Whether you have a large, medium, or small business, there’s no doubt that business hours can be wasted very easily. Often, smaller, time-consuming problems can waste more time if not handled quickly and efficiently, and when you’re dealing with a large team, time management is going to be even more critical.
As a business, you always want to make sure that your time is being used in the best way to provide optimum service for your customers and to ensure productivity for your team of staff.
With this in mind, the below guide can help provide some top ways to save time as a business.
8 Signs Your Business Time Isn’t Being Used Effectively
1. Orders aren’t being fulfilled or are being delayed
2. You’re having problems with stock
3. Customers are complaining about how long certain tasks are taking
4. Your team isn’t working productively
5. There is poor punctuality with employees
6. You’re failing to meet certain business goals
7. There never seems to be enough hours in the day
8. Deadlines are being missed
How Can Bad Time Management Negatively Impact Your Company?
Poor time management has the potential to negatively affect your business, inside and out. It can:
• Have customers viewing you as an unreliable business
• Cause you to lose customers altogether
• Promote negative reviews if waits have been too long
• Have employees stressed or unsatisfied with their workload
• Lead to employees being late
• Lead to employees leaving the company
• Lead to your company becoming messy and unorganized, which can only get worse over time
• Cause your company to lose leads
• Cause your company to lose money
Top 4 Ways to Save Time as a Business to Provide Optimum Services
If you’re looking to preemptively develop good time management skills or trying to redevelop the way your business uses its time, here are some ideas you can try.
1. Evaluate Your Manpower
The team members you choose and how you use their time are essential when running a business. Not only is it crucial for productive use of time when fulfilling customer requirements, but it’s also important for employees to feel as though they can meet goals in the right amount of time. Without this, your customers will be waiting longer than they need, and employees may feel overly pressured or dissatisfied with their workload.
Understanding which team members, you need and what each team member should be doing is essential for good time management.
Some tips for doing this successfully include:
• Speaking to your team regularly: Getting employee feedback is crucial for understanding specific roles, and especially when you don’t have the time to get to grips with each individual role. Employees will be able to give feedback to you whether they don’t have enough time to fulfill what you’re asking, whether they’re worried about completing tasks by certain deadlines, or even if they feel they don’t have enough work to be doing and want to take on further tasks.
• Ensure communication: There always needs to be a way for colleagues to communicate with each other in an effective way. This ensures that no delays are made if things need to be checked between departments or if management needs to keep track of what employees are doing. Regular meetings are crucial for this, but also having a good line of communication is essential (such as a policy in place, sitting colleagues near one another, or having a dedicated internal email line to use for queries).
• Making sure you have enough employees for what needs to be done: It’s always good to save money in business, and that includes cutting corners where you can when it comes to hiring employees. However, if trying to cut down on employees to save money results in your business not having the manpower to complete tasks or customer orders, this needs to be rectified.
2. Use Software to Help with Management Processes
The right software will be a critical feature for those businesses looking to streamline tasks and save on manual work. The software can store information and complete tasks in a timely fashion to make sure that your employees can concentrate on other areas of the business instead. Automated tasks through software are one of the best ways to save time as a business.
As most businesses will work online these days or have access to technology and digital communication, the management of digital assets is crucial. Nevertheless, this can be a time-consuming job, which is why streamlining any digital function is important for larger companies wanting to save time on their management tasks.
3. Understand How Long Certain Tasks Take
Understanding timeframes in detail is essential for good time flow. You can’t create deadlines or provide customers with accurate service or delivery information if you don’t fully understand the time that is needed. When it comes to customer service, being honest and detailed about an extensive lead time is much better than promising a fast delivery but being unable to fulfill it.
Understanding time processes in every aspect of your business — whether it’s a lead time from a supplier, a delivery time, the time from the point of order to delivery, or the time it takes for an employee to fulfill a task — is all crucial in being able to create a time plan and know how to more effectively use your business time.
4. Have Backup Options in Place
This can lead to delays or even bring your business to a full halt when the unexpected happens. Having backup options is always helpful if you’re looking to ensure that your business time isn’t disrupted too badly. If your usual runs into problems, this could be a backup option for a supplier or a backup plan for a critical supply situation. You may even want a backup option for who fills in if a particular employee is sick.
Already having a plan in place means that you won’t waste any extra time if the unexpected occurs and will know exactly what to do to ensure your business keeps running the right way.
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