As a business owner, one of the most disruptive events to your organisation is the replacement of an employee. Aside from the potential loss of a friend or ally, there is the loss of knowledge and the automation of daily tasks that came from that employee knowing their job. The extra time required having someone ‘buddy’ the new employee until they are able to contribute fully and of course, the extra load placed on the remaining employees covering the leaver’s work is coupled with the costs of hiring.

A real loss in time, efficiency, revenue and experience.

Why do employees leave?

In a survey conducted by Investors in People (IIP), pay was of course still the number one reason why employees chose to change roles, however, within the top five are three reasons that could be influenced by the choices an organisation and its management makes with regard to business processes.

In a recent companion article, I proposed there are three types of employer - the good, the bad and the ugly. My reasoning for those categories is perhaps not as clear cut as you may think so do have a read as it leads nicely into my following thoughts today.

Working Hours

The last of the five reasons from the IIP survey is potentially the most influenced by business processes. Do employees within your organisation regularly:

• Start earlier and/or finish later than their contracted hours to extend their days in order that they finish the essential tasks?
• Make management deadlines for reports, ad-hoc requests, regulatory submissions at the last possible moment - occasionally late?
• Regularly push breaks late, cut them short or miss them entirely due to perceived workload?
• Often appear harried and/or disheartened at the presentation of another request?

These all might seem rather generic behaviours but they would be the most outward and obvious signposts that people - your employees - are having to extend hours to complete their roles. When this scenario is temporary (perhaps an unusual influx of orders or an extraordinary audit event), employees usually put up and get it done, however, it is when this becomes the norm and an employees work / life balance is regularly impacted, even their mental health, that action (to leave) is taken.

Management

The second most identified reason in the survey ties in with our first (working hours). There will come a point where employees have had ‘enough’ and will (and rightly should) turn to their management for answers. (Hopefully you have now read the previous companion article…)

A good management team or business owner will listen and seek to rectify the root causes of the work load issues. In some circumstances that might mean adding to the workforce (depending on the type of work), however, investing in an organisation’s infrastructure, business applications and the collaboration of IT systems will more often than not lead to greater positive outcomes for all. 

Conversely, bad management will just see the ‘cries for help’ as a bothersome noise from employees who should just get on with what they have been asked to do. It worked before so it can work now. Which leads us to…

Being Valued

When an employee raises a concern or highlights a regular issue and that issue is acted on positively, an employee feels valued. When an employee is consulted by management as the current process expert and involved in improvements for the benefit of the wider organisation, they feel valued. When management notices employees are under pressure, without any feedback from them and chooses to make changes for their benefit (involving them too), they feel valued.

Optimising Business Process for Wider Benefits

Okay, so if as a business you can’t compete with a flashy salary at a competitor or you simply don’t have the staff capacity to offer meaningful career progression, it's difficult to resolve those reasons for employee turnover, however the other three can be in your control and potentially ease the pressure on number one - pay.

With a little time, attention to your current employees and a bit of up front investment, there are far wider benefits to be gained than simply improving efficiency to reduce costs and comply with regulations. Sure a document management system (DMS) can provide up to an 80% improvement in efficiency and in some scenarios the ROI can be as little as 9 months (with financial benefits then extending for many years to come). A DMS can absolutely help your business instantly tick various compliance boxes and ensure you have all the audit, marketing and client data you’ll ever need.

Today’s focus is not on those benefits (and more which you can find in our blog articles). No, today is about the greater benefit to your employees and potentially negating those extra costs when one or more decide enough is enough.

Through the automation of mundane, repeatable processes. Through the integration of systems to share and update seamlessly. Through the deduplication of data and its centralisation in a secure repository. Through the ability to easily share, collaborate and control tasks from one source across the entire company:

• Give employees the tools to perform their roles within their contracted working hours
• Allow employees to work on the more challenging / exciting aspects without being caught in the menial drudgery of the day to day
• Give employees the opportunity to work from anywhere with the added flexibility of when that work is completed
• Remove single points of failure or information silos that prevent smooth business transactions
• Empower employees to continuously review and improve the processes within their departments and make those improvements easily for years to come
• Improve the execution of an employee’s role and prevent them having to give up their ‘life’, take unscheduled leave or even go elsewhere to protect their physical and mental wellbeing.

Sounds too simple to be true?

Maybe, however, if your organisation suffers from high staff turnover, regular absenteeism (especially Mondays), low moral / regular complaints through management and often struggles to get the most basic tasks finished on time, perhaps it is time to take a deeper look - not at your people but your process.

Partner with PacSol to uncover through our consultancy where business process is failing staff and allow us to offer a corrective solution - not just for the success of your business but the wellbeing of your employees too.

Toby Gilbertson, Director. November 2024

 

 

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