5 Underutilized Management Tips to Apply in Your Business

It's tough to develop universal management characteristics that will work for everyone because it all depends on the circumstances. Some companies have the resources to spend heavily on all of their employees. Others don't have the same budget and instead invest in fewer employees, which means those workers have to be very efficient. Management tips that get great results at one company might not work at all at another.

With that in mind, let's explore five underutilized but highly efficient ways to maximize growth and performance through the whole organization.

1. Have a Customer Portal

One of the best ways to improve the customer experience is to use client portals. These are programmatic interfaces that are used to offer customers who have purchased your product or service access to the service or product, as well as additional features related to it. Client portals can handle tasks from password creation, and password resets, billing and payments, all the way to changing personal data.

For example, the job of appointment scheduling often requires repetitive tasks such as entering customer orders, entering appointments and (possibly) replying to emails. If this type of job is done manually, it presents a considerable cost to the company regarding labour and opportunity costs.

2. Eliminate Paperwork By Automating Processes

Manually filing paperwork is time-consuming, and the paperwork costs are even worse than inefficiency. Time and again, research shows it can cost $20 to file a single document because there's labour (payroll) and storage involved beyond just the raw materials. Think about all the paper your team files throughout the year or how much of a worker's time deals with unorganized organizational paperwork. 

A great way to deal with this problem is by going paperless. Businesses can use digitized contract management apps, suitable for companies of all sizes, to make sure that the entire document life-cycle from creation to approval runs smoothly.

Using templates and automation in your paperless office can help you work faster. For instance, there should be secure online storage for employees to document tasks using their mobile devices, like a tablet or smartphone. You will want automated areas where staff can quickly access needed files without searching, alongside collaboration areas where people can discuss projects with colleagues right on your intranet.

3. Adopt a Holistic Approach to Employee Wellbeing

Employee wellness programs are popular right now. A lot of research shows they're practical, but a study shows a potential weak point. In particular, researchers looked at both short- and long-term interventions and found that employee health isn't always impacted positively. Specifically, a quick fix doesn't always produce long-lasting results. It seems a monthly exercise program only makes employees healthier for about three months before they regress to their original risk level. 

Yet other sources reveal that wellness programs do make a positive difference. However, there is uncertainty about the actual effects they cause. For instance, you should overwhelmingly choose initiatives to perform if you seek good returns on your investment. Test them yourself as well.

4. Collect In-Depth Employee Feedback

Inside the walls of your own company, there are many eyes, all with intel that can help you run things better. Employees know the ins and outs of daily operations and understand the nuances inside a system. All this info will be tough to glean otherwise.

Too many managers make the mistake of measuring their company's success by the numbers alone. They look at financial results only and ignore informal employee morale surveys, exit interviews, candid client feedback, and other qualitative measures.

When people work for an organization, they're often unaware of how they impact the big picture. However, asking them for feedback can reveal helpful information. Employee sourcing is inexpensive (surveys and open questions), and revealing identities is unnecessary. Having frank answers is essential to making a business grow.

5. Consider Remote Work

It may sound like the buzzword of today, but recent studies have shown that remote work is just as effective if not more than your typical office environment. Working in cafes and living in home offices can boost productivity and creativity amongst employees. With all the perks, it's no wonder an "always-on, always-connected" culture has emerged.

If done right, working from home boosts productivity. What's more, flexible work opportunities could cut costs and improve general morale. Creating a corporate culture that allows employees to do what they love is one way of securing the best talent.

If you are like most businesses, the growth in remote workers put you in a place where you had to do things that most companies did not have to do, such as provide email communication, phone, etc. But if your company embraced this future and is flourishing now, think about how you can build on it for future success.

Conclusion

Every company has a set of rules about the best way to improve efficiency. Generally, boosting efficiency means finding minor improvements and measuring their impact in real-time. To succeed in business, you need to understand the core principles of efficiency. 

 Minor improvements on their own can have a moderate impact but taken together, they can have a massive effect on your company's bottom line.