As we near the end of the year, it is time to think about conducting a year-end review of the overall company. The four steps to an effective year-end review include analyzing your current systems in place, determining where your bottlenecks and inefficiencies are, making a plan for any necessary changes, and implementing those determined changes in the upcoming year.
Review the Data
The first step to consider when conducting a year-end review of the company is to compile all of the information you have received throughout the year including employee feedback, financial audits, marketing audits, and reviews.
Listen to what your team is saying. What do they think are the problems? Look at your finances. Are there any discrepancies this year from last year?
Identify any areas of improvement based on the data you have gathered from conducting all of your reviews and audits.
Make a Plan of Action
Once you have determined your areas of improvement, the next step is to choose the best strategies moving forward. Make a plan of action to make your systems more efficient and prioritize the biggest cost-savers based on the data you have reviewed. Determine which one or two departments will test out your new process.
The goal in making action plans to increase your staff’s productivity, efficiency, and performance. Check out our video on profitability and processes to understand how to increase profits by adjusting some processes. Some of these processes include outsourcing, automation, and cross-training.
Do not forget to price out strategies to get a cost-benefit analysis. What makes the most sense financially? For example, it is not enough for an employee to be productive. You want employees to work efficiently. While productivity is the amount of work completed, efficiency is the amount of work completed in the least amount of time. So, make sure your processes don’t involve your team members doing something more than once. Also, consider the costs of necessary software.
After you decide on the best cost-benefit strategy, create your rollout schedule. Determine your implementation timeframe and map out any checkpoints and deadlines. Remember, you need to give your team an implementation period–an allocated timeframe to complete implementation.
In addition, it is necessary to determine your key performance indicators (KPIs) before implementation. What are your goals with this new process? Is it to cut down on the time it takes to complete a project? By how much? Be specific. You will want to review these KPIs when evaluating and measuring your new process’s effectiveness and success.
When making a plan of action, consider the necessary training for your team. After all, your employees are the ones working through the processes and are your greatest assets. So, make sure they have all of the tools and resources for a successful implementation. By training your team appropriately, you enable them to increase efficiency and productivity.
Roll Out Your Improvements
The third step in your year-end review is to roll out the improvements you have made. Determine which departments will implement the new process first. Share your rollout plans with employees and managers. Get your team on board for the new processes and systems! We suggest selecting a few people to be your “champions” to lead the way in implementing the new procedures.
As we all know, good things take time. Your team will need time to get used to the new process. So, schedule that implementation period into your rollout plan, but be sure to communicate with your team when that implementation period is over so they know their expectations.
After you have communicated with your team about the new processes and the rollout schedule, it is time to roll out your improvements according to your plan and schedule. Make rollout fun! Give your team incentive prizes, like gift certificates, to encourage them to get on board. Starting a new process requires a lot of thought, primarily when you have performed the job differently for the last several months or years.
Take a look at our roll-out plan on Trainual with some freebies for some help with your rollout!
Evaluate Your New Process
Evaluate your improvement strategies regularly. We suggest reviewing your strategies weekly, monthly, and then quarterly. You can easily evaluate your improvements weekly during team meetings where you can ask employees how the new process is going and determine what areas in your new process are successful and what areas need adjustments.
Reinforce your process’s positive aspects in other areas of your business operations to further increase your company’s efficiency. After determining what works great for your first department, implement that improvement in your other departments to see greater results in more places in your company.
Some CRMs have a 75% implementation failure rate, which is astounding to think about because it seems like a big waste of time and money. We have seen greater success by putting more thought and action into the planning and training aspects of implementation. So, we encourage you to review our roll-out plan on Trainual and focus on communicating expectations and training your employees thoroughly for your company’s implementation success.