Every business needs to be able to adapt to the changing economic and global factors that occur on a continuous basis. In recent years, the rise of e-commerce has created a truly global marketplace where competitors can be based in other countries but still gain a market share from native companies if they can provide similar goods or services at a competitive price. In addition, modern organizations need to be able to cope with high levels of inflation and take steps to remain competitive when raw material costs are rising.
At present, it’s fair to say that the business environment is challenging. It can be difficult to enjoy the same levels of sales revenues and profitability when competition is increasing, and prices are going up. However, all businesses can stay competitive by looking for bespoke strategies that will improve efficiency and productivity throughout their firm. When a company maximizes its productivity and efficiency levels, it can minimize wasteful processes and compete more effectively in the global marketplace.
In this article, five key strategies will be discussed that can help a range of organizations to become more efficient and productive.
- Provide comprehensive employee training plans
A highly skilled and educated workforce is one that can work to higher levels of output and can increase the value that they bring to their organization. Every new starter in the company will need to undergo comprehensive training so they fully understand what their role and responsibilities entail. This will allow them to start work for the firm in a more productive manner and reach a higher level of output sooner. You can read more about the importance of training schemes for new staff members by clicking here.
In addition to the onboarding training package, it can be highly beneficial for new starters to be mentored by more experienced teammates. This form of “on the job” training can be a vital way to improve how new staff approach their daily and routine tasks. More experienced workers may be able to show the new employees the most efficient ways of undertaking these pieces of work, thus saving time, and maximizing output early on in a new staff member’s career.
All staff should receive annual training packages throughout their careers. These can be vital in explaining new working methods or to ensure that compliance is achieved when specific rules or regulations change in the workplace. In short, comprehensive training plans play an essential role in the creation of highly productive individuals and teams.
- Manage your microservices effectively
Modern organizations rely on an increasing number of microservices in their IT infrastructure. These small programs and applications need to be able to communicate together effectively and function efficiently to ensure that a smooth and reliable experience is provided for workers who use these systems. However, as the number of microservices and company applications grows, there’s a greater need to manage them to ensure that they run and perform to the highest levels of efficiency.
IT professionals should install effective layers of software that facilitate the smooth communication between services in the digital infrastructure, such as service mesh kubernetes. Put simply, these layers of software and code will allow multiple microservices to interact with each other, even when different coding languages have been used to create them. As businesses increasingly move their operations to the cloud and travel further on their journey toward a fully digital set of working practices, the need for such systems is vital to ensure that multiple software systems function and interact effectively with each other.
- Hire top-class leaders
Effective leadership is one of the key drivers for a modern and efficient organization. Strong leaders will be able to demonstrate the values and goals of the company to the wider workforce through both their words and actions. Leaders can play a vital role in embedding a positive company culture that values dedication and high levels of productivity. They can achieve this by being visible throughout an organization where they can offer advice and guidance on working practices.
In addition, effective leaders can be expected to mentor staff with the aim of helping them to develop their skills and knowledge in the workplace. Lower-level employees can draw on the knowledge and experience of their leader to undertake new projects or complete existing tasks in a more efficient manner.
A leader may also choose to delegate certain tasks to employees. This has the dual benefit of reducing the leader’s workload and also giving employees the opportunity to broaden their skillsets by learning new forms of work, thus becoming more productive and effective.
- Welcome service improvement ideas from all staff
A key way to improve productivity and efficiency levels at work is by looking at new ways of working. Some working practices may become embedded in an organization over time and are viewed as the best way to accomplish certain tasks. However, staff members who undertake these processes on a regular basis may find that there are more effective ways to undertake them that lead to efficiency gains. New starters can be an excellent source of ideas as they may not have grown accustomed to the accepted working methods and may be able to see a different way to complete certain tasks.
It’s of paramount importance that managers and leaders actively seek service improvement ideas from staff at all levels within the organization. Even simple improvements that lead to incremental gains in efficiency can benefit an organization when combined with other more efficient working methods.
In short, there should be clear lines of communication between staff and managers to disseminate these ideas for improvement and organizations should value and implement workable improvement solutions.
- Use comprehensive staff benefits as a motivating tool
As a brief final point, it’s recognized that a comprehensive staff benefits package can play a key role in motivating staff. This can create a working culture where productivity and efficiency levels are consistently high due to the motivation levels of the workforce.
Ideally, staff benefits packages should include more than simple health insurance plans and could feature benefits such as discounted gym membership and wider health benefits for staff and their families among others.
A comprehensive staff benefits package will also help to retain staff members over longer periods, especially if these packages can’t be matched by competing companies in the same industry. This can help to minimize employee churn and reduce recruitment costs, further improving efficiency in the organization.