Have you ever felt like your team is constantly busy just keeping up with routine tasks, leaving no time for innovation or improving the client experience? You're not alone. Many organisations struggle with this issue. But there are practical ways technology can help free up your team's time and mental bandwidth.
In this article, we'll discuss insights on how strategically using tools like AI can empower teams to focus on higher value work. Let’s start with this easy one.
Automating Routine Tasks
Automate repetitive, small tasks through technology. These tasks may only take a few minutes each but add up quickly. They also create mental load as employees switch between tasks.
Successful organisations look for ways to automate as much of this routine work as possible. This frees people to spend more time on innovation, problem-solving and enhancing the client experience. Automation tools from AI assistants to workflow software can take care of repetitive data entry, document formatting and other grunt work.
Designing Efficient Processes
Another strategy is designing processes strategically rather than just letting them evolve. Over time, unnecessary steps often creep in. I suggest taking a close look at existing processes to streamline and remove non-value adding steps.
This could involve mapping out each process step and questioning whether it truly improves outcomes. Automation may help eliminate redundant approval loops or tasks performed just because that's their role. Streamlining in this way saves significant time across an organisation.
Investing in User-Friendly Systems
Non-intuitive or cumbersome core systems can drain your team's time and mental resources. Even minor annoyances like unclear menus or outdated interfaces can have a considerable impact on productivity.
Organisations that empower their teams invest in systems designed with user experience and ease of use in mind. When technology is intuitive, team members can focus on their work rather than figuring out the tools. Creative workarounds like interface overlays can also help update older systems if you don’t have the budget to replace them entirely.
Leveraging AI for Content Creation
Maximising AI tools can help a lot, as long as humans check the content before publishing. For example, GPT-3 can generate initial drafts and frameworks. We use AI at Impacto Consulting to create transcripts from our podcast and turn what we said during the conversation into shorter and easier to read articles, like the one you are reading now.
Rather than writing everything from scratch, teams are empowered with AI-generated starting points they can then adapt and refine. This has significantly increased their output while reducing workload. Similar approaches could work for creating marketing materials, training programs, and more.
Even when organisations communicate a desire for change, real empowerment comes from providing people with supportive resources. By automating mundane tasks, streamlining processes and leveraging AI, teams have more time and mental space dedicated to strategic problem-solving. This allows their skills and expertise to shine through in new solutions for clients and continuous improvement initiatives.
Automating routine work is key to freeing up capacity for innovation and higher value activities. With the right tools, teams have more opportunity to make an impact. Have you experienced the benefits of user-friendly systems in improving productivity? Share your thoughts!