Efficient Synonym - Efficiency SynonymDefine efficiency - Synonyms for efficientAre You More Efficient Working at Home?
Working at home gives people the flexibility to be at home, while still being able to collect a paycheck. But, does working at home automatically make you get more done?
Many people dream of being able to stumble out of bed and begin their workday. They argue that since they don’t have the commute, they can start right away and essentially work during the time others would be using to commute. The argument is that it’s less stressful not to have that commute hanging over them. Being able to spend more time with your family is another benefit people associate with working from home. You can be home for the children. You’ll be able to get involved with their schooling and studies. People who work at home learn that it has unintended challenges associated with it. For instance, while it’s nice to be around your family, are they letting you get your work done? Are you spending too much time with your family that is taking away from your responsibilities to your job? Are you using any time management apps to organize your time? You need to work with your family to set up boundaries. This means you should dedicate a space like an office that you use to work. When you are in the office, your family needs to understand that interruptions are off limits, unless it’s an emergency. You will also need to handle interruptions by neighbors that may visit. While some of your neighbors may be commuting to work, there are more people working from home today. This means that many of your neighbors are working from home as well. It’s tempting when you see them outside, to see what they are up to, etc. It’s okay to do this once in a while, but don’t let it interrupt your job. Job burnout can happen just as easily when working from home as it does when you commute to the office. In fact, companies may expect more from you when you work at home and your time is going to be more scrutinized. You may end up working more hours even when you factor in the lack of commuting. Your boss may be inclined to call you up after work hours and ask you to handle some tasks. Use the right tech tools to make your work easier. Learn more about how to be more efficient and how remote teams are managed. We are all going through this change together. Can Efficiency Experts Help Your Business?
You read that being more efficient will make your company more competitive. That seems to make sense, at least from a theoretical perspective. You accept the premise and decide to hire an efficiency expert to evaluate and recommend improvements to your business.
It seems like the right thing to do, but how do you go about finding experts who are qualified? This activity seems as though it can contain subjective judgments. If you are not familiar with what efficient measures are, you are at the mercy of the expert. This is true with most experts in any field. However, efficiency experts are likely to be expensive. The first step when considering any candidate is to get some information about them. This could take a bit of detective work. It may require you to reach out to other companies who have used the candidates and are satisfied with their results. This may be easier said than done as many businesses remain tight-lipped about services or companies they use to improve their operations. They either want you to believe they didn’t hire anyone, or they don’t want you to have access to the same people who helped them. Thus, they simply won’t respond to your inquiries. At the very least, find out how long the company you are considering has been in business. Is the company new? If so, this won’t give you confidence in the company’s experience. When you find companies who have been around for a while, ask them about any special licensing they can show you or high-level certifications they have obtained. Try to find out if these credentials are common for this type of service. Try to gather up as much information as you can online. If there are complaints, you can be certain you’ll find them via search. If there are only a few complaints, it could be competitors who are bashing the company for the sake of keeping them from getting sales. However, if there are many complaints, this could be a good indication to stay clear away from the company. You want to be able to measure significant efficiency improvements with any expert you decide to use. Make sure you are comfortable with what constitutes improvement and insist on guarantees. As mentioned, this service is going to be expensive, so you need to be able to recapture the costs through successful implementation of his or her advice. How to Be More Efficient
You hear all the time that you or your company needs to be more efficient. But, do you know how to accomplish that? Efficiency seems like a word that is thrown at as the end-all be-all answer to problems within an organization. Without a proper plan, the likely result will be confusion and chaos. The following tips can help you when you are given the initiative to be more efficient.
Time Management If you and your team are not managing your time efficiently, you are going to find it hard to move the company forward. The team will constantly be missing deadlines and playing catch up. This makes the group look bad and causes undue stress on the team. The likely result will be high turnover at times when team members are needed the most. Learning Always be on the lookout for how to improve your job or your teams’ jobs. This often requires learning new skills. The more you learn, the easier it will be to find alternative methods that work better. Organization If your office environment is cluttered and there is no sense of organization, it can impact the productivity of the entire group. There are professionals who can assess your current situation and make recommendations on how to improve the environment. This can include such aspects as desk clutter, filing, and even ergonomic issues and proper placement of fixtures or furniture. Automation When you find ways to automate, this frees up your staff to work on more important tasks. Mundane tasks that eat away the time of your staff are the best candidates for automation. It is possible to go overboard with automation which can cause slowdowns when the automation processes fail. Try to determine the best tasks to automate without overdoing it. Delegate If you are micromanaging the work of your team, you won’t have time to handle your own tasks. Your team won’t respect the fact that you are doing tasks that they should be doing. You hired them for a reason. Let them get their jobs done. It’s okay for them to come to you when they get stuck. But, you should guide them rather than simply doing everything for them. Outsource With corporate cutbacks, delegating may not be easy to accomplish. Companies are expecting their employees to do more with less. But, managers still need to get their work done. In such cases, it may be worthwhile to consider outsourcing some of the tasks of your team. The benefits of outsourcing are that it does not increase the company’s headcount. Time Management and Efficiency Go Hand-in-Hand
If you want to know the best time management system available, the answer is, choose one. This may seem like a cop-out to you. But, it’s like a gym membership. What is the most expensive gym membership available? The one you never use.
Time management systems are going to have similar traits from one to the next. Whether one is better than the other is largely dependent on who is trying to get you to use theirs. If you find a time management system, give it a shot and see if it is right for you. The key is to find one. That is going to be one of the main components of increasing your efficiency. If you read about a particular system, implement it for a couple of months and see how it goes. But, and this is crucial, keep going. The worst time management system is not having one. You will be spinning your wheels if you go this route. Time management is going to take discipline and good habits, especially if you haven’t been doing it. You need to get started, and you continue using it. If you are one that believes habits form in 28 days, then use your system for 28 days. Just make sure you have something in place that allows you to evaluate that system. Hopefully, you will be experiencing higher productivity during that period. Don’t get discouraged if you stop using your system. Maybe it isn’t the right one for you. Find another one. Ask colleagues and friends for suggestions. Just make sure you “get back on the horse.” Once your time management system is habitual and useful, there will be no stopping your progress. When you discover a time management system that works for you, become an advocate. You can help others and in the process help yourself. If you and your team are operating more efficiently through the use of proper time management, your company becomes a bit more efficient as a result. Who knows, your team may become the model for the company. Stranger things have happened. One outcome that is highly likely is your team will get recognition. You will get your tasks done faster and will be able to take on more than you were able to before. You and your team will prove to your management that you are capable of taking on bigger and better tasks. It’s all possible with the help of time management. How to Be More Efficient by Wasting Time
It seems counterintuitive to state that you could be more efficient by wasting time. But, the truth is, when you allow yourself some flexibility in the process, you have the potential to make efficiency happen.
This is not to say that you can spend six hours out of an eight-hour day wasting your time. You need to keep the ratio skewed to being productive. But, trying to get too much done without having some “you time,” is going to burn you out. The phrase wasting time is actually a misnomer in this case. What you are doing is setting aside some time to be creative or to get some exercise, etc. It could even be a time that lets you clear your head by taking a walk or sitting in a room by yourself to get away from the grind. People make proclamations that they are too busy to waste time in the manner specified. But, that could be a huge mistake. When you set aside that time to do something out of the ordinary or spontaneous, you often discover ways to do your main tasks better. For instance, suppose you went to the gym during your lunch hour, and you took a class. In the class is someone who is involved in the same kind of business you are in but works for a different company. You both get to talking and become friends. Then, you exchange ideas and in the process discover information that you incorporate into your work. This exchange may not have happened in your workspace. Sometimes, it takes outside entities to get our creative juices flowing. Therefore it’s always a good idea to look for different ways to accomplish the same tasks or talk to people you wouldn’t normally talk to on a routine basis. You will need to make sure this time-wasting process if it can be called that, is limited to a small percentage of your day or your to-do list. You still need to get your work done. But, there is a reason why companies don’t harp onto their employees when they take some time to socialize in the coffee room, etc. Even within different departments, you can expand your knowledge base, and that is good for the company as a whole. Some people will go overboard with this and end up being late on their deadlines. Avoid this at all costs. Set goals for the day that give you a certain amount of time for yourself after completing a large portion of your daily routine.
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AuthorMandy Fard is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW, CMRW) and Recruiter with decades of experience in assisting job seekers, working directly with employers in multiple industries, and writing proven-effective resumes. Archives
September 2024
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