2024 is here, and we are taking it in stride. One thing we are focused on this year? The ever-forgotten mailroom. Whether you’re in an enterprise, higher ed, healthcare, or government setting, an efficient mailroom is equally important. With looming cost uncertainty, staff shortages, and new technology, mailroom managers are facing a slew of challenges – our job is to bridge the gap! Here, our team outlines five essential strategies to help you overcome common mailroom management challenges so your team can master mailroom efficiency in no time. 

Addressing Staffing Challenges

One of the largest challenges facility and mailroom managers face this year is a lack of staffing. With 30% of facilities managers planning to retire in the next five years, vacancies are at an all-time high. Unfortunately, this has caused a gap amongst teams as those nearing retirement age struggle to adopt new technology while the new generation entering the workforce prioritizes it.

One way to address these staffing challenges is to utilize new technology in your mailroom! Not only does mailroom management software help you streamline daily tasks, it can help your team significantly. As a manager, automated workflows can reduce staffing requirements, and as a team, tasks that would previously take hours can be completed in minutes. Incorporating technology in your mailroom now also puts you in a great position for recruiting new talent who are already looking for technology-first companies.

Implementing Real-Time Mailroom Tracking

Lost packages have been one of the biggest challenges mailrooms have faced for decades. Every day across the U.S., a whopping 1.7 million packages are missing or stolen, yes, you read that right. Without real-time tracking, mailroom managers face a lack of visibility, increased risks of package loss, accountability frustrations, and more. 

Real-time tracking resources provide a huge benefit to your team, giving needed insights on exactly where a package is within your facility, along with detailed chain of custody, handling information, and more. Gone are the days of frantically searching for packages in a cluttered mailroom; it’s time to say hello to the future of mailroom management. 

 Enhancing Mailroom Security

A significant challenge that all mailroom managers understand is mailroom security. For those not in facilities management, this may seem small, but prioritizing secure package and mail delivery is a must. While important for every industry, mailroom security is especially critical for industries like healthcare and government, which frequently deal with hazardous or sensitive materials.

If your mailroom has dealt with the unfortunate reality of sensitive mail being misplaced or stolen or hazardous materials not being handled correctly, enhancing mailroom security should be a top priority. Of course, we are all about software here. By utilizing the right mailroom management software, you can track each touchpoint of every package seamlessly, keep track of handling preferences or requirements, and get real-time tracking across your entire facility, even when wifi isn’t available. 

Utilizing Modern Mailroom Integrations

Some things are just better together, and when it comes to mailroom management, we are a huge proponent of integrations. Another common problem you might be facing in your mailroom is constantly working between different software platforms or only having a point solution in place that helps a single part of your mailroom, leaving the rest to be done manually. Not only is this frustrating for your team, but can lead to operational inefficiencies and missed information from manual or forgotten entries. 

By having a central platform that connects to your unique mailroom tech stack, your entire operation can be streamlined at once. How cool is that? Whether you’re integrating with digital mail or shipping software or even connecting to smart lockers, working in one platform for your workflows saves time and resources and helps with employee adoption by streamlining the technology learning curve. 

Improving Cost Management in Your Mailroom

Cost management is one of the most frustrating parts of a mailroom manager’s job. Unfortunately, many mailrooms are underfunded, and when it comes time to ask for additional funding, data is king. Improving cost management is a two-step process: identifying areas where costs are too high and reporting on changes made to help your team gain funding down the line. 

Take a strategic approach this year and start identifying where your cost gaps are – where you’re using the most energy, cost of labor, and even software costs. From there, research with your team about where and how you can start getting these costs down. If you’re working with a manual process, this may take some time, but with the right software tools, your team can view metrics like SLA gaps with carriers, see task completion time by employees, and more to help cut costs. 

Mailroom Management Made Simple with SCLogic

Your mailroom and your team deserve the best. Our job is to automate your most frustrating mailroom workflows, streamlining your entire operation with one simple solution. Enter Intra, the mailroom management software you’ve been looking for. With detailed and industry-specific package-tracking workflows, we modernize your mailroom at every step. To learn more about Intra and see how we can assist with mailroom management for your team, schedule a demo with our team today or email [email protected] with your questions!