“I’ll just work overtime for a couple of months (or years) to get ahead, then I’ll be able to finally take that vacation I’ve always wanted and have more free time for family.” Does this sound familiar?
It’s unfortunately all too common for your home and work life to get out of balance, and to keep striving for that magic time when everything will suddenly balance out and you’ll have a chance to actually pick up a hobby and just not stress so much all the time due to work.
The U.S. is in the bottom 20% (30th out of 38 countries) when it comes to work/life balance.
While we think we’re getting more done and “achieving” when we work overtime, eat our lunch at our desk, and check work emails on the weekend, the truth is that it’s actually dragging down productivity and health and wellbeing.
- 36% of overworked individuals report lower productivity
- 68% report poor morale
- Employees that work over 55 hours per week are at higher risk of heart disease, depression, and anxiety
- 54% of companies with high overtime have absentee rates over 9%
- Those who work 60 hours a week have a 23% higher injury rate
The problem is that that “magic time” never comes on its own, and before you know it, years have passed, you’re burned out and have missed too many vacations, birthdays, and other family events.
The way to achieve a better work/life balance is to start living that balance every day and create opportunities in your workflow that free up your time. You can gain better balance, peace of mind, and the ability to truly disconnect when your business processes are integrated, automated, and simplified
Find More Time Using Integration & Automation
Many workers and business owners work long hours because they just can’t get through everything that they need to in a typical 8-hour day. But often, many of the tasks they do every day are repetitive or manual and can be simplified with the right technology processes.
Nearly 70% of workers say that the biggest advantage of automation is to reduce the time wasted on repetitive tasks. Almost 60% of them estimate they would save six or more hours per week using automation.
Just imagine if you had 1 additional hour per day while still getting just as much work done. You could leave work on time or actually take a full lunch away from the office to refresh mid-day and avoid burn out.
Today’s cloud platforms are designed to integrate so you can send commands and data from one to another, reducing both manual entry and error rates. They also offer multiple automated processes that free up employees to concentrate on less manual work tasks and get their duties done faster so they can clock out on time.
Here are a few examples of how automations can simplify your workflow and give you more time in your day.
Populating Data
Typing customer data into spreadsheets or retyping data from your website form into your CRM program is one of those repetitive tasks that can take up a good chunk of a person’s workday.
If you connected your website forms, incoming customer emails, chats, and shopping cart to a CRM program, like Zendesk, all the data populates automatically. So, you have one place to capture all your new lead and customers, simplifying the process and saving a significant amount of time re-keying data.
Follow Ups and Alerts
How much time does your sales team spend sifting through all their leads manually to figure out the next follow up they need to do? Do they continually need to check in with Salesforce to see if a new lead has come in for them?
Setting up automated alerts and follow ups can allow your sales team to improve client follow up and take less time to do it. Automated follow up emails can be triggered by an action taken or not taken on a prior email and scheduled to flow out according to a specific timeline. You can also connect your CRM and sales app, so your team gets a text or email alert when a hot new prospect comes in.
Reporting
One manger wants one type of report, and another wants to see the same data a different way. Before you know it, you have an employee entering the same data into 2-3 different spreadsheets just to facilitate the reporting style of all the managers in an office.
Using a business intelligence application, you can connect all your data sources to one platform (like Microsoft Power BI) and you not only eliminate time-consuming data entry, you can view that data in multiple ways to please everyone, and as a bonus, the reporting is in real-time.
How Much Time Saving Potential Does Your Office Have?
Does your office have hours per week in time savings that are only a few automations away? Genuine Technology Group offers CIO as a Service, which means you get expert help identifying and implementing optimizations that can increase your office productivity and help staff achieve a better work/life balance.
Take that first step by scheduling a free consultation today at 971-288-0880 or using our webform.