6 Automation Best Practices That Help Maximize Productivity in Your Business
Somewhere along the way, we started mistaking productivity for busyness.
More tools. More meetings. More dashboards. More noise.
And yet—our teams are tired. Managers are drowning in approvals. Employees are stuck doing the same copy-paste tasks they did five years ago. Everyone's working harder, but few are working better.
If you're running a company, leading a team, or trying to scale operations, this isn't a small problem. It's the one that costs you everything: time, morale, growth.
The Hidden Cost of Inefficiency
Why? Because it freed them to focus on real work which is: thinking, solving, and creating.
Now zoom out. If most of your workforce is stuck firefighting or duplicating effort, how much of your payroll is actually being spent on strategic value?
And it’s not just about morale or money. Inefficiency quietly chips away at agility. Projects move slower. Decisions pile up. People burn out.
We’ve seen it across industries: high-performing teams get buried in low-value work, simply because nobody paused to fix the pipes.
That’s what enterprise automation does. It fixes the pipes. But only if you install it with intent, leveraging AI-powered solutions.
Introduction to Inefficiency
What Does It Mean to Build an Agile Enterprise?
Agility isn’t about responding quickly. We need to design businesses that don’t have to respond at all, because they’re already moving.
An agile enterprise eliminates delays, reduces handoffs, and unlocks decisions at every level. You can’t do that with more meetings. You do it by making workflows so smooth, they’re almost invisible.
That’s what automation is for—not to replace people, but to remove the tasks that don’t deserve their time.
Platforms like Xurrent do this by automating things like employee onboarding, support tickets, approvals, and data handovers—so people can focus on what actually moves the business forward and transforms business operations.
The Quiet Revolution in Workplace Efficiency
The companies winning today aren’t the ones with the biggest teams. They’re the ones where each person can accomplish more meaningful work in less time.
The business benefits of AI automation are clear: it enhances speed, efficiency, and scalability, leading to a better return on investment (ROI) for businesses. Think about it: when was the last time your best employee quit because they weren’t busy enough? Never. They leave because they’re drowning in busywork.
According to Asana’s 2023 Anatomy of Work Report, knowledge workers spend 58% of their day on ‘work about work’—tasks like unnecessary meetings, duplicated work, and switching between apps.
And that friction isn’t just digital—it’s emotional.
Employees feel it when they can’t get answers quickly. When they have to follow up five times. When they’re forced to reinvent the wheel because knowledge is trapped in silos.
We can’t see automation as a way to cut costs, we need to use it to cut through the noise.
It’s how you help a smart employee stay smart, instead of dragging their energy through slow systems that weren’t built for speed.
Benefits of an Efficient Workplace
An efficient workplace can bring numerous benefits, including improved employee efficiency, higher productivity, and increased job satisfaction. When employees are able to work efficiently, they are more productive, and this can lead to higher profits, competitive advantage, and business growth. Moreover, an efficient workplace can also lead to improved customer relationship management, reduced errors, and enhanced decision-making processes. By implementing efficient business processes, businesses can reduce costs, improve productivity measures, and create a healthy work-life balance for their employees.
6 Best Practices for Making Workers More Efficient with Automation
1. Start by Automating the Obvious
If someone’s doing the same manual tasks every day—pulling reports, sending reminders, checking updates—it’s not a red flag. It’s a glowing neon invitation to automate.
Start there. Most inefficiencies aren’t hidden. They’re simply tolerated.
For example, a large Irish hospital using FlowForma’s no-code automation tool was able to digitize core workflows like theatre notes and waiting lists—reducing form-filling to under two minutes and saving hundreds of thousands of sheets of paper annually. This freed up clinicians to focus on patient care and eliminated outdated paper trails. Xurrent’s Workflow Automation platform works similarly, but helps IT and service delivery teams automates cross-functional workflows across multiple ITSM, ESM, and ITOM functions - reducing the manual load on delivering IT services across a business.
The most successful automation projects don’t start with tech. They start with observation.
Watch where people sigh. Listen when they mutter, “Not this again.”
These aren’t complaints. They’re roadmaps.
2. Measure Outcomes, Not Hours
If you’re tracking time and measuring how long people work instead of what they accomplish, you’re not building efficiency—you’re building compliance.
Automation helps you track what matters: completion rates, resolution times, feedback loops.
You stop managing time. You start managing impact.
When finance tracks how fast vendors get paid (not how many invoices were touched), or support tracks satisfaction over volume, they stop running in place. They start moving forward.
3. Don’t Add Tools—Simplify Them
SaaS sprawl is a silent killer. Every tab switch, platform login, and copy-paste kills momentum.
The average enterprise runs 200+ SaaS tools. Employees juggle 8–10 daily. This creates “attention residue”—a lingering mental cost of switching contexts.
Good automation tools don’t add to this. They integrate what’s already there.
That’s what Xurrent focuses on: reducing friction by creating one continuous workflow instead of a digital obstacle course through workflow automation.
4. Empower Employees with Automation, Don’t Sideline Them
Most companies miss this. They drop a tool in people’s laps and call it innovation.
But automation works best when built with employees, not for them.
According to a Zapier study, 90% of employees who started using automation in the past 18 months said they’d stay longer in their current role, compared to only 74% of the general workforce. Automation doesn’t just boost productivity. It also helps reduce burnout and improve retention.
People support what they help build. Let them guide you—especially the ones closest to the inefficiencies. Empowering employees with automation leads to efficient employees who contribute more and maintain high-quality work.
5. Let AI Take on the Cognitive Load
Repetitive physical tasks are obvious targets. But the real magic? When AI lightens the mental load with complex automation.
An AI that triages support tickets or predicts delays doesn’t just save time. It preserves attention.
You can be exhausted without doing anything. That’s what bad workflows do. They drain your team without output.
Every reminder, every update to chase, every status to check—that’s mental energy lost.
Let AI be your team’s second brain. The one that remembers and nudges. So they can think, solve, and create.
It’s the difference between remembering and doing.
Your top talent shouldn’t waste energy on digital housekeeping. They should be shaping strategy, solving complex problems, and having time to breathe.
When AI takes over repetitive memory-based tasks—follow-ups, escalations, handoffs—it doesn’t just make workflows faster. It makes people more present.
That presence is where the real leverage lives. It’s what allows an employee to notice a customer’s hesitation, or spot an opportunity no spreadsheet can surface.
And that’s not something you can automate. But you can create the space for it to happen.
6. Start Small. Scale Based on Success.
Enterprise automation isn’t a big bang. It’s a habit.
Pick one workflow. One team. Measure before and after. A good example of this is how AI automation enhances customer service through tools like virtual assistants and AI chatbots, which handle repetitive tasks and alleviate pressure on human workers.
Every success story begins with a team brave enough to say, “We can do better than this.”
Automation spreads best like an idea, not an instruction. When one team thrives, others follow.
Bonus tips for giving employees an edge in productivity:
Team Building and Development
Team building and development are essential for improving employee efficiency and productivity. Businesses can create a more productive and efficient workforce by encouraging employees to work together, share knowledge, and develop new skills. Moreover, team building activities can help to improve communication, reduce conflicts, and increase employee engagement. To develop a high-performing team, businesses can provide training opportunities, recognize and reward employees, and foster a positive work environment. By investing in team building and development, businesses can improve employee performance, increase productivity, and achieve their business goals.
Performance Tracking and Feedback
Performance tracking and feedback are critical for improving employee efficiency and productivity. By monitoring employee performance, businesses can identify areas for improvement, provide feedback, and develop strategies to enhance productivity. Moreover, regular feedback can help employees to stay focused, motivated, and engaged, leading to higher productivity and job satisfaction. To track performance effectively, businesses can use time tracking tools, set clear goals and objectives, and provide regular feedback and coaching. By leveraging data and analytics, organizations can make informed decisions, improve employee efficiency, and drive business growth.
Leveraging Automation Tools
Technology can play a significant role in improving employee efficiency and productivity. Businesses can boost efficiency and reduce wasted time by automating repetitive tasks, streamlining business processes, and providing employees with the right tools and resources. Moreover, technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation software can help businesses to improve data extraction, reduce manual effort, and enhance decision-making processes. To leverage technology effectively, businesses can invest in workflow automation tools, like Xurrent, that help to reduce menial tasks like prioritizing tickets, escalating issues, and automating assignments. Using low or no-code automation, IT departments, HR and finance can improve efficiency while AI handles the heavy lifting.
A Day in the Life—Before and After Automation Technologies
An HR manager spends 3 hours daily on onboarding forms. A support exec closes 15 repetitive tickets. A finance associate runs the same report four times. Everyone’s busy. No one’s effective.
Fraud detection is another area where automation shines, enhancing the efficiency of monitoring financial transactions.
HR flow? Digitized.
Support? Auto-triaged.
Reports? Scheduled.
No one’s replaced. They’re re-enabled.
- The HR manager now talks to new hires, improving onboarding and boosting retention by 15%.
- The support agent analyzes trends, helping reduce ticket volume by 30% in six months.
- The finance associate starts identifying cost-saving insights, cutting operational spend by 5%.
That’s the real ROI of automation. Not just time saved—value created from that time.
Getting Started
Don’t overthink it. Start here:
- Identify 2–3 repetitive tasks in one department.
- Talk to the people actually doing them.
- Choose a platform like Xurrent that integrates well with every business workflow.
- Define one clear metric—time saved, errors reduced, manual intervention minimized, SLA improvements.
- Track all of these metrics for 30 days.
If it works, scale. If it doesn’t, iterate.
You don’t need buy-in when you already have results.
Three Things Automation Doesn’t Mean
- It Doesn’t Mean Replacing People
Automation lifts your team, including human resources, finance and operations. It doesn’t eliminate them.
- It Doesn’t Mean Complex IT Projects
Modern platforms deploy in weeks—not quarters.
- It Doesn’t Mean Losing Control
It gives you more. Visibility. Data. Clarity. Insight.
The Bottom Line
If your people are efficient, your company is agile.
If they’re burnt out, your systems are broken.
Enterprise automation isn’t the future. It’s the fix.
Not because it replaces people. But because it frees them to focus on important aspects of your business operations.
And when people are free to focus on what matters, that’s where real growth begins. Ready to take the next step? Learn more about Xurren'ts Enterprise Service Management and Workflow Automation solutions that help the entire business run at the speed of innovation.