As the nights draw in (sorry – but true) and with everyone concerned about the environment, the...
Your orders are increasing with productivity, output and client satisfaction levels being maintained to match. Excellent news. Big pat on the back for the management team and here is a lump of cash for shareholders.
However, your business is potentially due for a sudden fall, an unexpected blip. Why? Well it all rather depends on how the business increase is being sustained - are people (employees) simply pushing themselves to get things done. If so, there is an argument to say it is not sustainable.
It's all about processes, scale and employees
A few weeks back, I wrote a blog on the use of simple technology solutions, such as spreadsheets and shared drives, to govern processes - highlighting their lack of ability to effectively scale with growing business. With these processes in place (and all their glorious inefficiency) the main limiting factor in their effectiveness is the employee’s time. Therefore as the business scales up, the employee(s) spend more time doing these simple yet time consuming tasks, which in turn delays the more exciting, challenging, planning work unless the employee puts in more hours.
And of course, the more time an employee spends on boring, repetitive tasks and having to extend their work hours into their own time to complete everything else, then the less motivated that employee becomes over time to give it their all or even to stay an employee.
The loss of an employee can be costly. For a UK average salary employee, it is estimated onboarding costs £3000 (via a recruitment consultant) with an additional £1000 for training. That also doesn’t account for the efficiency of a new versus experienced employee.
Employees resigning is not the only potential resource drain. A lack of motivation has seen the rise of the ‘quiet quitting’ employee - doing the minimum requirements of one's job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary. If such an employee is identified the business either needs to find a root cause and resolve (remotivate) that employee or go through a disciplinary process to then rehire. Or management could have hired another employee to improve overall productivity if the demotivated one is simply misunderstood. All costly.
With a potential rotation of employees, ‘quiet quitters’ or even simply employee burnout from trying to maintain an increasing workload, it is easy to see how successful growth could be fragile and ultimately unsustainable.
Going back to my initial proposition, this whole ‘failure’ scenario could be easily avoided by taking simple steps (with technology) right at the inception - document management with business process automation. Using digital tools to centralise, secure and distribute organisational documents and automate many if not all mundane tasks related to them.
Rather than fully re-tread the details from our previous article (please do read it as a companion to this one), let us focus on the employee motivation aspect.
If you can keep an employee motivated by protecting them from over-working or extending, minimising the time they have to dedicate to menial, repetitive tasks and removing the potential for mistakes (stress + more work to correct) that inevitably creep in when work loads are high using inefficient processes, then surely that has to benefit the business in the longer term?
- Employee retention
- Scalable process without further investment or employment
- Protection against audit and regulatory issues
- Employees focused on sales, growth and customers, not admin.
- Ability to work flexibly without obstruction
There is also a multiplying factor to this - the more motivated employees there are then a happier cohort there shall be, thus creating a better working atmosphere and relationships between employees. Why is that important? In an EY survey from 2023, excitement, atmosphere and colleagues were the top 3 positive motivators for employees.
The good news is, even if you have started down the ‘dark path’ with inefficient processes, it is never too late to turn to the light and bring digital transformation into your organisation. As one of my favourite Chinese proverbs says:
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today”
Even if you have an existing Document Management System, if it is not in use across all departments and functions, there is still scope to benefit from improvements. If you would like to know how document management with process automation could increase efficiency by up to 80%, protect your organisation from unexpected costs and support successful, sustainable growth, book a free consultation with us at PacSol or simply read our free e-book.
Toby Gilbertson, Director. September 2024
#PacSolUK #DocumentManagementSystem #ProcessAutomation #Efficiency #EmployeeSatisfaction
