Understaffed? Here are Six Solutions for That
By Space Coast Daily // November 25, 2019
When it comes to ensuring the best work environment for your team, there are many factors that could make it quite difficult. One of the most pressing factors that many managers face is being understaffed.
Not only does this affect the quality of work and the progress of your business, but it also puts a lot of stress on the existing employees.
The last thing you need when you’re understaffed is having another faithful employee quitting on you, so you need to act swiftly.
If you find yourself dealing with an understaffed team, here are 6 solutions to solve your problem.
1. Use Technology for a Better Workflow
In this technological age, you’ll find a lot of tools at your disposal to facilitate your work, and the work of your employees. Such tools can act as communication modes, manage whole projects and their documentation, assign tasks and give you notifications regarding their status, and even cut down the need for many roles.
To make sure your workflow is smooth and covering everything you need, search for comprehensive tools that offer many services, and make sure these tools are compatible with your team members.
2. Outsource Tasks
Sometimes you’ll face a high workload volume suddenly, making you understaffed on special occasions or events. If that happens, perhaps outsourcing certain tasks can be your business’s savior.
Since customer service is one of the most important departments in a business, this is where you’ll most likely face a high workload.
Based on your needs, specialists in the field at Connect Communications understand that it’s important that a professional service can offer you a number of virtual receptionists to take care of your customer service and front desk management.
They can handle all of your calls professionally, transfer your calls, screen out nuisance calls, and brief you immediately after each call.
You can outsource a full service in times of overload, or you can opt for outsourcing single tasks, too. Instead of hiring a full-timer for a job that doesn’t require too much work, you’ll be better off by hiring a freelancer or a part-time contractor instead.
3. Manage Your Calendar
Good business planning ensures that your management goes as smoothly as possible, most of the time, which means that, instead of waiting for the storm to hit and finding yourself in a pinch, predicting when it will hit and taking preventive measure will be a life-saver.
If there are any upcoming occasions of high workload or vacations that most of your employees will be taking off, you should prepare in advance.
If you don’t have enough staff to operate, perhaps you should consider closing your office during those days or offering overtime compensation.
4. Overlap and Crossover Teams
What happens when an employee takes a sudden leave? If their work isn’t accessible to anyone but themselves and no one knows the related updates, you’ll be facing serious trouble. You’ll also face work delays if there’s an increased workload in one department, while another department may have a light load.
For these reasons, many companies have other members ready to crossover and take on the tasks of another employee who are not available, and they position their teams to overlap with each other to help in times of crisis.
5. Open an Internship
Getting extra hands and minds to help your staff doesn’t always have to be pocket-draining. There are many aspiring students and fresh graduates who are searching for ways to get real-life experience, and opening an internship can be the perfect win-win solution. Not only will they get an opportunity to build their portfolios, but you’ll also have extra members on your staff to handle your business operations.
6. Seek Staffing Agencies
You’ve always made sure that all of your critical roles are filled by qualified people. But sometimes the worst happens; they disappear and leave you hanging.
Finding adequately qualified people to fill in their roles can prove to be quite difficult. This leaves you in a corner considering whether you should wait, and risk having your business affected by each passing second, or hire the first candidate and compromise on the quality of work.
Having a strong connection with a staffing agency will solve your problem. With their wide database of candidates, they’ll be able to narrow the search and guarantee their qualifications.
There are quite a few things that can put so much strain on both you and your team members equally, and being understaffed is one of those unpleasant experiences.
To deal with this problem, you should use the latest technological tools to create a better workflow, consider outsourcing certain services or tasks, manage your calendar and plan in advance, and structure your teams to be overlapping and crossing-over.
If you’re in need of extra hands, you can consider opening an internship of seeking a staffing agency.
