Three Ways Process Improvement Positively Impacts Employee Engagement

Addressing the employee retention challenges in a new way

There is no shortage of challenges for employers today to create a workplace culture that supports employee engagement and helps retain their best employees. Often employers think about their HR benefit programs and office social activities as starting points for improving morale. It’s less likely they take the time to understand the actual work being done by their employees, but they should. Automating and streamlining workplace processes can significantly improve employee engagement.

Let’s start at the beginning: Process mapping and workflow automation

Before we start improving operational efficiency, it’s important to first identify there is a broken process. Symptoms of a broken process are wide-ranging, so we put together a list of 14 tell-tale symptoms.

Once you know you have a broken process, process mapping is next. Process mapping is one of the first steps in streamlining a business process, and it really sets the stage for how you can impact employee satisfaction. The process map acts as your guide for effective decision-making with process automation. It will break down the work of your employees to the most basic steps to uncover inefficiencies that may cause errors, delays, and employee frustration.

The basic process mapping steps include:

• Observing and gathering information from participants in all phases of the workflow.
• Breaking the process into its unique tasks and decision points.
• Identifying who is currently accountable for each area of the process.
• Targeting inefficiencies in the process.
• Creating a plan for process improvement.

Through this system, employees at various levels in the company whose work is impacted by the business process gain greater visibility and understanding of each other’s roles and frustrations. Often, one person in an organization has no idea about the time and steps that are required by someone else in the organization involving a different step in the same process. Working through a process map with your employees shows you care about the work of your employees at every level of the organization and fosters an environment where your employees also care about how their work impacts each other.

And that’s just the beginning. Once the process mapping phase is complete and a process improvement plan is implemented, the ongoing benefits to your organization are numerous. We are going to focus on three – employee onboarding and training, transparency and collaboration, and elevation of employees’ work.

Employee onboarding and training

It’s not unusual to have an employee’s first couple of days filled with paperwork and forms. They are often stuck in a room checking boxes, reading policies, and signing documents. It’s not a great introduction to your company culture. By automating the HR onboarding process to complete many tasks electronically before someone’s first day, a new employee can spend a minimal amount of time with paperwork and instead get involved with their new team right away. It sets the tone for the rest of their time with your company.

Additionally, when processes are mapped, documented, and standardized, training becomes a breeze. Instead of spending time covering all the workarounds of a broken process, there is a clear workflow to learn. This also helps a new employee or someone in a new position have clarity in their role and feel like they can contribute to the organization right away.

Transparency and collaboration

No one wants to admit they are a bottleneck in the process, so there is often a lot of blaming and finger-pointing in a broken process. By giving employees a stake in mapping out the process, they can more graciously see where bottlenecks are and offer suggestions to correct the causes. The issues that are brought forth become less about the person and more about the process as everyone can see the full picture.

When you map and document work processes, it’s easier to roll out changes with buy-in, consistency, and accountability. Employees have better visibility into work processes and better clarity of ownership. When employees are brought into the mapping process and given the voice to help improve it, the entire system becomes more transparent. This leads to a more collaborative culture where employees have a clear understanding of accountability in the organization.

Elevation of work

Employees don’t feel fulfilled when their time is wasted on mundane and repetitive tasks. According to a recent Forbes Insight survey, 92% of organizations see an improvement in employee satisfaction because automation allows workers to spend less time on manual tasks and more time on high-value work. Incorporating workflow automation will allow your employees to contribute to the company where they add the most value – problem-solving, creativity, decision-making, innovation, and human interactions.

By participating in process mapping, employees also gain a greater understanding of how their individual contribution is important to operational excellence in the organization – and also how they might be able to impact organizational change positively in the future. Employees feel good when they understand their role and their impact to the company.

We also know that employees today want more flexibility in how and where they work. When processes are streamlined, automated, and digitized, they can be accessed from anywhere. An employee no longer needs to be tied to a file cabinet, and instead may be able to work remotely or from a different office location. This can greatly improve the morale, retention, and ability to hire for that role.

Getting started

Workflow automation can have many benefits, including reduced paper waste, increased profitability, improved productivity, and better customer service. But one of the greatest, and sometimes overlooked, is the benefit to employee morale and engagement.

EO Johnson’s Digital Transformation Consulting Team are experts at evaluating and mapping business processes. They work with your team of employees to identify the bottlenecks and create a process improvement plan that incorporates technology to streamline your business. Contact us today to map out your business process and start your digital transformation.