Maximizing the Value of Your Improvement Board: Tips and Tricks for Successful Implementation

Even successful companies constantly focus on improving operations and expanding their business. Company improvement should always be a priority, and if you and your team use a continuous improvement board, you’re already on the right track!

The sections below offer some tips and tricks for maximizing the value of your improvement board so you can utilize it to its full potential.

Encourage Communication and Questions

Improvements boards need to be safe spaces for free-flowing thoughts and transparent communication. If employees are hesitant to communicate ideas or feedback, the improvement board will be less effective.

The best way to foster transparency and communication in your improvement board is to ensure the board is accessible 24/7 from anywhere. Employees will then feel comfortable sending messages outside of office hours. That does not mean you or anyone else has to respond outside of office hours. It simply creates a more comfortable space to discuss ideas and improvement opportunities.

Also, encourage employees to ask questions, rhetorical or not. The improvement board should be all about posing questions concerning company improvement!

Set Quantifiable Goals

If your team feels lost about how the company can improve, setting goals is the best way to encourage new ideas. Even if your company is successful, there is always room for improvement.

Consider setting quantifiable goals that stay pinned to the improvement board. These goals could include:

• Reaching a 90% customer satisfaction score
• Gaining a 25% increase in website traffic
• Getting a 15% bump in annual sales

Setting these goals gives your team something to work toward and a problem to solve, which can spur creativity and new ideas.

You can set one goal or five, but try to keep your goals focused so the board remains productive and doesn’t get too chaotic.

Assess Customer Pain Points and Friction

An excellent way to determine your improvement goals is to assess customer pain points and feedback. Researching customer pain points can help your team build a better service or product that meets your client’s needs more closely.

Customer pain points drive company success. No matter how amazing or successful your product or service is, you can always find a way to make it more accessible and effective for customers. Or, you can create new products and services to solve pain points that your current product or service does not.

Pain points are problems consumers face that your company can solve. In addition to considering pain points, assess customer friction. Friction is parts of your process, product, or service that frustrate or inconvenience customers, such as a laggy website or annoying packaging.

Your team can identify points of friction by issuing surveys, reading customer feedback, and focusing on the company from a consumer perspective. Identifying pain points and friction is one of the easiest ways to find areas for improvement.

Map Out Company Processes

As mentioned, stepping into the consumer’s shoes and assessing the company from this perspective is highly beneficial. On your improvement board, create a detailed and comprehensive layout of each company process, such as the hiring, client conversion, or purchase fulfillment operations.

Every minuscule aspect of each process should be listed and explained if necessary. Having this detailed visual layout makes it easier for your team to identify friction and pain points, or even find opportunities to simplify the processes to improve the customer experience and save the company money.

Identify Opportunities for Technology

Dedicate a section of your continuous improvement board to new technologies and tools that could improve your company. Artificial intelligence is working its way into a range of industries in ways many people never thought possible.

When new and advanced technology trends emerge, add them to your improvement board. Even if you can’t identify a way to implement these technologies right now, having them on the board makes it easier to see their potential within your company.

It also allows all members of your team to consider these technologies and tools, as they may see an opportunity for implementation that you didn’t!

Create a Space for Brainstorming

Encouraging communication is vital, as mentioned above. But not every idea has to be sent as a message to the whole team. On your improvement board, create a designated space where random ideas can be noted and people can freely brainstorm. Brainstorming is a key process in improving a company. It’s also a free space to share ideas that can spark creativity and foster collaboration.

One team member may have a very loose idea for improving a company or creating a new service. If they keep it to themself, it may never blossom into a complete idea. But if another team member sees this loose idea, they may be able to build on it and create an improvement plan.

Monitor Results and Compile Feedback

Your continuous improvement board is not only for brainstorming. The board should also be used to monitor the results of an improvement plan. Not every idea is gold, but there is no shame in trying new strategies and experimenting with different techniques.

However, it’s crucial to assess how these new ideas work when applied to your company and scrap them if necessary. Create a section for each implemented idea where your team can note and discuss employee feedback, consumer feedback, and their thoughts. Use these sections to routinely revisit the improvements and optimize them.

After a certain amount of time, you can remove the ideas from your board if they become permanent or you decide not to use them. However, you can leave these sections eternally to use them as inspiration or continue to revisit and optimize processes.

Final Thoughts

The most important thing to remember about your improvement board is that it should be an open place where your team can freely share thoughts. Don’t stifle creativity or deter people from communicating, but create sections and spaces that keep things organized.

There is always room for improvement. A continuous improvement board is a stellar tool for consistently evaluating your company’s efficiency.

Leveraging Technology to Enhance Conceptual Skills in Management

Being a leader requires you to wear many hats. There is the obvious and proven skill set that sets managers apart from the others. But beyond that is having the attributes of a true leader. The ability to lead, motivate and show examples to others is critical.

Being a leader requires you to wear many hats. There is the obvious and proven skill set that sets managers apart from the others. But beyond that is having the attributes of a true leader. The ability to lead, motivate and show examples to others is critical. 

 Conceptual skill in management is also critical. Leaders must connect the dots and seamlessly navigate complex situations to solve significant challenges. 

Let’s explore conceptual skills in management and how to leverage technology to enhance them.

Understanding Conceptual Skills

A leader with conceptual skills can see complex scenarios with greater understanding than most individuals would. They can develop creative action-driven solutions for improved team performance and management excellence.

Like other soft skills, conceptual skills in management are not something that everyone possesses innately. For some, there is a need for training to develop the right personality, behavior, and interpersonal skills, such as:

• Creative thinking
• Good communication that requires effective listening and understanding
• Management skills to ensure optimal team and management performance
• Sound decision making
• The ability to be a motivator and mentor
• Critical and analytical thinking
• Innovative and technical skills
• Emotional intelligence allows for the monitoring and controlling of personal emotions within the work setting.

Role of Technology in the Development of Conceptual Skills

Technology is here to make everyone’s lives simpler. And that includes using it to develop conceptual skills. Here is how managers can take advantage of it.

Data Analytics

Conceptual thinkers approach issues from a big-picture perspective. They look at the whole before deciding the right action to take. Thus, data analytics would be one of the ways such managers can leverage technology. 

 Data insights can answer questions like:

• What are the connection points between the different issues?
• What are underlying or exacerbating factors that need urgent taking care of?
• Are there any patterns or trends that are impacting the present and possibly future issues 
• What future/emerging trends can the business leverage on, etc?

Conceptual skills management must have at its core data analytics. Critical information like business metrics, customer behavior, sales trends, and operational efficiencies give a comprehensive understanding of the business environment. 

Gleaning critical information from data analytics helps with data-based decisions. The managers get accurate information to develop effective strategies and identify areas for innovation or improvement. 

With predictive analytics, for instance, managers can leverage new business opportunities. Based on past information, the managers can get important information on what the future may look like.  

Collaboration Tools

Communication is one of the crucial factors in conceptual skills management. Indeed it is the main ingredient to enhancing team and management collaboration. Business success comes when everyone is on the same page. And that is where technology has a huge role to play. 

Nowadays, there are collaboration tools such as project management software, video conferencing, and team messaging apps that team members, even those working in remote locations, can use to stay in the loop. 

Giving teams access to such technology will open up communication channels. There is quick feedback and better collaboration because people don’t need to wait for face-to-face meetings to share ideas. That can be a massive boon to innovation, where members can share ideas, brainstorm, and much more. 

E-Learning Platforms

Continuous learning is one of the most effective ways to expand conceptual skills in management. And, once again, technology comes to the rescue. E-Learning platforms have opened up education like we would have never imagined. With the day-to-day work demands, it can be difficult for managers to return to physical institutions for education. 

But now, the ability to log into online workshops, online courses, and other training opportunities has eliminated so many barriers. Most importantly, the geographical barriers that place such an obstacle for many learners no longer exist. A manager requiring conceptual skills training in Africa can sign up for a course in America. 

So how important is continuous learning for both managers and employees? Check out these interesting facts on the impact on team and management performance.

• Learning and development opportunities come second as the most significant factor in employee engagement.
• 46% of respondents cite lack of learning opportunities as a substantial reason for the boredom they experience at the workplace
• 80% of people would feel more engaged if they learned a new skill
• 83% will be happier working in companies that invest in learning resources.

Virtual and Augmented Reality

Conceptual thinkers can break down complex issues into simpler ones. They should be able to look at a problem in its entirety and creatively come up with workable solutions. We reiterate the point that conceptual skills only come naturally to some. Sometimes it is essential to put the manager in the actual or simulated situation to see how they will handle themselves and, of course, the issues. 

And that is where augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) can save the day. The technologies create realistic, though simulated, immersive experiences. Such technologies are already finding use in learning curriculums like medicine. Nowadays, students no longer need to operate on a corpse. By wearing a VR headset, they learn from a virtual cadaver. The technologies are also helping early learners, remote learners, and many other professions. 

The managers can use AR and VR in soft skills training in areas like collaboration, communication, resource management, and problem-solving. The gaming aspect in a safe and controlled environment makes it even better. Indeed the possibilities for improving team performance and management collaboration are endless. 

Use Technology to Enhance Conceptual Skills in Management

Being an effective manager is much more than being good at the job. There are soft skills that neatly tie up the package of what a good leader is. One of the most critical is conceptual skills in management. The skills allow for better decision-making due to the ability to navigate around complex issues using creative thinking. 

Conceptual thinkers are also better leaders because they can inspire and motivate others. With them, team performance and management are collaboration rather than a master-servant relationship. Take it a notch higher by leveraging technology to enhance conceptual skills in management.

3 Benefits of Automating Hiring with Real Estate Recruitment Software

Keeping a full roster of talented agents has always been a challenge for real estate agencies. The business of real estate can be quite lucrative, and this attracts plenty of individuals who want to make their mark and elevate their economic options. At the same time, however, establishing one’s self in this hyper-competitive industry is not a walk in the park.

For many people, it takes years to build their network and develop skill sets that will improve their level of success. Those who aren’t able to keep up often end up exploring other career options soon after. As such, despite the influx of young talents who get into real estate, it’s still quite difficult to make sure that an agency has sufficient manpower. It’s no wonder, then, that recruitment is a major concern for agencies, especially when you consider that it’s a time- and energy-consuming task that happens year-round.

One way to make the task of recruiting future stars in the real estate industry faster, easier, and more sustainable is to use a recruitment program like BrokerMetrics. The use of such a program will help your company’s hiring efforts in the following ways:

It Consolidates the Team’s Tasks

Hiring is a very people-oriented job. It takes other human beings to make a meaningful connection with potential talents and convince them to become a part of a growing team of real estate agents. Humans will always be at the helm of every recruitment campaign, but the addition of recruitment software to their arsenal of tools can considerably lighten the load. This is because computer programs can consolidate into a single platform most of the work that an entire team of recruiters and HR personnel can do. For instance, recruitment software can be used to plan, post, and track the engagement of social media postings. It can also keep a detailed profile of each talent, as well as a record of their exchanges with the agency, and then determine the trends that influence a recruitment campaign. 

Having a program take care of these tasks makes it easier for a team of people to stay on top of all the activities they have to accomplish, thus increasing their chances of recruiting top talents. Since everyone in the team can view updated information about their potential recruits, they can also share tasks equitably among themselves. This kind of easy access to all the information they need enables recruiters to maintain a certain level of consistency when directly dealing with talents.

It Turns Data into Useful Information

More often than not, real estate recruitment software can be programmed to collect and compile information that can be used to design a more effective strategy. For instance, it can create a table that shows the times of the year when the team has the maximum level of success in recruiting talents. In turn, this can help recruiters evaluate their previous campaigns and identify what makes a particular period very productive. They can then use this information to tweak their schedule or refine their existing processes. 

It’s also possible for recruitment software to determine the amount of time that specific HR tasks take. If creating emails or scheduling interviews takes the longest, for example, then the team can use tools to automate and streamline this task; meanwhile, the rest of the team can focus on activities that directly impact the number of recruits for the month. Last but not least, recruitment programs can help HR professionals see if a particular talent matches the specific needs of the company during the hiring process.

In short, recruitment software are essential tools for understanding how to maximize the success of a recruitment campaign, streamlining the recruitment process itself, and ensuring that a recruit has the best chance of thriving in an agency.  

It Speeds Up Time-to-Hire

Recruitment is a year-round task for many agencies. For one, not everyone who gets hired can keep up with demanding work and the fast-paced environment typical to a real estate company. Some people may also leave due to personal or career-related reasons, like health emergencies or finding a new job at a closer location. It’s not unusual, then, for HR teams to handle multiple recruitment campaigns that are happening all at the same time.

Without the assistance of recruitment software, it can be easy to lose track of the numerous contacts and activities that a recruiter is handling. In these instances, a recruiter can forget to follow up, fail to set a meeting, or sound redundant to an in-demand agent. These mishaps can slow down the recruitment process and affect a talent’s impression of a real estate company.

The use of a recruitment program can address such issues, as it comes with various features which ensure that every potential recruit and task is accounted for. Thus, HR team members can consistently communicate with a candidate and do a better job of convincing them to join the agency.

A recruitment program is an investment that is well worth its cost. The addition of such a tool to an HR or recruitment team’s arsenal will help a real estate agency find the right people and grow its operations with consistency.