administrative environment that is much less error prone. Meaning, it is time to ask:
What are our most common administrative mistakes?
What do those mistakes cost us?
Extra work? Pissed off customers? Lost sales? Lost customers?
Now it’s time to brainstorm and to do what the Japanese call GEMBA to learn how we can we reduce and even eliminate these mistakes.
GEMBA means go to where the work is done. You can’t make your administrative world better if you don’t know what’s going on!
Follow a purchase order. How many sign offs does it require? How long does it sit in various in-boxes? Find a solution right away, such as, allow workers to order stuff without approvals up to a much higher dollar level. When the purchase is for big bucks – take it directly to the person with authority.
Pick out a few forms that are used daily. Do the forms ask for way more info than necessary? Are they written in teeny tiny font? Does the paper version match the electronic version? No?? You are begging for errors. Redesign those forms pronto.
Put down some hard and fast rules. ALL orders will be input IMMEDIATELY. (And just to bring the message home – there must be real consequences for those who DO NOT input orders straight away.) No more “jotting stuff down” to be input later. That’s another invitation to disaster.
ALL orders will be input IMMEDIATELY. (And just to bring the message home – there must be real consequences for those who DO NOT input orders straight away.) No more “jotting stuff down” to be input later. That’s another invitation to disaster.
Do a little automation. Regular customers, who order the same stuff, over and over, shouldn’t have to go through the whole ordering process. Create a way that allows them to re-order on-line.
Make an internal email rule, insist that all employees lose their habit of CCing everyone on everything. Everyone with an inbox groaning with emails will thank you.
Take a look at the pick/pack paperwork, shipping manifests, holiday request forms, all paperwork. I promise you – every one of those documents can stand some improvement.
Paperwork sucks!! We all hate it. Pull