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Office Systems Coaching
Can you. . .
find information when an employee is absent - quickly?
hire employees and give them consistent training - easily?
operate in the manager's absence - effectively?
Good systems for managing information, knowledge, and workflow are critical to success!
Most
of us spend little time creating and improving work processes - even when we know they will save us time and money.
Find out how much lost productive time costs. . .
A systems approach increases
personal productivity. . .
Personal productivity systems can be easily replicated in your company. When they are, business productivity skyrockets, people relax, and things run more simply and seamlessly.
"Virginia's approach to planning, organizing, tracking, completing, and evaluating work is a very systematic process that produces excellent results. She sees the big picture while assuring the many details are handled with clarity and ease."
M. Sladzinski (VP Administration)
Common Office Systems Problem #1
Your office is dependent on a few employees who know all the existing processes and systems.
Common Office Systems Problem #2
Your office has layers of written policies and procedures - but they can't be found quickly when needed, and they slow down the work.
Common Office Systems Problem #3
Your business started out with "tribal knowledge" - information on how you do things that is passed around by word of mouth. And things haven't changed. As your company or department grew, things became more complex and the tribal knowledge system became ineffective.
Common Office Systems Problem #4
Written procedures that do exist are redundant, hard to find, and not used consistently. Thick binders just sit on a shelf unhelpfully.
If your office operates with any of these problems, you're working harder than you need to. You're wasting valuable time and money.
The solution?
* Put a few simple systems in place.
* Show people how to use them to manage workflow.
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Show people how to easily create simple
instruction manuals (procedures/policies) for their area.
* Ask people to create and maintain useful workflow systems.
Create systems that are simple,
organic, and easy to use.
Office systems coaching helps you identify areas of weakness and improve them. We help you provide consistency in service, and efficiency in hiring and training.
"I recently had the pleasure of working with Virginia. She assisted us in creating key foundational systems for our organization that have benefited staff focus, workflow, and productivity."
Alexa L., Office Manager
The Test:
You have good workflow systems when people:
___find the information they need easily.
___can provide coverage for absent co-workers seamlessly.
___hand-off responsibilities to another seamlessly when necessary.
___know what is expected of them on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annually. And, they deliver.
___are easily oriented or trained and quickly productive.
___serve customers with consistent excellence.
___meet project timelines consistently.
___catch things before they "fall through the cracks."
___clearly understand their own roles and responsibilities and those of co-workers.
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S.Y.S.T.E.M =
Save YourSelf Time, Energy & Money
94% of all failure is due to the system, not the person.
- W. Edwards Deming
Management works in the system;
Leadership works on the system.
- Stephen R. Covey
The cost to file a document is $30. The cost to find a document is $120. The cost of re-creating a lost document is $250 in labor.
- Coopers and Lybrand
If a employee with a salary of $50,000 loses just one hour per day of productivity looking for things in their office due to information ineffciency, it costs the business over $6,000 per year. . .
Personal Productivity Systems:
• Reduce stress and make work easier
• Create clarity, consistency, and simplicity
• Increase efficiency and performance
• Prevent things from "falling through the cracks"
• Save valuable time and money
• Support growth and change - it becomes easier to take on more responsibilities, or hire and train new staff
According to Parkinson's Law - a project will tend to take the time allocated for it.
So if you give yourself one thing to do during an 8-hour day, it will likely take 8 hours to complete it. Give yourself two things to do in the same period of time, and you will probably finish both.
But give yourself twelve things to do in 8 hours, and you may not get all twelve done, but you may complete many of them.
Having a lot to do can provide the amount of pressure we need to become more productive. When we have more than we can do alone, we become more focused and tend to delegate more.
The 80-20 Rule (known as the Pareto Principle) when applied to our workflow productivity:
80% of our efforts account for only 20% of the results achieved.
So if you want to increase your productivity - and success - focus on the 20% of the activities that will give you the biggest result.
A well known story about prioritizing is told about Charles Schwab, the President of Bethlehem Steel in the 1920's. Schwab was frustrated because he didn't think he was getting enough done.
A consultant studied how Schwab worked, then gave him this recommendation: Every morning, make a list of what you need to do. Number the tasks in order of importance, then rewrite the list in order of importance. Begin with the first task, and no matter how many times you're interrupted, go back to that first task until it's finished. Then go on to the second task.
Schwab's productivity soared when doing his work this way, and so he asked his staff to work in the same way.
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