As an office manager you know how hard to set goals for yourself and your staff members. At times “work” just seems to get in the way of completing goals that would actually move the the business ahead in a more productive way.
For example in our medical practice most of the assistants are cross-trained, which means they can do almost all positions in the office, which is very beneficial most of the time. There are those times when it seems that the more staff trade off in helping each other to get things done the more chaotic things become and the less productive we are.
One of the reasons I think that this happens is that many of the job tasks that we need to complete need focused time, such as charting, verifying patient insurance benefits for treatment, collections or inventory.
It is a known fact that when you are disrupted from doing a task it takes 7-12 minutes to regain your focus and get back to work, so we become less productive the more we are interrupted.
Maybe the answer is to look at a different solution to getting job tasks done that would be more productive and would still allow staff members to step-up and help one another.
“Overloading staff” usually happens gradually and many times goes unnoticed until things start spiraling out of control and life preservers are being handed out.
Managers need to take the time to step back and look at the big picture often to see how they can unload their staff by making things simpler.
One way is to allow staff members to have a block of time to do certain duties where they are uninterrupted to get things such as the inventory done for the month. By being allow one afternoon a month to do it without being pulled away the staff member knows they will have the time to get the job done.
Maybe the staff member who works accounts receivables are allowed block time three days a week from noon to 4. They do not have to stress wondering when they will get the time to do it, they know the time has been allotted for this job.
You are probably getting the idea of what I am trying to get across. The idea is to uncomplicated the way you do things and by doing this you can accomplish what needs to be done without weighing anyone down.
Staff members know they will have the time to get their key tasks done and the rest of the time will be spent productively processing customers/clients/ patients in the business.
Its time to lighten up around the office and everyone will feel much better knowing time has been set aside to get all of their tasks done
08/13/14
Comments