How To Reduce Mistakes In Business
People make mistakes all the time, and generally, in the grand scheme of things, those mistakes don’t matter much; we’ll realize we did something wrong, apologize if need be, pick ourselves up, and start again, rectifying the mistake as we go. However, in some cases, that’s just not going to be possible, and when it comes to business, even a small mistake can have long-lasting consequences. So although it’s impossible to entirely eliminate all mistakes in business, as great as that would be, it is important to think of how to reduce the potential for mistakes as much as possible. If you can do that, you’ll not only be much more secure in your work, but you’ll be more confident too, helping you to move forward and take things to the next level, knowing mistakes are unlikely. With that in mind, read on to find out more about how to reduce mistakes in business so you can make the most of the freedom that can offer you.
Open Communication
One of the most important steps to take when it comes to reducing mistakes in business is to have good and open communication throughout your business. The more people can talk to one another and the more comfortable they are to ask questions, the less chance there is of any misunderstanding and mistakes being made because of a lack of knowledge or training.
It’s crucial in that case to encourage employees at all levels to share their ideas, concerns, and feedback with everyone else, including you as the business owner, without any fear of ridicule or retribution. This open way of communication is always a good thing for many reasons, including the fact that it will help to uncover potential problems before they turn into costly mistakes. Regular team meetings, brainstorming sessions, and plenty of ways to give and receive feedback can all work to make an environment where everyone feels valued and empowered to contribute and make the business as successful as possible, with as few mistakes as possible.
Invest In Proper Training
A well-trained and highly knowledgeable workforce is an excellent way to prevent as many mistakes as possible in your business; you might even think of them as your first line of defense against those errors because with the right training in place, everyone will just get on with their work in the right way, and you won’t have anything to worry about.
Ideally, you’ll provide comprehensive training to your employees, especially when they’ve only just started and when new processes or technologies are introduced into the business (which can be another great way to reduce mistakes, and we’ll discuss that in more detail later in this article). It’s also good to provide continuous opportunities for people to learn and grow their skills – you can’t (or rather, you shouldn’t) just train someone once and then assume they’ll always be up to date. The fact is that things change all the time in business, and software has to be upgraded, as does equipment. Unless you invest in continuous development, every time any change happens, your team will be left further and further behind, meaning not only that they’ll be more prone to making mistakes, but that your competition will easily get ahead of you, and you’ll lose customers as a result.
Implement Good Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
Standing operating procedures (or SOPs) are a roadmap for your employees to follow, and should cover every aspect of your business. You’ll write down everything they have to do in as much detail as possible, and this can be a great start to their training (although more will be needed, as we’ve said). Well-documented and clearly defined SOPs outline all the steps that have to be taken in various business processes, and when they’re followed to the letter, there’s far less chance of any mistakes being made due to human error.
When you write the SOPs, make sure they’re easy to understand by everyone who’s going to need to read through them and follow them, and ensure you have a good system in place to update them. Over time, all your SOPs are going to become outdated, especially as rules and regulations change or you bring in new pieces of technology and equipment, for example. The last thing you want is for your team to be diligently following the systems you’ve set out for them only to find that the SOPs are wrong and mistakes are being made because of that.
Embrace Technology And Automation
Technology can make a huge difference when it comes to how accurate and efficient your business is, so it’s wise to consider putting some tools in place that will help you automate your work in some way. Some of the most useful automation tools are those that take the most mundane and repetitive of tasks and do them without any human intervention needed. What better way to reduce human error than to take humans out of the equation altogether? By implementing a tool like an Amazon repricer, for example, you won’t have to worry about what your competitors are doing in terms of their pricing, or even what the market is doing in terms of costs, as your own prices will go up and down to reflect any other changes you want the repricer to take into account. That’s one less job to do and one less place to make a mistake.
Of course, automation tools are fantastic, and wonderful ways to reduce errors in your business, but you’ll still need the human touch. Automation can take care of the more mundane, boring tasks, leaving your human team to work on the more complex things that they might otherwise not have time to do – these are the tasks that need more creative thinking and problem-solving skills than any automation software, no matter how good it might be, would be able to do.
Encourage Collaboration Across Departments
Something else that can truly help when it comes to reducing mistakes is ensuring there’s good collaboration between different departments. This might seem like a strange thing to suggest, but when different departments check their colleagues’ work, they can uncover potential mistakes before they become something truly concerning that might be hard to undo or come back from.
It’s also great for different perspectives and expertise to come together because that makes it easier to identify gaps and vulnerabilities in your processes, so having regular meetings where different departments can come together and talk about their work can be an ideal solution and prevent a lot of mistakes from being made. Plus, everyone will feel as though they’re part of a larger team, making working together, in general, a much smoother process.
Learn From Mistakes
Although you don’t want mistakes to happen in your business, the fact is that they still will, no matter what measures you put in place – nothing and no one is perfect. That’s why, when a mistake does happen, it’s important to look at it as a chance to understand the root cause and then put in measures to stop it from happening again.
Make sure you have a blame-free culture in your business so your team members can report mistakes without any fear of what might happen – it’s far better for someone to report an error so you can work on fixing it (and learning from it) than it is to have them hide the problem which generally means it will only get worse, and you’ll have less control over your business as a whole.
When something goes wrong, try to have more than one perspective on the issue, as we mentioned above; it might be that looking at things from a different angle can prevent them from reoccurring, and there will be fewer mistakes in your business as a result.
Melissa Stewart is the founder of SheOwnsIt.com. She is a Purveyor of Possibility, Entrepreneur Advocate and Coffee Addict. She believes that behind every successful woman is her story. What’s your story?
