5 Areas of Your Business To Organize Today | The better your organization, the more effective you are at a given task. Businesses function in the same way; better organization of the company structure, data and employees means better efficiency and higher quality products or services. Streamlining your company for more effective work means organizing and maintaining crucial areas better.
Data and Analytics
The proper company structure for your data and analytics teams is an excellent place to start, but the right platforms, software and AI can take you further. For instance, the more quickly your team can identify and remove duplicate rows in spreadsheets, the faster you can generate quality reports, find customer information and complete tasks relying on that data. The solutions you need for organizing this area will look different for your marketing team than for your accountant, so find practical tools for each area.
Business Plans and Goals
The chances are that you filed away your business plan as soon as it helped you secure your startup loan and have not looked at it since. However, keeping this plan updated and organized with new data, progress and goals can ensure that you are still working towards important milestones instead of getting side-tracked. It is a good idea to post goals and milestones where you and other employees can quickly remind everyone where you are headed and what needs to be done to get there.
Your Office and Calendar
Decluttering your physical and digital space can increase your focus and motivation by decreasing your mental clutter. This process means removing unused or seldomly used items, designating spots for frequently used items and clearing your email folders. Declutter as much as possible from every department, from the offices to the sales floor, to reduce mental clutter and focus on your company’s needs.
Cluttering your schedule with tasks that can be delegated is a sure way to become overwhelmed and disorganized in other business areas. For instance, if there is no clear space in your day to deal with problems as they arise, you will be trying to squeeze them in and run late for meetings or for quitting time. By delegating or automating as many tasks as possible, you can schedule blank space in your calendar to deal with sudden problems, prepare for important meetings or flesh out ideas when the inspiration hits.
Employee Objectives and Motivations
The happiness and wellbeing of your employees impact how they interact with customers, work as a team and complete daily tasks. Assigning clearly defined objectives to each employee will help increase job satisfaction by reducing confusion. Using rewards for completing objectives as motivation can also increase employee efficiency. Some jobs have tasks and objectives without visual or physical reminders of the work done, leaving workers unable to see their progress and becoming discouraged. Rewards for milestones such as company parties, completion bonuses or employee contests can provide visual reminders of the progress made and improve morale.
Protocols and Policies
The organization of your protocols and policies, both how employees find this information and how the data is presented, can impact how well each one is followed. For instance, if your attendance policy states that employees must use a specific form to request vacation time, but you cannot find the form to complete that protocol, the request is less likely to make it onto the schedule. These protocols and policies need to effectively explain to employees what to do and who to report to in various situations so you can be more confident in leaving the office when needed and spend less time handling issues that are easily solved by several others.
When most people think of organization, they visualize files grouped in clearly labeled cabinets and cleared desks. However, your business should also have organized policies, data and goals to run more effectively. Thinking about organization systems as physical, digital and mental decluttering can help you increase efficiency on a personal level and a company one.
