Organizational Efficiency: Running An Efficient Organization
Tied up in red tape? That is not the way you want your organization to be. There are a lot of issues that can lead to reduced organizational efficiency within an organization or corporation. Happily, some strategies can minimize these once they are identified. Something you can read more about organizational efficiency in the post below.
Removal of bureaucracy (while keeping due diligence)
Red tape is one of the biggest enemies of efficiency in an organization. However, it is also there for a reason, and that is to protect the organization if anything goes wrong. Therefore to improve efficiency in this area, what you need is a way to ensure that due diligence is occurring that takes less time and effort.
Happily, there are now solutions that follow this outline available, including outsourcing checking tasks to accredited agencies that work independently of your organization. Something that can help lighten the workload and sure maximum efficiency while minimizing any risk.
Audit regularly
Traditionally we think of organizational efficiency in an organization as being an issue of process. That is, if a process is not efficient, it has unnecessary steps, takes too long, and uses up more resources than are actually required. With that in mind, one of the simplest ways to make an organization more efficient is to review the processes that are performed regularly.
Of course, most organizations choose to run audits to achieve this. Whereby a trained specialist or independent auditors will come in and review such processes. Thus allowing any unnecessary parts to be cut out and overall efficiency to be improved.
Organizational Efficiency Tools
However, you can do other things to promote better efficiency than rewrite processes and cut down on red tape.
In fact, forward-thinking organizations are also using tactics such as providing the most up-to-date and specialized tools to help their employees be as efficient as possible. It’s not just on the factory floor that such a thing can make an impact either.
For example, equipping departments with the right software to make their daily tasks much quicker can be a fabulous way of ensuring high efficiency. In particular, investing in legal case management software for departments that deal with issues of law can have a hugely positive effect.
The reason is that all the data, notes, contact information, and even outside representation details are located in one single place. Something that means dealing with a complicated issue, such as a legal matter, can be vastly simplified, saving your organization both time and money.
People management
Apart from equipping your people with the right tools, there are other actions you can take to improve efficiency in your organization as well. One such step is to ensure that you have the best people in management positions possible and that you enable them to be effective as well.
Of course, there are many things that you can do to help foster such a situation, including running training courses and secondments. Something that will ensure you are always giving relevant experience to those moving up the ranks.
Additionally, enabling autonomy in managers as long as they stick to your organizational ethics and policies and share innovations regular can be a smart move as well.
In fact, it can allow the freedom to effectively manage their team in a way that is best for their team. Something that can help promote efficiency within the different departments and groups that comprise your broader organization.
Clarity of expectations
Sometimes getting back to grassroots basics is what your organization needs to be most efficient. In fact, just by being as transparent as possible with your expectations for employees at every level can help you run more productively and effectively.
Of course, clarity of expectations can be achieved through several tactics, including comprehensive onboarding when you first take an employee on. Additionally, regular refresher training and evidence of the organization’s method of working in practice is essential too.
This being something that can be achieved both through consistent consequences for actions that do not meet with your organizational ethos and wall as rewards and praise for the opposite.
The latter is often being managed through things like an employee of the month scheme. However, this can also be achieved by using publishing successes in a newsletter over your organization’s intranet.
Resources
Tools are vital if your organization is to be as efficient as possible. However, so are resources. In fact, you can have all the latest tools you like. However, if you don’t have the necessary supplies that will allow you to complete the tasks that need doing, your organization will still encounter unnecessary delays.
With that in mind, effectively controlling your organization’s supply line is essential. That is, you must be able to get the things you need in a timely fashion. Of course, digitizing your stock control and management system can really help with this. Especially if it is automated, it removes the need for human input. It also minimizes the possibility of error too.
Deal direct with clients on micro-level
Up to this point, we have been looking at efficiency concerning how you deal with tasks and employees. However, there is another approach that can help you to make gains in this area as well. It is completely reevaluating how your organization operates concerning each client or customer.
For example, many large organizations have to deal with a range of bodies, businesses, and middlemen to get the service or product they provide to their clients. Of course, this increases the amount of work and bureaucracy they have to deal with, and so can make things very inefficient.
To that end, some establishments cut out the middlemen and go straight to the client instead. In fact, this democratization of services can be a much more efficient way to run things primarily because it cuts out a lot of unnecessary work.
It can also help such organizations foster much better and more effective relationships with the people they are designed to serve. It can even help humanize their clients because it’s much easier to respond to their personal needs when working on this micro-level.
Value of breaks and downtime
You may not expect to have a section devoted to breaks and downtime in an article on efficiency, but here we are. In fact, the idea that constant work, with no breaks, is the best way to be efficient and productive is nonsense.
At least when we are dealing with humans, after all, humans cannot effectively concentrate on more than one task at once, nor can they focus for hours on end without a break for the body and the mind.
Therefore, if you force people to do this, you will ultimately cause severe issues in the efficiency of your organization. Not to mention ethical problems by treating humans in this way too.
With that in mind, changing your organization’s culture to one that values breaks and downtime is vital. Something that means regular breaks throughout the day, including lunchtimes, where employees can get away from their desks, is a good start.
Although, organizations that want to take this idea further may also choose to institute flexible working hours and additional annual vacation. Some even create even rest and break rooms where employees can go to recuperate before their next task. In fact, the evidence suggests that such strategies can positively affect efficiency in the long run.
Motivation is as valuable as an efficient process
It’s easy to conceptualize organizational efficiency as being about refining and rationalizing work processes until there is nothing left that apart from what absolutely needs to be done. However, what organizations need to remember is the motivation of your staff can be just as important.
In fact, instead of trying to consistently perfect your systems, something that can take a great deal of time and effort to achieve, there is another approach. Of course, it is to inoculate your employees against the issues that your current system creates.
Yes, that’s right by providing purpose, meaning, reward, and appreciation for the work that your employees do; you can help to keep them as motivated as possible. Something that can help them to overcome many issues with productivity at work, and ensure they keep on pushing forward for the success of your organization. Something that can utility keep it working efficiently despite not being a perfect system.
Summary of Organizational Efficiency
When it comes to improving efficiency in an organization, reducing red tape and unnecessary processes is essential. However, a broader approach is also necessary. A strategy that also involves the tools your employees use, management, and motivation. In fact, even your approach to client relationships matters if total efficiency is to be achieved.
