Month: October 2018

Keeping a clean and organized office not only looks good to your coworkers, but also helps keep your mind at peace. For many of us, problems keeping an organized work space go all the way back to our parents asking us to clean our room. A messy work space can have a destructive effect on your sense of clarity; sifting through piles of paper and digging through shelves takes valuable time away from projects and tasks that need it. Luckily, there are ways you can keep your office organized that will have a significant effect on your work.

Encourage Organization at the Door

How many times have you lost your keys? Although we use them every day, we somehow find a way to misplace them. The same phenomenon occurs in the office, we walk in with literature, keys, coats, and food that ends up scattered around the desk and sometimes the floor. Curb this behavior by adding shelves, hooks, or bins right at the entrance so that you get into the habit of staying organized from the moment you enter.

Get Rid of Paper

Paper accumulates quicker than anything else in your office, and before you know it that memo or two you receive a day can turn into a massive pile before you know it. Do yourself a favor and get rid of it, now. Shred or recycle anything that isn’t important, be sure to mark out any personal information. Take your remaining paper and begin organizing it, which brings us to the next organizational tip.

Binders

Buy them, use them. Binders used to be the coolest back-to-school supply when many of us were still young, and now they serve an even more important purpose. Dividing up your literature into separate binders complete with plastic sleeves makes your life a lot easier since you can find what you need without having to dig. The best thing about binders is that they can all easily fit on to a shelf or two, which opens up more space in your office.

Cut the “Home” Out of Your Home Office

More people than ever work in remote jobs from home and doing so requires them to establish a work space. This can range from a table in the corner to a whole room set aside as a home office. If you’re fortunate to have a home office it’s imperative that you treat it as such, an office. Resist the temptation to bring in food, drinks, iPads, instruments, shoes, or anything else that can become a distraction and take up unnecessary space.

It can be hard at first to break the habits attributed to disorganization, but like any habit, they can be broken with time. By implementing these small changes to your work or home office, you can seriously help the way you feel about yourself, which will make people feel better about your work.

A growing trend among companies, hospitals, and non-profit organizations is the use of outsourcing. Whether it’s customer service, data mining, network security, or automation services, the benefits of outsourcing have outgrown our expectations. If you were to ask any organization why they chose to outsource, you will probably get one of two answers, it saved them time or money… or both. In fact, Deloitte Consulting reported that 65% of companies utilized outsourcing due to lower costs. For a practice short on resources, outsourcing can provide much needed salvation.

Where Are the Costs Cut?

BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) can help your practice with contract processing, patient communications, and even payroll. Costs can be cut when new employees are introduced to your organization. HR operations are costly, which is one reason many places hold off on acquiring new, much-needed talent. Outsourcing HR operations means that your management team can spend more time training your new employee instead of trying to balance all the paperwork and processes associated with hiring.

Speaking of training, outsourcing can also help train your staff in new software or systems used in your practice. Again, with expert training being handled by a trusted partner, your management can feel confident about the employee’s ability to handle the change. Not only can outsourcing train your employees to use new software, but it can also provide the means to develop and maintain that software for you.

Software development, along with IT services, are extremely popular with companies looking to outsource these days. Patient records, health insurance information, and other important data can require custom software or systems that your in-house IT team is not capable, or doesn’t have the time, to create. Security is also a huge factor in outsourcing these operations, especially in the medical industry. A recent survey of 1,300 physicians found that 83% had experienced some form of cyber attack. It’s because of this that many practices have outsourced their data storage and security operations for fear of a data breach that could result in theft or even lawsuits.

Time is Money

The phrase is all-too familiar, but the fact remains; time spent doing tasks your employees weren’t hired for means time away from their actual job. This ensures that your employees aren’t feeling taken advantage of, which results in stress, and eventually resignation. You have a talented staff, and the addition of an outsourcing partner provides them professional support and lifts a huge weight off your practice. If you feel that your staff’s time is being taken up by menial tasks, or that your business is throwing away thousands attempting BPO on its own, then it’s time you start researching outsourcing solutions.