Efficiency Improvement at the Front-Desk Department - Essay Example

Efficiency Improvement at the Front-desk Department Purpose I propose the introduction of automated systems to link the front desk department to other departments within the company. This change is necessary to automate services within the company to ensure that there is fast delivery of information within the company. The front desk department in the company does not use any automated services to connect to the other departments within the company. This has made processes between the front-desk department and other departments to be significantly slow and ineffective. This change will help the company save time and do more compared to the current situation. It will also increase efficiency because the front desk will only use automated services to communicate with the other departments. It will also ensure surveillance so that workers at the front-desk department do their responsibilities without wasting time. Problem The front-desk department at the organization has for a long time been ineffective creating losses for the company because of a waste of time. The main issue regards doing things manually at the reception. The company secretaries do not use any machine that links the department to other departments within the company. The only machine in the front desk area is a computer that is only used to record customer visits when they come to the company and employee attendance every morning when they report to work. The front desk is supposed to receive customers and potential clients, listen to their concerns and send them to the relevant departments for help or service. However, customers and employees have reported that the front-desk is very slow in their responsibilities, ignore their duties and are ineffective. The source of this problem is that the front desk lacks automated systems that could have helped the department to make the processes fast and be reliable. Because of this, employees at the department are forced to walk to other departments in search of important documents or to seek clarification over important matters that may not be appropriate for phone calls. This has seen some employees take up to 30 minutes when going to take important documents. They waste time along the way, tell stories during work time and deliberately take time to avoid doing much work. In addition, simple tasks that require a phone call to other departments are ignored. Instead of making the calls, the employees deliberately walk out of their working area pretending that they need to go and find such information physically. These problems have increased inefficiencies within the company. As such, other departments are forced to delay in fulfilling their responsibilities especially when they depend on the front desk department to receive important information on what should be done. This has seen some customers leave a negative review for the company and abandoned the company to seek services from the company’s competitors whose services are better, efficient, reliable and fast. This problem has become significant and requires a well-thought out decision that will address it and ensure that the department is efficient. The solution must ensure that this problem will not occur again Solution Automatic service is the ideal solution for this problem. This is the best solution for this problem because it will ensure that time wastage and inefficiencies are both addressed all together. This solution involves buying five computers and installing them in the front-desk department. This means that the front-desk will have six computers because it already has one that has been underutilized. These computers will be linked into the existing internet within the company. The other departments have enough computers and do not need additional ones. The company has a work mail that has already been developed to help employees share information in real time through the high-speed internet that has been installed in the company’s premises. The main idea is to implement an effective solution used the most cost-effective means to ensure that the company does not incur costs that can be prevented. Therefore, using resources that are already owned by the company fits into this plan. After the computers have been installed, the five employees at the front desk department will be trained on how to use them to communicate with other staff members in other departments. Employees from the other departments will also be trained. This training will take three hours because it will be on usability of the mail, which is not a complex process. However, this training will be done in different days with each department taking a day. This training will also seek to inform the employees of the purpose of the change and the issues that have led to the change to ensure that there is no conflict of interest in implementing the solution. Information will then be communicated to the other departments that any communication with the front-desk will be done using automated services and that physical communication will only be encouraged when required. The company will also install monitoring software that shows the kinds of communications employees have on the work mail and what they do on the computer during work hours. This will prevent the front desk employees from engaging from irresponsible behavior when using the computer. The CCTV cameras installed within the company’s offices will monitor employees especially at the front desk to ensure that they do not ignore clients or walk out from their workstations without a good reason for that. This solution will need resources because several things must be bought as explained above and also in terms of training. The table below shows the estimated cost of implementing the solution This solution will also have an evaluation part in it. This evaluation part will help to show whether the solution that has been implemented has helped solve the problem or not. The evaluation will feature both employees and the clients’ responses and views before and after implementing the solution. It will also look at the performance levels of the employees and the overall performance of the department. Conclusion The implementation of this solution will rid the company of the inefficiencies, slow service, poor employee performance, customer dissatisfaction and the loses that the company has incurred in the past. This solution is feasible and if implemented well will change the performance of the employees, increase efficiency, attract more customers and change the company for the better. It will make the company more profitable and also increase its competitiveness in the market. Read More