetings

Meetings are vital for keeping track of where the team or the company is heading. The latest project updates, policy changes, and team initiatives are discussed during huddles to make sure everyone is on the same page.

However, doing meetings too often and too long can be detrimental to workplace productivity. They both waste time and money that could have been spent on finishing more tasks at hand.

Having the appropriate project management tool is one of the ways to improve operational efficiency. The right productivity tool can eliminate, or at least minimise, the need for daily meetings.

Search for a productivity tool that can let all stakeholders involved get the latest information and project updates. Make sure it is easily accessible to everyone so there will not be any excuse on why they did not receive or read the updates.

Automate tasks

One of the best ways to improve operational efficiency is to automate tasks. Repetitive tasks that have minimal deviations from the expected outcomes can be automated with minimal need for observation.

For instance, sending email campaigns, posting social media content, filtering the mail, and answering the same line of questions from customers can be programmed and scheduled ahead.

Avoid multitasking

According to a study done by the American Psychological Association, multitasking undermines productivity because it takes some time for the brain to shift from one task to the other. Studies show that multitasking can even reduce efficiency by as much as 40%, resulting in slower and even subpar outputs.

Forcing people to frequently rotate between tasks might give the impression of being busy, but this is detrimental to operational efficiency. Multitasking robs people of their ability to focus on one task and complete it before moving to another.

Know how to delegate

One of the often-forgotten ideas to improve operational efficiency is delegating tasks. You might find it difficult to hand over tasks to another person due to a variety of reasons like lack of trust or expecting others to fail. Coming from a negative perspective can be disempowering and detrimental to the team’s growth and productivity.

As your responsibility increases, it will be difficult to juggle everything with just your two hands. Thinking that you are running a one-man show might keep you blindsided by possibility that your office is becoming the bottleneck that hinders the efficiency of the whole team.

Leaders know how and when to delegate duties and responsibilities to the team. Handing tasks to other people not only provides them the opportunity to hone their skills and gather experience but also to improve the efficiency of the whole team in managing multiple projects.

Utilise technology

The goal of an operations manager is always to work smarter and not harder. One of the best ways to improve operational efficiency is to embrace technology and maximise its use to benefit the company.

There are countless apps on the internet that are available for enterprise use. These make it easy for the team to conduct video calls, send messages, track project updates, respond to emails, and mark to-do lists.

For work from home setups, time management is necessary to maintain a work-life balance. Using a productivity tool will help the team keep in touch with each other wherever there is an internet connection.

Without the right tools to perform assigned tasks,

If you are looking for ideas to improve operational efficiency, consider using a proven and highly rated productivity tool such as Focos.

Focos As Your Productivity Tool

Having too many apps and browser tabs open can be confusing, distracting, and hindering your productivity. Searching for the right app for the task, switching between tabs, and logging in and out of accounts slowly eats precious time.

Focos is a productivity tool designed to help you and your team stay focused and efficient. It is the simplest but most effective solution for teams, freelancers, entrepreneurs, and the operations manager’s latest tool to introduce some calm efficiency . It is the best productivity tool that provides a smooth, streamlined, and reliable experience that can boost your productivity and minimize distractions.

Some of Focos’s most notable features include:

Manage and use multiple accounts from one place
Less work clutter and no more getting lost in browser tabs
Integrated with the most commonly used apps for work

The app is affordable, user-friendly, and very easy to set up. In fact, there is little to no training required to use the app!

Focos’s intuitive interface considerably boosts productivity by removing the need to jump from one app to another while working. It eliminates the need to keep several windows, tabs, and apps open, giving you a clean screen free from distraction.

Seeing is believing, so we want to offer a free demo on how Focos works. Book a demo with a product specialist.