Rework is the need to execute an activity again and constitutes one of the situations that most causes dissatisfaction in the collaborators of an organization. Keep reading and learn how to avoid it in your business.
Imagine that you spent days designing a project, modifying it and thinking about the best way to please the client. In the end, he tells you that the planning is excellent, but that you have to do it all over again using another methodology. Outrageous, right?
As they say, time is money, and when a team has to perform the same action more than once, it decreases their . This type of situation can be stressful, frustrating, and detrimental to business profits.
But do not despair, we are going to give you some tips in this post to avoid the damage of this problem. Follow us!
The main disadvantages of rework
Rework generates endless damage to your business. Look at them:
Wear and tear of the team and the relationship with customers
Rework annoys those who have to do the activity again and also those who request that something be redone.
The team responsible for the changes gets burned out and frustrated by having to do the same thing more than once.
A designer, for example, needs time and a lot of creativity to develop the visual identity of a brand.
Now, imagine the exhaustion of this professional to have to for the fifth time. It is to be expected that the commitment will not be the same as the beginning.
At the same time, the client will not feel comfortable asking for some changes for the fifth time and will begin to question the ability and credibility of your team.
Stress in the work environment
Rework generates a series of negative effects in sequence. The client gets frustrated with the result, the manager has to ask for the work to be done again, the team gets stressed because they need to finish this activity, but also all the other daily activities.
With deadlines looming, teams need to restructure, employees have to put in overtime, the manager needs to demand more. In short, this situation ends up generating a lot of stress and agitation in the work environment.
Additional costs
The rework can take on such large proportions that it can make it unfeasible to continue making changes.
When budgeting, the business sector calculates and measures how much the company spends to provide a particular service at a specific time.
Thus, it will be calculated how many hours the team will have to work to finish the project, in addition to the fixed expenses that must be included, such as electricity, Internet, meals, among others.
Therefore, when the conclusion begins to exceed the initially determined time, the amount paid for the service ends up being proportionally lower, and your business begins to suffer losses.
In addition to all these situations, there will also be questions that arise to find the culprits and those responsible for the rework.
These questions cause insecurity and anxiety in the team and in the client.
Therefore, once the problem already exists, the best attitude is to look for alternatives to solve it, and not to blame.
5 ways to avoid rework in your business
It is almost impossible to completely eliminate rework from the routine of a business, since the work carried out will not always correspond exactly to what the client wanted.
Your intention should be to turn large change requests into small changes, and there are some simple actions you can take to achieve this. Take a look at the suggestions!
1. Focus on planning actions
To avoid rework, the first step is to build an efficient schedule.
It is important to obtain all possible information about the work and that the process is planned in advance, avoiding surprises in the middle of production.
Many managers make a mistake, precisely, when trying to accelerate the planning phase and end up having problems in execution due to the lack of ideas to solve what is requested.
The creation of an efficient schedule makes it clear what the client’s needs are and how the manager can provide a service that meets them.
For this reason, it is also necessary that the data be documented, that there be a periodicity of meetings and that there be well-defined phases and actions assigned to each collaborator.
2. Establish stages in the process
After planning, it is necessary to establish the phases of the process. With this organization, the manager can identify the processes that require more time and more people and those that can be eliminated or reorganized.
In addition, at this point the actions must be assigned to people with very clear deadlines. This will avoid justifications such as: “I delayed my delivery, because the person responsible for the previous phase did not send me everything I needed.”
There also needs to be a formal agreement, outlined in the contract with the customer, on the rules for change requests, as well as the limit quantity of orders and the deadline for requesting them.
For example, state that after the final delivery of the project, the client will have three days to submit all the necessary changes at once. Change requests that exceed the established date will have an additional cost.
3. Carry out regular training
Rework often arises from the wrong or outdated way of performing some action. With them, the working mode of many segments has been affected.
To avoid this gap, the best thing you can do is conduct regular training for yourself and your team.
The trainings are capable of opening the minds of the collaborators to new ways of achieving the same result, in less time.
They also help people understand all parts of the process and can act collaboratively, not individually.
4. Automate some actions
Rework can also occur when there is a disorganization in the distribution of tasks. Therefore, it is important to use platforms and systems that automate and standardize some actions.
In this way, the entire team can search for information in one place and centralize the development of processes.
This is especially necessary in businesses in which several collaborators carry out the same functions.
In addition, these systems provide reports and data analysis automatically, avoiding calculation errors and incorrect data insertions by collaborators.
Another advantage is that this technology reduces costs by concentrating human resources on the execution of more important activities.
5. Keep communication open and clear
The truth is that much of the rework could be avoided by focusing on one very important part of all work: communication.
When it comes to getting project information from a client, resolving pending work early, or finishing a job quickly, people end up neglecting efficient communication.
This can be the cause of the rework: the lack of clear and open communication has the power to harm the entire process.
For this reason, it is important to value the questions, however simple they may be, to describe the planning and tasks as much as possible. But also, it is essential that the team is in tune and exchange information about the project.
In addition, the communication channel with the client must be direct and efficient. You need to be available to answer the team’s questions and give quicker ones, when needed.
Changes in your business routine
Well, as we have seen, an efficient management system and team organization can eliminate much of the rework.
By properly planning a project, obtaining complete information and keeping communication channels open, the possibility of rework in the process is significantly reduced.
After reading our tips on how to avoid rework, it is important that you continue to deepen your knowledge to improve the management of your business!
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