Poor processes equals pissed off employees! Pissed off employees equals pissed off customers.
We all have things that annoy us about our job. When you spend nearly 40% of your day (or more) in the office, you’re likely to find a few things frustrating.
An overwhelming 60 % of people said poor processes were the biggest frustration impacting their performance and satisfaction at work!
The reason for poor processes can vary. Knowing what causes these problems is the first step to resolving them. That’s why last week Tolero Solutions conducted a survey.
If you want your business to be successful – 60% is not a number to be unaddressed. Ongoing process improvement is a must.
In my line of work, I can confirm that process issues are one of the biggest obstacles affecting businesses today. This is why over the years I’ve helped businesses like yours improve processes – which improves employee satisfaction, increasing performance, engagement, and brand loyalty. Improving processes, and removing process redundancies and inefficiencies, also increases innovation, agility, and responsiveness. This all leads to increased customer service satisfaction, reduced customer acquisition costs, and increased repeat business and brand loyalty! All that leads to increased profit. For most businesses, increased profit is a top priority.
Processes drive the way work gets done. They support your strategy and guide your direction. They determine how you deliver products or services to your customers.
- Keep them easy to understand
- Keep them simple to execute
- Keep them non redundant
- Keep them value added
- Keep providing training
Without efficient and effective processes in place, your organization can lose productivity, inhibiting growth.
Want to ensure you have the processes in place to most efficiently and effectively get work done? Here are 3 things to consider:
Technology – Many process functions can be streamlined with the help of technology. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems can help to eliminate many process redundancies and inefficiencies. Often technology is the first go-to solution businesses investigate when faced with process issues. But just choosing a technology isn’t enough. You need to consider what solutions are the best fit for your business, and how to manage process and people changes associated with implementation, all necessities for success when upgrading or implementing technology solutions. You can have the biggest and best IT solution, a team with all the technology skills required, but without a focus and an understanding of people, process, and change, you may not have a chance to improve your processes and service delivery. For more on this topic feel free to review our IT and people checklist.
Education – Your processes need to make sense to the people who are utilizing them on a daily basis. They should be helping to make their work easier and quicker, not more complex or redundant. Sometimes a process may seem ridiculous or even complex and scary. Your employees need to understand your processes, why they exist, how to properly execute on them, and how doing so helps to make their work easier. This takes education and training. Part of education should allow for feedback as well. Mechanisms need to be in place, to allow those executing the processes on a daily basis, to provide input on how to streamline those processes and close any gaps. Communication is imperative.
Accountability – To resolve process related concerns that can negatively impact performance and delivery – people need to feel heard and people need to see progress toward improvement. Regardless if process frustrations are related to lack of processes, lack of training on processes, overly complex processes or poor understanding of current processes – someone needs to be accountable for process improvement. The business needs a voice and a face to employees (and customers) for process related concerns. Someone needs to frequently review current processes, analyze any employee or customer feedback, and make recommendations on how to continually improve.
Of all the things Tolero Solutions does – fixing process issues is one of the most impactful and often quick win things we can do to help your organization be more successful. Developing streamlined and easily understandable processes and training employees on how to follow them, goes a long way toward elevating frustrations and increasing employee satisfaction and performance, which is a great step toward creating a positive customer experience. A great customer experience results in increased brand loyalty, reduction in customer acquisition costs, and increased profits!
About Scott Span, MSOD: is CEO & Lead Consultant of Tolero Solutions – an Organizational Improvement & Strategy firm. He helps clients in achieving success through people, creating organizations that are more responsive, productive and profitable. Organizations where people enjoy working and customers enjoy doing business.
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