As a business owner, it is quite easy for you to get caught up in running your business from day to day. This is even truer if you are into micromanagement as every small issue that arises will require your personal attention. You can take your business to new heights but at the cost of your personal and social life. Plus, rarely is it beneficial for a business to rely on one person so much, even if you have the largest stake in it. After all, the success of your business will benefit you the most.
One of the ways in which you can reduce some of the burden you and other team members have to bear is by creating systems and processes to get the work done in an efficient manner. You don’t have to be involved in every single thing that goes on at the workplace. Instead, you should systemize the work processes which would make your employees more efficient and effective. This is particularly important for your business in the long run if it is to sustain the level of success it has achieved so far and exceed it.
Did you know that without effective day-to-day systems in your business, it can cost up to 20-30% of your annual revenue?
At some point, there will be a breaking point for you. You cannot keep on making all the decisions and taking all the important actions for your business. Sooner or later, you will start feeling the pressure and that could be dangerous for you and your business. In the beginning, you might be able to manage this quite easily. Success is the biggest motivator but when you reach the apex, it can sometimes become difficult to have that same spark you did when you were starting off.
Without a doubt, creating systems and processes to make the workplace more efficient does require a lot of effort initially. Yet, there are some great benefits to be had that make the exercise totally worthwhile. Some of them include things like:
· Gives you the time and space to focus on the most important revenue generation areas of your business.
· Enables you to explore new opportunities and broaden your business’ horizons.
· Makes your employees more responsible and productive.
· Significantly reduces training of a temporary employee or new employee.
· Provides you with the leisure time you need to keep yourself fresh, active, motivated, and inspired.
· Makes it seamless when a team member is out ill or on vacation and someone else has to fill in for them.
· Increases the value of your business, should you even want to sell it.
Simply speaking, when your firm has systems and processes for every job function, you will have more energy and vigor to contribute to your business. A business needs a leader who is willing to take charge of any situation. That is just not possible if you are mentally and physically exhausted. If you choose to persist with the way things are going on at the moment, it is only a matter of time before you start becoming ineffective and complacent.
What you have to realize is that even if your business runs independently of you, it doesn’t mean your authority has been undermined. In fact, it shows what a great business owner you really are. Putting the structure in place that will take your business to the next level will turn out to be your biggest achievement and one that is necessary for your business to get to where you want it to be. So, it’s about time we look at some of the steps you can follow to create systems and processes in your firm.
Documenting the Process
It is time you started working on developing processes that will enable the work to be completed. You cannot expect your employees to remember a process the first time someone tells them how to do it; therefore, it is extremely important for it to be documented when being taught how to do any job function. This requires the person teaching the process initially to lay out a step-by-step blueprint of how the process is to be completed. There are no restrictions on the number of steps you choose to add to the list. There can be as many or as few as necessary. The intention is to make it clear to your employees what they need to do in order to complete a particular task. Make all processes as detailed as possible so there are no ambiguities whatsoever. The easier you make it for the employees to understand, the more effective the work process will become.
Create a flow chart with the step-by-step details to follow for every single job in your firm – from how to answer the phone or make a photocopy to the most complex and important tasks.
Test Your Processes
You cannot just lay out the steps and then have your employees follow them to get the work done. You will have to test whether the process actually works or not. This is the key to systemizing your business successfully. Anyone who knows nothing about any job task should be able to come into your firm and execute any aspect of any job flawlessly and without question to get the desired result. If that result isn’t achieved, then the process doesn’t work and needs to be modified so anyone can get that desired end result. You may want to have someone you know test the process, an intern, a temp, or other team members. Keep in mind that you want the person testing the process to pretend to know nothing about the job or task (if they are internal in the firm) so they can just follow the process as it is laid out to see if they can flawlessly execute it without question to get the desired result.
Assigning Responsibilities
Each employee is held accountable for creating and maintaining the systems and processes that are related to every task of their job. Creating and keeping them current on some schedule will be part of the system. Each job function should have a list of processes to be documented or that have been documented with a hyperlink to the process, so it can easily be found. I recommend having an online copy as well as a binder with the processes printed as a back-up (in case you can’t access the online version for some reason). Your workplace becomes more efficient through the systems and processes you have created.
These are the steps you need to follow in order to create systems and processes to make your workplace even more efficient. It may be a slow and gradual process, but most successful firms have systems for all job functions and so should you. Get your team going on creating and maintaining the systems and processes in your firm.
Just a reminder that having these processes in places increases the valuation of your business, should you want to sell it.
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