Strategies to Eliminate Redundancy in Your Company

Successful companies are always looking for ways to improve their productivity and efficiency to maximize their bottom line.  With only so many hours in a day, they are constantly on the hunt for strategies to make the most of their time and avoid unnecessary or redundant activities. By making improvements in two strategic areas, you can greatly eliminate redundancy in your company.

How to Eliminate Redundancy

Flash back to the classic 1993 film Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray, in which Murray is forced to repeat the title day over and over again. While stuck in the time loop, Murray becomes increasingly disheartened as he can’t move past February 2nd, no matter what he does.

While repeating the same activity many times can be tedious and frustrating for the person involved, redundancy can also have negative business consequences. When one of your employees duplicates a task that someone else has already accomplished, you’re decreasing your long-term productivity and efficiency.

The best way to avoid this type of unnecessary repetition is to improve your employee management and communication.

Employee Management

Is your entire team on board to meet your business objectives? Are different departments coordinated in order to focus on separate but complementary activities? If not, one recommendation to avoid redundancy is to have each team member explicitly state what they’re working on at a given time and how that project relates to overall company objectives. Have every employee identify their top priorities and the key performance indicators (KPIs) they’ll use to measure these.

For instance, if Jen in your marketing department is working on improving your company’s number of social media followers, Mark can focus on expanding your digital reach via search engine optimization, tracking his progress based on which keywords your company ranks for.  Mark knows not to focus on social media at the moment, since someone else is already working on that project.

Keep employees’ priorities somewhere visible, like in a company dashboard, where all members of the team can access them. This way, team members can ensure they’re not performing an activity that’s already been completed. By providing a visual summary of progress, employees at all levels of your company hierarchy can see how their projects ladder up to bigger objectives, and managers can better track their employee’s performance.

Communication

When it comes to business communication, you want to clearly get your message across. Powerful orators are often successful because they avoid tautology and “fluff” in their communication, whether writing emails or giving speeches.

The frequency and type of communication can also help limit redundancy. One of the biggest drains on productivity is repetitive and unnecessary meetings. One study found that employees spend 31 hours a month at unproductive meetings.

Set up a consistent rhythm of communication among the executive team and throughout different departments and functions. Curate your meeting attendees with consideration and list only essential topics on the agenda. Many companies set up a “Daily Huddle” in addition to weekly or quarterly meetings to quickly provide info to leadership on “what’s up” and issues employees are stuck on. While it might seem like more meetings would increase your redundancy, you eliminate redundancy when you have higher-quality and better-organized meetings. With these tactics, you can share information with those who need it and avoid the pitfalls of traditional meeting formats.

Unnecessary repetition is an easy way to disrupt your team’s progress and lower your productivity. Employ these tactics to eliminate redundancy in your company and stay on track to achieve your goals.

Technology can help you reduce redundancies. Talk to an Align Advisor today to learn more!