This week I was working onsite with clients looking at their systems.
Like many business owners, they were frustrated because their people were not being efficient.
“How can we improve our efficiency? they asked.
That’s a great question.
What do you think the answer is?
What do you think is the missing link?
If you said “Role Clarity”, you are correct.
“Role Clarity?” “How does that improve efficiency?”
If you think about it, your people come to work to do a good job and feel good about themselves and the contribution they make.
In order to do that, they need to know what they have to do, to what standard.
This is Role Clarity.
You and your people are clear on what they are meant to be doing.
When all team members know where they fit in the organisation and what they are responsible for, you’ll find your business becomes much more efficient.
We can also look at this from another angle.
So many businesses I’ve consulted with do not have a clear organisation chart nor do they have clear job descriptions. (Our preferred method for documenting roles and standards is Key Performance Indicators and Key Behaviour Indicators.)
Without these, people flounder and when they flounder, they become inefficient.
They often end up doing bits and pieces of other roles, which can be quite frustrating for the other and in one business I worked with, the owner was extremely frustrated because she said every job seemed to be done by two people instead of one, hence costing her double for the work.
Whilst having good systems and processes in place, along with well documented procedures and good training and the use of technology goes a long way to improving efficiency, they do not influence efficiency as much as role clarity.
Your assignment this week is to analyse your business or section. Do you have a current organisation structure and if so, is it documented? Do your people know what they have to do to what standard to succeed in the role?
Reach out if you need some help.
I can promise you, once you are clear and your people understand you’ll find that the chaos, frustration and fighting drastically reduces in favour of a productive harmonious workplace.
And in case you are wondering what the other influencers are, you can check out my Blueprint for Business Freedom, which includes the 3 major areas to focus on:
- High Performance People
- High Performance Processes
- High Performance Potential.
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