Running a business can be extremely stressful and it can easy to become overwhelmed from time to time. With so many different tasks to manage from one week to the next, it can often seem like a never-ending uphill battle to get everything completed. Whether you are a small business owner, you are managing a medium-sized company or you are heading up a large corporation, you need to ensure that you do everything that you can to streamline your business processes so you can manage your time more efficiently moving forward.
Nowadays, there are countless digital tools, cloud-based software, and other online tools that you can use to automate various business processes. While every business operates differently and has its own way of doing things, there are some tasks that almost every business owner has to take care of regularly.
Many of these tasks are unglamorous and mundane but are essential for the smooth operation of your business moving forward. Identifying which processes you can automate can help you to save time and money while also allowing your business to be more productive and efficient. Let’s take a look at just a few of the processes that you should always consider automating in your business.
Wage Calculations
Working out how much you must pay your employees at the end of each week or month can take a lot of time. What’s more, this task can often be painstaking and just one or two mistakes can throw your entire budget out of whack, setting you back financially.
On the other hand, you could end up underpaying your employees if there are errors in your calculations, which can lead to frustrated and disgruntled employees. Savvy business owners always opt to automate wage calculations as this ensures accuracy and reduces human error.
Staff Scheduling
Sitting down and drawing up your staff roster for the month is something that most business owners and managers do not look forward to. Trying to figure out which employees are available for work, who has booked holidays, what your staffing requirements will be, as well as trying to be fair to all of your employees in terms of the hours allocated can be stressful.
However, there are tools that you can use to automate much of this process, drawing on historical data to ensure that you have enough staff rostered to meet the needs of your business on a given day.
Nowadays, every business needs to have a strong online presence. Not only do you need a well-designed and optimized website, but you also need to ensure that your social media channels are regularly updated to keep your customers engaged and to help attract new clients to your business.
Posting on social media every day can be very time-consuming and it can also lead to you losing a lot of time as there are constant distractions once you log in to Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or whichever social media channels you use. Using social media scheduling apps and tools, you can automate this process with ease.
Employee Onboarding
Hiring a new team can be a long and time-consuming process and with the current state of the job market and the rise of the gig economy, there are more opportunities than ever before for employees to jump ship after you have put time and effort into onboarding them.
Whether staff turnover is high in your business or not, you need to ensure that staff is onboarded properly when they join your company. To do this manually means reserving a space for the day, taking someone from your HR team, or yourself, away from more important tasks, and dedicating your time to onboarding new employees.
Instead, why not automate the onboarding process, so that new employees can sign in, go through the process in their own time and arrive at the workplace ready to get started in their new role?
CRM and Sales Processes
When your sales team closes a deal that they have been working hard on, the last thing they want to have to do is turn around and file all of that paperwork or spend time updating your customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
If your sales team is always busy completing these tasks, that means less time for their availablility to close sales, which means less income for your business. However, with the right tools in place, you can automate various activities such as filing, call logging, and other CRM- or sales-related tasks, giving your sales team more time to focus on doing what they do best.
Use Automation To Streamline Your Business Moving Forward
There are many different ways that you can use business software, apps, online tools, and cloud-based platforms to automate important tasks in your business. Follow the tips outlined above to use automation to streamline your business to start saving time and money moving forward.
