As a business becomes busier, any cracks in the operation become more evident. A slack procedure for stock ordering or payroll management that allows errors to creep in could be dismissed as unimportant when there are few employees, but as the business scales up, that’s no longer the case.
Smaller companies that are determined to perform well for each and every customer must manage internal operations better. This way, they avoid tripping over their own feet through poor execution, which sooner or later will impact sales and customer relations.
Here are some tips on how to create a more efficient office.
Implement a Better Payroll Solution Sooner
An early internal payroll procedure to get the director and a handful of employees paid on time may be passable. However, when increasing the staff roster at a steady clip, it will become clear soon enough that an employee performing the payroll function as an add-on to their usual role won’t fly for long. Especially if you’re wanting the payroll to be done correctly and inside the law each pay period. To research more into the various regulations your company may have to adhere to, look into this page on payroll compliance or others available online.
For this reason, it’s best to switch to a professional service provider like TriNet’s payroll solutions that offers payroll management and payment processing at the touch of a button. Enter basic payroll information and the service calculates the payroll, creates e-payment stubs and produces the W-2 tax forms for delivery too. If you don’t need all of these services but would like a way to do your own paystub or W-2 forms, then there are sites like Paystubs Now that can help with this. Either way, get payroll right every time and avoid the administrative hassle so staff can focus on the core business.
Appoint an Office Manager
Whilst your company might not to be large enough to support a dedicated full-time office manager role, can you justify a part-time one? Even someone who attends a couple of times a week for a few hours and can be sent email requests outside of these days is better than not having anyone at all.
If there doesn’t seem to be a need for a dedicated office manager, assign these duties to someone who’s ready to take them on as part of their current role. It will be good experience for them and ensure essential tasks around the office don’t get forgotten. It could be worth getting an M&E Validation Survey.
Multi-Skilling the Workforce
The smaller the company or department, the more critical each worker is. When someone is off on vacation, sick leave or business, it’s useful to have another employee step into their role temporarily.
To enable staff to provide cover by completing outstanding tasks and still be a customer-led business, extra training for the workforce is important. This doesn’t require the workers to neglect their own roles. However, they should become comfortable in performing tasks for more than one role in a given day. This prevents a situation where the ball gets dropped and a customer is upset, because while someone was away, their task or complaint was ignored.
Also, to ensure this is possible, it’s necessary to track the outstanding tasks for each role. Management can then re-assign tasks based on priorities when an employee is not at the office that day.
A smoothly running office is one where any unexpected problems are quickly addressed and most potential issues are anticipated and resolved prior to them becoming real sticking points. This allows the staff to deliver more predictable results from the business.
