The ability to boost workflow efficiency is at the heart of the “marginal gains” mindset whose success began in sports but has rapidly spread to all areas of business. Created by cycling coach Dave Brailsford, the theory relies on the idea that by improving many different aspects by just one percent, you promote overall team productivity enhancement. Just as Dave Brailsford brought the British Cycling team to glory in the blink of an eye, you too can succeed in increasing team efficiency.
This hyper-focused science relies on knowing how to measure workflow efficiency, so make sure your performance analytics software is gathering data in the background. With that in place, join us as we explore our eight proven strategies to boost workflow efficiency.
We’ll cover the elements that lead to inefficiencies, before looking into strategies from improved communication systems and team training to automating routine tasks and running regular audits. As you start implementing these strategies, you’ll soon start seeing those one percent margins adding up to boost both your productivity and bottom line.
Before we can implement strategies to boost workflow efficiency, we need to know where the pitfalls are. By identifying these root causes, we can better understand how to improve team workflow efficiency.
Without a clear policy in place, teams can easily slip into bad habits regarding communication. When team members are not on the same page due to poor communication, they invite misunderstandings, delays, and costly errors.
As technology continues to advance at a blistering pace, companies from all industries need to keep up to speed with the latest changes to avoid slipping behind the competition.
Processes with too many steps or complexities lead to bottlenecks in the workplace. Not only is this a drag on productivity, but it can also lead to frustration among teams and a toxic environment.
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Without clear and justifiable goals and objectives, teams tend to meander, wasting time and resources before reaching success.
Untrained employees work slower and often feel imposter syndrome — two catastrophic impacts on workflow efficiency.
Without strategic placement of human and technical resources, teams become stretched too thin, or not used when they’re most needed, requiring immediate implementation of workflow optimization techniques.
Now we have a handle on some of the key culprits affecting efficiency, we’re going to dive into the strategies used to combat them.
Effective communication is the backbone of any team’s success and a fundamental strategy to boost workflow efficiency. However, without systems in place, teams both large and small are susceptible to wasting time and resources through misunderstandings.
From a structural perspective, getting everybody on the same communication system is a great start. It allows all team members to contact each other without switching between multiple apps and saves a record of interactions to look back on in the future.
Strategically, you should put guidelines in place to advise workers on which tools to use in specific situations. For example, instant messenger is great for quick back-and-forths, but those not involved in the conversation cannot access the information, making it a poor choice for important decision-making.
Remember that communication tools are more than standard emails, phones, and video calls. It makes sense to channel all task-based communication through the relevant card in your project management software. It’s a system where all relevant parties to see updates and comments where they expect to see them — and without trawling through past emails for the information they need.
An integrated communication system is, therefore, one of the best practices for team efficiency enhancement, as you can reduce the time and effort spent on managing communications and instead focus it on more productive tasks.
From streamlining communication between humans to bypassing humans altogether, automation has had a revolutionary impact on how to improve team workflow efficiency. Many tasks in a workflow require little-to-no human creativity, and these are ripe for a bit of algorithmic intervention.
Automations come in a variety of different forms, from automatically assigning new leads to sending an approval notification to a manager. But getting more technical, you can automate entire workflows with dependencies. This is a method for assigning tasks based on a trigger, such as the completion of a previous task or a response from a client. When put together strategically, dependencies keep workers on task and engaged and prevent managers from needing to assign every task and micromanage their teams.
Not only does automation boost workflow efficiency by removing time spent on tasks and human error, but it also promotes a happier workplace. Rather than spending their days doing menial tasks such as data entry, employees get to focus their attention on the more fulfilling elements of their jobs.
Every team knows that collaboration is the secret sauce behind all effective team management strategies, but it can be difficult to implement. Whether because of a disunited team that tends to work in silos, or simply due to a lack of planning, collaboration can easily crumble into inefficient working practices.
To ensure you’re all working together coherently, start by having a centralized storage unit for all your information. Best presented in the form of a cloud-based drive, it should be a well-organized, logical space where people can find the information they need as quickly and efficiently as possible. Train your team on guidelines for file hierarchies and naming customs, and you’ll see an easy boost in workflow efficiency.
Now you have the basics in place, you can look to workflow methodologies such as Scrum. This agile framework is based on continuous feedback and improvement, which allows you to solve issues and adapt to changes quickly, improving both the quality of work and team member satisfaction.
In essence, analyzing data and identifying insights ensure that decisions are based on concrete information rather than intuition, leading to more accurate, timely, and effective results. Therefore, knowing how to measure workflow efficiency is absolutely necessary for businesses looking to boost workflow efficiency.
The first step is to gather relevant data. Depending on your company’s priorities, this could involve performance metrics, time tracking, customer feedback, financial data, or sales analytics. With that data at hand, you can generate real-time reports at the click of a button, complete with insights, recommendations, and workflow optimization techniques.
Be aware that improving workflow efficiency isn’t simply based on gathering and displaying data. Teams that fail to properly train their employees in how to implement data-driven decision-making often waste valuable hours in meetings without making a positive impact on their workflows.
Closely related to data-driven decision-making is the art of running regular workflow audits. In the busy day-to-day, this important task often gets put on the back burner, but we’d highly recommend scheduling time to critique and analyze your workflows.
Consider the example of your team's project management process. You can examine metrics such as task completion times, collaboration rates, and project delays. Improving these aspects aligns perfectly with the marginal gains mindset.
Start by addressing any noticeable issues. For instance, if you notice that your team consistently faces delays in completing tasks, it's time to investigate. Run assessments, gather team feedback, and implement a plan to streamline the workflow.
Making time for these regular audits is key to improving workflow efficiency. Whether it’s to address a critical issue or to make small enhancements, it makes you more productive, agile, and relevant in your industry.
We’ve all been in a situation where we’ve seen poor resource allocation. At a time when your star customer service specialist is needed most, they’re busy attending a decision-making meeting that they don’t need to be at. Resource allocation helps to boost workflow efficiency throughout projects by making sure the right personnel, tools, and tech are ready when you need them.
Teams that prioritize resource allocation typically invest time in creating a comprehensive organizational chart featuring each employee and their key strengths. Putting all your tasks into project management software then shows you which of these strengths is needed for each task. Visualizations of team and individual calendars allow you to see each employee’s schedule, so when you know a top-priority task is in the pipeline, you can reassign less important tasks to free up your A-Team.
Smart resource allocation works well for increasing team efficiency as you avoid over-exertion and under-utilization. This helps to avoid burnout due to an over-reliance on certain individuals and leads to a more balanced and satisfied workplace.
Equipping people with the latest skills and knowledge they need to do their jobs is one of the most basic but effective ways to boost workflow efficiency. Even if you’ve been working through the same processes for months, if everybody makes a one percent improvement on an individual level, the effect on your productivity as a whole can be huge.
Start by using performance data to identify areas that need the most work. There is an endless list of areas for team productivity enhancement, such as training in tools and software, customer service call best practices, and how to adopt new technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence.
A well-trained team is better equipped to handle challenges, adapt to new workflows, and contribute to the organization’s success. Therefore, you should encourage training as part of your company culture. Make sure to set clear objectives and reward progress for motivation and save training materials in your drive for ambitious, self-starting workers to find for themselves.
As our final strategy to boost workflow efficiency, we’re going to look at how to set processes in motion that ensure you constantly work on making more efficient workflows. Feedback loops are a great way of collecting structured insights from individuals at all levels about difficulties that upper management may not always be aware of.
There are myriad ways of creating opportunities for feedback aimed at workplace efficiency improvements. Start with structured one-to-one meetings where you allow employees to bring pre-prepare concerns and suggestions to light. Furthermore, to get more ad-hoc insights, create feedback forms where anybody in the company can make suggestions. Giving the option to choose a relevant department or part of the process streamlines the feedback loop by sending the idea to the right people.
Finally, you need to find time and space to implement new effective team management strategies. The most straightforward option is to incorporate feedback into preparation for decision-making meetings. However, you could get more creative by setting aside an hour or two a week for a session looking for out-of-the-box solutions to boost workflow efficiency.
Now we’ve explored the best practices for team efficiency enhancement, we’re going to finish with a quick look at how to implement them.
Workflows cannot exist without a solid foundation beneath them. While unreliable, disconnected tools will slow down and interrupt your progress, high-performance, integrated platforms allow you to thrive.
Bitrix24 is a perfect example of putting systems in place so your team can achieve their potential. Bringing together online storage, project management software, team calendars, performance analytics, automations, and so much more, you can boost workflow efficiency at every level of your business.
If you can’t wait to implement those marginal gains that lead to massive workplace efficiency improvements, make sure you have a platform you can trust — sign up for Bitrix24 today.Creating an efficient workflow involves:
Identifying essential tasks
Automating the most routine activities
Assigning essential resources
Continuously monitoring and adjusting for improvements
Promoting team engagement and clear communication should be priorities throughout the process.
Technology enhances workflow efficiency by:
Automating repetitive tasks
Facilitating real-time communication
Providing platforms for collaboration
Offering insights through data analytics
Allowing for a more integrated and agile approach to managing tasks and projects
When trying to improve team efficiency, common challenges include:
Resistance to change
Poor communication
Inadequate training
A misalignment of tools and processes with team needs
Overcoming these requires strong leadership, a clear vision, and a culture that values continuous improvement.
Regular feedback impacts team workflow efficiency by identifying areas for improvement, encouraging open communication, and fostering development. It helps in refining processes, aligning team efforts, and enhancing overall productivity and satisfaction.