IMPROVING VALUE AND VOLUME IN A FAST-PACED WORK ENVIRONMENT

by Venchito Tampon | Last Updated on July 28, 2023

It’s not easy to work in a fast-paced corporate environment where the person who thrives the most wins. You get things done but without sacrificing the quality of your output.

In customer-based companies, like restaurants where big volumes of orders arrived almost every hour or in a tech startup, where new features should be added to online software to satisfy changing needs of customers, the key is to SCALE quality.

Is that possible?

Here are a few practical tips you can apply that works effective in improving both value and volume of client or customer service:

1. Focus on the end-results, not just on methods

If a certain process isn’t fixed and there is a buffer for strategy and personal/individual workflow, this tip can be applied.

The thing when you start micromanaging your people is that they become just a follower of your instructions. Not focusing on the end-results may end up limiting your subordinates’’ creativity, to the point of not delivering progressive or even just consistent results.

If your subordinates can play with their strengths, you can see some boost in their work performance. Researchers found that there’s a significant potential in developing what is innately right with people compared to just trying to fix what’s wrong with them.

Track the things beyond the surface to present both the value and the volume of impact of your methods – that’ll keep your customers and clients serve well in the long run. Like in business, you can leverage your resources such as outsourcing accounting services so you can focus yourself on your strengths that can propel the business forward.

2. Take time to sharpen the saw

Efficiency is getting things done in the least amount of resources. Resources could be time, money, raw materials, etc..

If you have been accomplishing tasks/projects in a similar category, there are only three things that will happen: either results will be progressive, which means output becomes better over time, stagnant or regressive – the output decreases.

If you see the last two happens (stagnant or regressive) or you want to prevent them to happen, take time to sharpen the saw.

One practical way is to start organizing training programs for hard or technical skills of your subordinates or staff members of your company.

Meanwhile, you can also invest in soft skills as well to boost their work performance.

I’ve been speaking to big local companies running their month over month soft skills – they only conduct 1 hour every month for a motivational/soft skill talk – this is better than doing nothing.

3. Prioritize and be more productive

I’ve seen this lacking in some millennials and fresh graduates: prioritization.

Ten tasks or projects, what comes first, they do first.

If your direct boss doesn’t have a standard list of tasks given to you on a daily basis and you can choose which task to finish first, start prioritizing them at your desk.

It would be easy to finish all of them if you know which ones can give the best results to your team, department or company. If you’re in the mid-level or high-level management positions, it is best to look at every task/projects’ business value. Focus on which projects that can yield better profits for the company..

In terms of productivity, there are two things most people get distracted and easily overwhelmed for the entire day: EMAILS and MEETINGS.

Touch your emails once or twice or during breaks in your entire day. If you’re not a salesman or your job isn’t entirely inclusive of email communication, then only open your email inbox in periods. Sign out if you can and focus on your task.

If you handle a team, only include people that matter in a meeting. It consumes a lot of time if you let other people who aren’t accountable to the subject matter or agenda of your meeting. Remember their time is important.

4. Manage your tasks well

I’ve followed this principle of task management from Getting Things Done book by David Allen:

Three choices: Do, Defer and Delegate

Do it now if it only takes less than two minutes. Example is answering a short enquiry of your boss/co-worker.

Defer it by scheduling a time on a calendar to deal with.

Delegate it to your subordinate/employee if this can better be done by someone else. For example, I outsource accounting and admin tasks to freelancers.

Be more organize with your tasks and you’ll never go wrong even if you are overloaded with work and even if you are dealing tasks in a fast paced work environment.

YOUR TURN

How do you handle tasks in a fast paced environment?

Leave a quick comment below.

I’ll be around today to reply to comments and answer questions.