Common Sources of Office Inefficiency and How to Prevent Them

Inefficiency in the workplace is one of the biggest reasons that companies lose money. As the old saying goes: time is money, so you may be wondering how your company can save time. Here are some of the most common sources of office inefficiency and how you can stop them from costing you money.

Unproductive Employees

Even if you only have one employee in your organization that wastes valuable company time it can cause a loss for the company. Every minute of time that is spent being unproductive on the job is one minute of work that is not getting completed. If you have one or more unproductive employees in the office, consider doing regular evaluations. These evaluations will allow you to provide recognition for employees that perform well, and will also give you the opportunity to address any problems with inefficiency among some of the employees in the office.

Poor Organization

Poor organization can lead to confusion among your employees. They may become unsure of their tasks, as well as the tasks of their group and the company as a whole. Poor organization also causes inefficiency because employees may be unsure of the deadlines of their set tasks. This can cause projects small and large to be completed behind schedule. The best way to keep employees organized is to instill an effective hierarchy in the office. Each employee of the company should report to someone higher up in the chain to receive tasks and report progress. This ensures everyone stays on track to achieve business goals. You can also purchase task management software, which can tell employees what each employee should work on. It also updates the status of tasks as they are completed.

Paper Filing

There are several reasons that paper filing causes inefficiency in the workplace. First, employees must properly organize these files for any filing system to be effective. If employees do not file properly, data can be lost. Paper filing also causes inefficiency because time is wasted printing files, storing them manually, and physically researching them when information is needed. Finally, paper filing can also cause reporting duplicates. The time that was spent making these duplicates is wasted. The easy fix to preventing this source of inefficiency in the office is to purchase filing software. Filing software such as FileCenter can make the process of storing, organizing, and retrieving files significantly easier and significantly more efficient.

Manual Report Generation

Companies who file papers manually often make another critical mistake of manually generating their reports. Manual report generation is a process that consumes much time. Employees must retrieve all of the data needed for reporting, analyze and interpret this data, and then transfer the information over to a spreadsheet, graph, or another type of report. Companies can eliminate this type of inefficiency by purchasing report generation software. There are many types of software available that can store, analyze, and report data using charts, graphs, and spreadsheets. They generate reports in minutes, leaving your employees with time to get other tasks done.

Poor Communication

The final major source of inefficiency in the office is poor communication. Poor communication leaves employees unclear of the goals of the company as a whole. This lowers their level of productivity. The best way to prevent poor communication in the office environment is to have mandatory meetings to discuss the different goals of the company. At these meetings, each group of employees should understand their goal. They should also understand how their work is impacting the goals of the organization as a whole.

---

Lautaro Martinez is a freelance writer specializing in business management topics. His goal is to provide information to help business leaders develop strategies and tactics that drive success. You can learn more about Lautaro on Google+.