Finding great talent requires time and effort. Depending on the experience of the new hire and the position, training could take longer than anticipated. An alternative to adding headcount is to find ways to free up capacity from employees. Many leaders defer to hiring because it is a quick fix. However, freeing up capacity enables the business to build competitive advantages.
There are several ways to get alignment from leaders to free up capacity within the organization.
Foster a change culture
Finding ways to free up capacity requires collaboration in changing how tasks are performed today. Managers need to keep an open mind and support the effort.
Employees know best on what needs to change to make their jobs easier. Managers who are receptive to change would have abundant ideas to free up capacity.
Changes within a workgroup can be made quickly. Changes that involve multiple areas require discussions and collaboration. The efforts could be rewarding because a change that streamlines interdependent tasks could make many roles more efficient.
To foster a change culture, the business needs to encourage identification of unproductive tasks and incentivize managers to implement change. By establishing a practice that put a positive light on improving efficiency through freeing up employee capacity, it keeps the momentum for ongoing alignment.
Develop underutilized employees
The functional organization structure often leads to a more rigid mindset about roles and responsibilities. Managers might be reluctant to allow their team members to take on tasks that they are not responsible for.
As a result, underutilized employees have unproductive time that could be better utilized. Underutilized employees are assets that are waiting for deployment. There are two ways to better utilize them.
First, look for other tasks within the workgroup that could be added to the individual’s workload. This could be done fairly quickly, deploying the underutilized capacity.
Second, consult with the employee and identify work outside the team he might be interested in. The manager doesn’t need to give up a headcount but encourage development of new skills while helping another team when his workload permits.
Skill development opportunities not only facilitate career development for individuals, the business also benefits from fostering cross-training.
Uncover forgotten software features
Software applications are packed with features. It is common that only a fraction of these features are used today.
As business needs evolve, users might have implemented workarounds to bridge software gaps because no one is aware of the features.
It is a good practice to have frequent conversations with the internal technology team or the outsourced support vendor on needs. The forgotten features might help to minimize onerous and repetitive tasks, freeing up employees to tend to other work that requires human attention.
With cloud based software, vendors often work with complementary applications and build integration as a growth strategy. These enhancements are helpful to improve productivity without significant capital investment.
When businesses get alignment from leaders to proactively identify opportunities to free up capacity, these improvements boost morale, employee engagement and loyalty. Apart from enhancing employee productivity, the business would overcome the vicious cycle of finding talent to fill resource gaps that it could have fulfilled internally.
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