Are You Working Hard? Or Hardly Working?

Jenna Trott

5 min read | May 27th, 2022

There’s an old adage in business you’ve probably heard countless times before: “time is money.” The phrase was coined (pun intended), by Benjamin Franklin and serves to remind us that our time is as valuable as money itself, and thus, should not be wasted. On average, employees in the United States spend 2.9 hours of an 8 hour work day on non-work related activities. Similarly, a recent study reveals that for the average person, 60% of their work day involves “work-about-work” activities. This includes: replying to emails and pings, attending unnecessary meetings, waiting for feedback and approvals, searching for files and documents, and duplicative efforts. While it may seem as though an overhaul of productivity management is an impossible feat, there are steps you can take to improve workflow and increase overall efficiency in the workplace.

Take a Look at Your Current Processes

The first step is to evaluate your current processes — it is critical to determine what is working and what isn’t. Inhibitors of an effective workflow can range anywhere from unclear responsibilities of certain roles, to the database or system your organization is using. Further, it can be helpful to obtain feedback from your employees and eliminate where you can. Whether it’s decreasing the number of emails sent on a daily basis, or limiting the amount of meetings per month, consider ways that you can maximize working hours.

Automate Repetitive Tasks

A recent study discovered that repetitive tasks over a long period of time can cause employees to feel more tired, and this tiredness results in a 37% increase in absenteeism, an 18% decrease in productivity and diminished company-wide profitability by 15%. These percentages make up 34% of the annual salary one employee makes, so for a company of 500 employees – that’s a $12.5 million sacrifice per year. Salesforce is known for their superior automation capabilities and a study conducted in 2022 revealed that Salesforce ran 1.3 trillion automations which amounts to $2.19 trillion in customer business value. That’s 1.3 trillion times someone did not have to write an email, set a notification, change a status field, or manually duplicate data. Overall, this can save users 109 billion hours of work by automating processes.

Click here to learn more about implementing Salesforce.

Improve Communication

Communication is key; beyond letting your employees know what is expected of them, it’s also important that lines of communication stay open for updates on projects and deadlines. It is equally important to have strong communication with your clients as well, and having a reliable CRM can be vastly beneficial. In fact, a 2012 McKinsey study revealed that when workplaces are well-connected, the productivity of workers increases by 20 to 25 percent. Salesforce’s advanced capabilities capture and unify customer data across all channels for a 360 degree view of relevant information and makes it easy to share key information across your company quickly.

Utilize the Cloud

As we’ve learned, there’s no greater way to foster workflow productivity than by enhancing workplace collaboration. Cloud-based services allow employees to work from anywhere and on any device, making it easier than ever to stay connected and on-task. With easy access to real-time updates, working more efficiently has never been easier and it pays off long term. A recent study conducted by Salesforce revealed that when teams communicate with one another, productivity can increase by as much as 34% and increase company sales by up to 29%.

The digital world in which we live is continuously transforming at unprecedented rates, thus, it’s imperative that we not only stay astride, but uncover new ways to improve workplace efficiency and productivity. It may seem like a massive hurdle to overcome, but with the right resources and tools, you can set yourself on the path for improving your company’s workflow today. If you’re new to Salesforce and are looking to get started, or have Salesforce already but want to optimize your existing instance, click here to learn more. (But don’t wait, because time is money!)

Want to take your Salesforce org to the next level? Consider installing these apps for document generation, communication, optimization and more!