10 Ways to Improve Workflow Efficiency in Your Office

Author: Lorena Mosquera Category: Workflow Date: April 14, 2022

We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but you probably have some silent profit killers running rampant in your company. Time sucks are stealing money from you and your employees. The first step toward getting rid of them is to admit that you have a problem. The next step is finding a solution. And that’s where improving workflow efficiency comes in.

 What is Workflow Efficiency?

Whether you realize it or not, your business has established workflows – it’s how you get your work done, in everything from hiring and onboarding new employees to supporting your complex sales cycle and getting your products and services to your customers. Advancing workflow efficiency means evaluating how you can improve your workflow and streamlining your operations to decrease the quantity of your tasks so you can focus on the quality. Making even modest progress in improving workflow and productivity can make a difference in your bottom line.

 Enemies of Workflow Efficiency

Workflow efficiency has many adversaries, including:

• Unnecessary tasks
• Entering data manually
• Weak communication or assignment direction
• Poor information sharing
• Human error

How to Improve Work Efficiency in Your Office

Improving work processes and efficiency is an involved endeavor, but it will save you time and money long term. Here are some workflow tips to do it.

1.  Evaluate your current workflow. To get where you need to be, you first must know where you are. Take a hard look at your existing workflow procedures, solicit input from your team, and identify bottlenecks like the ones listed above.
2. Measure your workflow efficiency. How long does it take to complete one of your workflows, and how much does it cost you? Many businesses use the process cycle efficiency formula (process cycle efficiency = value – added time / total cycle time) to calculate it.
3. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize. List your workflow processes and order them according to their purpose and importance.
4. Create tracking systems. Develop the methods you need to track projects, progress, and the time invested in them.
5. Minimize interruptions. Schedule meetings for a set time window and make a habit of adhering to that. Thoroughly consider the number of meetings you require and who really needs to attend.
6. Incorporate training. As wonderful as your team is, not everyone is born knowing how to utilize workflow efficiency. Empower your team by giving them the knowledge they need to work smarter, not harder.
7. Automate, automate, automate. Look for tools that can automate your processes and offer integration with each other and existing tools.
8. Test your workflow changes before implementing. Do a trial run of your workflow updates to make sure they’re doing what you need them to.
9. Communicate. The importance of workflow efficiency should not be a secret in your business. Once you find efficient workflow solutions, share them across your team.
10. Refine, refine, refine. No workflow will be perfect the first time you start doing it. And even the best workflows can lose efficacy as your business grows and more tools become available. Always be on the lookout for opportunities to make yours better and to keep growing.

You may think that you have it all figured out – you have been working a certain way for what seems like forever, and you have repeated your processes countless times. Or maybe you are struggling to maintain streamlined, error-proof, and transparent processes across your organization. Regardless of what position you think you are in, you’re likely wasting hours each week tackling manual, unstructured tasks that could otherwise be streamlined through business process automation. And your business is ripe for improving workflow efficiency. We offer business process automation services and solutions that streamline manual processes and bring structure to otherwise disorganized, time-consuming activities. From sales and marketing to finance, operations, and more, we’ll use technology to bring your disparate process together under one umbrella to support greater cross-functional communication, consistency, automation, and productivity while ensuring compliance and conformity. Contact Paradigm today.