Cutting Office Waste!
Here are 10 ways to cut waste in your office:
1. Set up red rules and blue rules for all office supplies. When do you use good letterhead and when do you print on plane paper. When do we print copies VS. when do we send it electronically. Red rules you NEVER break. Blue rules you are flexible on.
2. Fully use everything you buy. Print out a piece of paper only to find a typo or it wasn’t what you expected? Don’t throw it away. Reuse the back side as scratch paper or for future printing experiments.
3. Don’t duplicate resources. Each office may not need it’s own set of records. One central space may be enough. Better yet, do it electronically for faster access and pooled sharing.
4. Put strict email policies in place. NO jokes. NO naughty or funny photos. NO cc everyone. NO Bcc emails. You won’t waste any time looking at useless information.
5. Replace wall switches with motion sensors in conference rooms, toilets, tea rooms or any room that is infrequently used. You enter, the light goes on. No motion after 5 minutes, the light goes off. (This also tells employees not to hide in the toilet for an hour, making their colleagues work harder to cover for their laziness.)
6. Instead of receptionists or security guards sitting and doing nothing most of the time, find work for them. If they are not checking Ids or greeting visitors with a smile, they can be sorting, folding, phoning, stapling, conducting research, or some other useful function. I asked two guards outside of a special school. I was interested in helping the children. The guards said, “Oh, I don’t know anything. You must call the school.” At LEAST have them read the organization’s literature so they know what they are doing!
7. Lease out your resources. Instead of retrenching engineers, do what Honda does and lease them out during your slow periods. You have LCD projectors and AV equipment, lease it or hire it out if not in use.
8. Sell resources no longer being used. Retrench some workers? Sell off their computers and other no longer needed equipment. In 2 years time if you start hiring again, those old computers won’t be worth much anyway. Ask some employees to volunteer the time at night to sell it or auction it on the Net and the profits go to the company’s Family Day. Alternatively, let employees purchase old equipment for family use at a huge discount. You are not using it anyway and it can be a real perk for a parent wanting a computer for their 12 year old.
9. Don’t save books, read them and then give them away. You read a great management book? Give it to your 2nd in command and ask what she thinks of it. You get rid of clutter and train your people. When he / she is done, ask them to do the same.
10. Take a course in Time Management to stop wasting TIME.
