When you run a business, it can be tempting to try and save time where you can. This may or may not seem like an indulgence you can’t afford. For example, let’s take the obvious and quite easy to imagine scenario of a kitchen. A head chef might decide to leave cleaning the kitchen each night, cutting corners and while cleaning the surfaces well, ignore the vents and other dirtying remnants of the area. Then over time, the excess grease build up becomes a fire hazard, and leaves the entire kitchen in jeopardy. This small example illustrates that we often realise cutting corners is hardly a worthwhile thing to do, because it will always bite us in the end.

But are there ways of both saving time in labor costs, and repetitive tasks, while optimizing those efforts? Could these potential time-saving measures even be utilized for complex tasks? Are there perhaps methods of working that enable a firm to get the best of both worlds? Or is that a fool’s paradise?

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Let’s find out below:

Accountancy

It’s interesting to see how different firms approach the problem of how to handle their books. Some small firms decide to outsource this to an accountancy firm, some business leaders decide to do it themselves and learn through experience, while others fail to keep solid control of their books, and often feel the true pain of this when tax season rolls around. Of course, keeping on top of your books is one of the most important things you can do as a business, and there’s no real wriggle room on the accuracy of how it is presented.

Dishonest and less-than-transparent business earnings is a crime, and will be audited thoroughly. There is no ‘opinion’ about a balance sheet, only what the hard, cold facts are. So with this intended surgical accuracy, it might seem like saving time is perhaps the last thing you should do. Of course, double checking and triple checking your results is essential to ensure you are on stable footing and reporting this is essential, but there are methods of saving time if you hope to do so.

For example, using software that offers you the chance of making tax digital, or generates sales reports, or helps track the spending of various accounts can help your business stay cohesive with its financial planning, either helping you generate predictive spending patterns or to offset this information to a secondary accountant, giving them the immediate and verifiable tools to work with. To us, that sounds like saving time in a smart, reliable manner.

The Morning Routine

We all know that setting up our day efficiently usually denotes how well it goes. For example, let’s take the example of any given weekend, a day off work no less. We know that sleeping in for a few hours might be deserved and well needed, but taken to an extreme, we can feel groggy all day. If we don’t shower or wear nice, clean clothes, we start to feel lethargic. If we don’t have anything to eat, our energy levels will deteriorate. In other words, the morning is akin to a race car driver entering a corner turn at high speed, most of the success comes from how it’s entered and at what speed he does so.

An employee’s morning functions in much the same manner. The morning routine of every staff member in your team must be considered. For example, it might be that ensuring the cloakroom is kept tidy and organized at all times is essential. Opening the doors half an hour to an hour early to allow early staff to arrive and start their duties at the beginning of the day can prevent them from having to stand around in the cold waiting for your office to open. Ensuring computers turn on with speed and the indexing system of their necessary documents is well collected can ensure they work with efficiency and comfort from top to bottom. The morning routine can help staff be more productive, but it can also save those vital minutes at the start of the day to get them in that headspace. To us, that small, necessary maintenance efforts can go a long way in the comforting life of your firm.

The Morning Briefing

Again, it’s not just the morning routine that often allows staff to come to work well. But keeping them effective and up-to-date with the progression of the business is important. It might be that instead of giving your staff a longform speech each morning, you craft morning digests for staff to consume at their own pace as long as it’s done within a certain timeframe. Many of us who have worked office jobs understand that briefings can often be overlong and waste valuable time we can spend on our duties, and rarely give us deep or necessary information. With a daily or weekly digest celebrating and keeping your staff in the loop, they can focus on the meat of their job for longer, while also avoiding keeping them in the dark due to a lack of actual implementation.

Back Up Plans

It can also be important to consider the backup plans your staffing procedure might best implement. There could be a range of options you decide to utilise here. Of course, staff are much more than simple robots that can be calculated as labor hours, but we’re going to do that for the current example. Let’s say an employee is sick or off work for some reason. During winter or bad traffic, this can happen. No matter, this is systemised in your sick pay requirements. But if a staff member is off work, you potentially lose eight hours of labor in a day. That is the opposite of saving time. Drawing up excellent and immediate links with a temp agency can help you replace their basic functionalities to an extent, especially if it’s to do with immediate requirements such as reception work. This allows you to wrestle back the lost labor hours and prevent your team from feeling understaffed.

With these tips, you’re sure to save time correctly, and it won’t be an unnecessary indulgence for your firm.