4 Ways to Make Businesses More Efficient
Business efficiency is a hot topic of conversation in online communities where peers struggle to squeeze out improvements that will deliver a better bottom-line result without extra top-line costs. In the pursuit of lower payroll costs, many businesses don’t have enough staff and subsequently fail to spend time on approaches that could help them operate more smoothly.
Here are four ways that small companies can become more efficient.
- Remote Deposit Capture
Remote deposit capture is something that most businesses would benefit from but too few have taken advantage of yet. The idea behind RDC is that the accounting staff can use a smartphone app to scan checks and other payments received. The details are then sent securely to the business bank to get started with the deposit process.
The method has been found to be highly efficient at catching potential fraud, which is good news for both small companies and the banking community too. Using RDC, staff at smaller companies can focus on other important matters and not get pulled away to deposit urgent checks to improve the cash flow of the business.
- Remote Workers and Freelancers
Smaller businesses with limited office space can employ remote workers who stay at home and complete their work from there. This is not only useful for companies that are running out of office space but don’t wish to move to larger premises yet, but it’s also helpful to keep costs down. Office space, equipment, electricity and other expenses associated with each employee are reduced by using remote workers.
With freelancers, that’s even more the case because the rates are typically lower, and companies can pay by the task for smaller projects. It’s no longer necessary to employ a part-time or full-time employee when only a few hours a month are required to complete a specific task. This allows smaller companies to limit their labor expenses.
- Cross-training Staff
By cross-training or multi-skilling staff members, they’re able to step into the shoes of a co-worker to complete their work in their absence.
They will have the choice of whether to perform half of their work and half of their co-worker’s or cover one position entirely while leaving the other’s untouched. The deciding factor may be whether there’s a deadline pending within either role on that day.
- Review Processes and Procedures for Updates
The processes that companies use are often documented at larger businesses but not always at smaller ones. With computerized processes and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to refer to, managers and staff members alike have a reasonable guide to how individual tasks should be performed.
It’s sensible to periodically review processes and procedures for mistakes, invalid steps, and ones that should now be removed completely. Welcoming suggestions from the employees who have to follow the SOPs is also extremely helpful in the process of improving and refining them.
There are numerous ways to make a business run more efficiently. Usually, staff are just too busy to do so. However, by making it a strategy with time regularly assigned to it, companies and employees can benefit.
