When training your staff to be more organized, there’s no doubt it will improve your corporate bottom line. Being organized helps save time and energy – resources that are in short supply in most organizations and in most of our lives.
At this time of year, many of us promise ourselves we’ll be more organized in the months to come. We visit the office supply store and cruise the aisles of our favorite container store, purchasing all the items we think we’ll need to pull it all together. We make big plans and go gangbusters for a few days or even a few weeks.
And then something happens.
It all falls apart, and we revert back to our old habits.
I am thoroughly convinced we revert back because most of us don’t understand how to go about the process of organizing – and this is where you come in as an employer.
According to Barbara Bergeron, a professional corporate organizer for Fortune 500 companies and productivity expert:
[tweetthis]Clutter is indecision.[/tweetthis]
In a recent interview I conducted with Barbara for our Market Viewpoint mystery shoppers, she suggests beginning with the end in mind, and to ask yourself: “What should the space I am trying to organize look like when I am done?”
To keep the space logically arranged, Barbara suggests that the key is to establish boundaries for the space, allowing only those things which belong there to exist there. She should know. As the President of SOS Organizational Services, she has been organizing corporate spaces for 20 years.
Getting on track to be a highly-organized department or company has 2 steps:
- Develop a training session to help your employees understand that organizing is a layered process, and that there are right and wrong ways to approach it. If your time and expertise in this area is limited, hire an expert to do this training for you.
- Establish a day on the calendar for your employees to put the new organizational skills they have learned to use. Encourage them to think about all the aspects of their workspace. This could include their desks, supply closets, email files, iPad applications, contact files, note-taking procedures in meetings, client files, etc.
Training your employees to be more organized is giving them the gift of a life-skill that will go far beyond their immediate workspace. It is a gift they will be able to use in their personal lives as well as their careers.
When your employees have more time and energy because they are organized, they can spend more of those resources on what matters most to your bottom line – your customers!
How do you help your employees get organized?
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