According to Inc Magazine, small business owners waste 21.8 hours each week. Do you have a strategic plan in place to ensure you’re managing your time (and your employees’ time) as efficiently as possible?
Take a look at these time management tips for businesses and discover areas where you can improve. Even focusing on improving on one or two of these at first can save you plenty of hours a week.
TRACK YOUR EMPLOYEES’ TIME
Do you know how long it takes your employees to complete any given project? By tracking how long different projects take as well as how efficient different employees are, you’ll be able to more accurately plan ahead in the future.
This can also help ensure you aren’t overworking or underworking your employees. There are plenty of tools to help you track your employees’ time if you don’t already have a time management system in place. We can help with that.
SET REALISTIC DEADLINES
When you’re tracking time accurately, you’re also able to set realistic deadlines and keep your operations in check. And when your deadlines are more accurate, you’re able to stay on track and even get ahead in business.
SET REALISTIC GOALS
Set some time management goals. After you’ve collected some data, set a few short and long-term goals pointing to where you want your business to be — do you want to save a certain amount of hours on one type of project? Do you want an entire department to become more efficient? Do you want to give your employees more time to be able to delve into personal development?
If you could save just 2 hours per employee each week, what’s a realistic goal that you could achieve as a company?
DISCUSS THIS NEW INITIATIVE WITH YOUR TEAM
If you really want to become more efficient as a company, it’s imperative that you bring your employees up to speed. Involve them in conversations about what time tracking tools to use and how to use them, as well as your goals and any new metrics that come out of time tracking.
Show them why efficiency is important for your company and where you wish to see the team in the next month, year, and even beyond that as a result. The more your employees feel that they’re connected and involved in this, the more success and buy-in you’ll see.
BE FLEXIBLE AND WILLING TO ADAPT
Technology, capacity, and goals change. Allow your company to change with them. If you implement new technology or set new goals but later find out they just aren’t working for you and your employees, it’s never a bad idea to reevaluate and make updates. Just be sure to keep your employees updated and involved in these discussions along the way.
We want to see you increase productivity in your company. If you need a little help along the way, that’s what we’re here for. We’d love to talk to you about our payroll and people solutions to find the best products for you and your employees. You can reach out to us here.
