5 Ways To Minimise Business Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes, but if you and your team are constantly making blunders, you may want to consider putting some measures in place to reduce the chance of error. Here are just a few ways that you can minimise mistakes.

Improve your training

If employees haven’t been trained properly, you can expect more mistakes to happen. Make sure that you’re not throwing new employees into the deep end by skimping on training. If you’re unable to train them, delegate the task to a senior employee. You can also adopt e-learning resources that allow employees to train themselves (this shouldn’t be your sole form of training, but could be a useful supplement). On top of this, you can create a handbook that employees can refer to, saving them from having to ask you questions if they’ve forgotten how to do something (although you should be prepared to show people things more than once).

Encourage team communication

If your team aren’t communicating, people may get their wires crosses and complete each other’s tasks or attempt to do things on their own that they shouldn’t be doing. You can encourage team communication by adopting an open plan office and holding regular meetings. You can also use software to record progress, so that everyone knows where they’re up to.

Make tasks simpler with technology

There may be ways to simplify tasks with technology. Programmes such as this oil and gas production software are able to automate tasks and reduce human error. There may also be tools that can add precision to a job such as food thermometers in a kitchen when cooking meat or a laser cutting machine for cutting materials more precisely.

Introduce checks

It’s worth adding checks in place that can help to reduce errors. These may be checks that can be done individually such as a waiter reading back a table order to the customers before processing it. You might also be able to use signs such as a health and safety checklist on a machine, which employees can go through before use. Alternatively, you or another employee could be put in charge of screening tasks before they’re completed such as having someone else read and edit an article or having someone employed to check product quality in a factory.

Limit distractions

Distractions could also be leading people to make mistakes. Whilst an open plan office is great for communication, it might not be so great for jobs that require intense concentration. Having a separate space for these tasks could be beneficial – employees could take it turn to use this space. You should also refrain from asking employees to run too many errands – unless they are of utmost importance, keep a note of them and set them as a task at the beginning of the next day so that employees can schedule them in. Be wary that you may even be able to outsource some distractions such as outsourcing a company to take phonecalls for you and filter the important ones through.