Are Processes Slowing Your Company Down? Try These 8 Simplifying Tips
by Lisa Bodell for Forbes
Prohibiting left turns may seem like a strange way to simplify, but this single decision has hugely impacted UPS. As a result of its drivers avoiding left turns, the company saves 10 million gallons of gas annually, delivers 350,000 more packages every year, and it reduced its average time per delivery.
To improve processes in your own organization, try to find your own version of UPS’ No-More-Left-Turns. Consider the following eight tactics and choose one to try one this week:
1. Shorten employee onboarding. Kill long-winded orientations by offering on-demand learning during an employee’s tenure. Focus their orientation on just the basics with a brief Q&A meeting two to four weeks after their start date, when employees have a better grasp on their responsibilities.
2. Hold Bureaucracy Buster sessions. During these sessions at Google, employees are empowered to identify and remove barriers to their own productivity and efficiency. At your company, propose a Bureaucracy Buster to leadership or offer to host the session yourself.
3. Replace a main process with its workaround. If a team member creates a workaround that speeds up a certain process, make a case for establishing it as the new protocol.