Work on your business structure to free up your time
Do you work long hours in your business without seeing the results you want? Do you find yourself spinning multiple plates with little time to focus on the things you want to be working on?
Business owners usually want at least one of the following things, which they aren’t currently getting: More money, more time, and/or less stress. The good news is there steps you can take to ensure you achieve your goals and build a business that allows you to live the lifestyle you want.
One of the important things to look at when working on building a stronger, more successful business, is your business’s structure. This means the different departments and roles within the business. Ensuring these are clearly defined will help your business run smoothly as everything is set out and clear, and it will help you get the right people doing the right jobs for them.
Why should we organise our business into departments?
Every business, regardless of size, has 10 different departments. These are sometimes known as “the ten hats” due to the fact that one person can wear multiple hats, but each individual hat can only be worn by one person. Every department has a clear role in the business, and there should only be one person responsible for each. For many businesses, especially smaller ones, the same person may be responsible for multiple departments, in other businesses there may be a different person in charge of each, and some businesses may outsource some of their departments. The important thing to note here is that the emphasis is on defining the role and procedures for each department, so the structure is strong, and hypothetically, the positions are clear enough that if you were to replace every team member the business could run efficiently.
Once you have your business structure clear, and departments are defined, you will be able to take off some of the hats and delegate roles to other people, freeing up your time to focus on other things.
What are the 10 different departments in a business?
The ten departments in a business are:
- Shareholder
- Director
- Leadership
- Product/service development
- Operations
- Marketing
- Sales
- Finance
- HR
- Admin/IT
(Whilst businesses which are not limited companies technically do not have shareholders or directors, they still have equivalent roles within the business, generally taken on by business owner or by someone they have employed to manage the business.)
You need to ensure that each department has only one leader and that all roles have a clear description and KPIs to measure success.
Key points to note when structuring your business
1. There can be only one leader of each department. This is to ensure clarity responsibility and accountability, and to avoid any confusion for the team. Remember, one person can be the leader of many departments, but each department should have only one leader.
2. Responsibility and doing aren’t the same thing, i.e. if you are the leader of a department, you are responsible for ensuring things get done, but you can delegate tasks to other colleagues
3. Roles before people – This means get the roles in order and find the right person to fill it after. Don’t shape roles to people as this isn’t sustainable or scalable, if the person leaves then it’s difficult to replace them
Do you want to build a better business?
Working on the structure of your organisation is one of the important steps to building a better business. If you would like to learn more, why not watch the recording of our educational webinar: Build a Better Business in 10 Steps.
You’ll learn the ten most important ways to make your business more successful and you’ll leave with practical strategies which you can implement so your business reaches its true potential.
The webinar lasts just under an hour and is free to watch.
Organisational Review Service
This has been a quick introduction to business structuring. If you would like to learn more and are interested in working on the structure your business, take a look at our Organisational Review service. If you’d like more information you can send us an email to info@rosslynassocaites.co.uk.
An Organisational Review will help you build a functional Organisation Chart which visually defines departments, key functions, roles and responsibilities.
We will help you to structure your business so that it is more sustainable, scalable, and, ultimately, saleable.
An Organisational Review is your opportunity to define clear roles and responsibilities and gain time for yourself to concentrate on key activities and revenue generation.
There is no better way to empower your team than to give them clarity around their defined roles, responsibilities, and career development opportunities.
Get in touch
As always, if you have any questions or need any support, please get in touch! You can send us an email to info@rosslynassociates.co.uk and one of the team will be in touch.
