Kaitlyn Hammond — April 17, 2019 — April 17, 2019
Spring is a time of rebirth and new beginnings, and it’s not just for nature or your closet. Your business can greatly benefit from a spring cleaning to clear out the old, and streamline the new. What tasks can you tackle that can help you run a more productive and profitable company? Below are some examples for your inspiration:
Digitize
With more and more technological advances coming out daily, it is surprising that many people are still using outdated paper processes to manage their business operations. The spring is an excellent time to review how you handle your billing, filing and communication, and find more innovative and efficient ways of optimizing them.
For example, using filing cabinets to store paper files is extremely inefficient for multiple reasons—it takes up a lot of space, it is time-consuming to put away and find needed documents and it exposes your sensitive information to theft or fire. A better way to clean up your documents is to use a virtual file storage system where you can scan information and store it in a digital cloud. This way, you can access your documents from anywhere at anytime, and implement cybersecurity to protect this information.
Hold an Innovation Contest
Entrepreneurs on the hit show Shark Tank are always questioning old processes or products and finding better ways of improving them. Most of us get so preoccupied with our daily tasks that we forget to question standard processes to see how they can be optimized to be more efficient.
Now is the time to create an innovation contest, urging employees to find creative solutions for existing operations. By motivating your colleagues to think outside of the box and have a safe space to suggest an idea, no matter how crazy or silly it may sound, you can pinpoint great ideas you can implement throughout the rest of the year.
Reinvent Traditional Meetings
Did you know that 6 out of every 10 meetings are over an hour long? That means that you are wasting at least 1/8th of your day that can be spent on other, more pressing activities. While interaction with your employees is imperative, try to reinvent traditional meetings to make them more productive and faster.
Did you know that meetings up to 18 minutes long are able to capture the concentration of attendees the best; after that, they start getting bored and distracted?
Instead of having a large interdepartmental meeting every week, why not create micro meetings that last 10 minutes or less with only the people that are directly involved? This way, you can allow colleagues that do not need be part of the conversation the opportunity to work on other tasks instead of sitting by idly wasting time.
Commit to a New Project
There are many projects that you likely have in mind, but have been hesitant to implement due to a lack of resources. Whether it is a new marketing campaign or research and development for a new product, spring is the time to commit to a new project that can grow your business.
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