Workflow automation has made an enormously positive impact on productivity within organizations. By automating the repetitive aspects of workflow management, employees spend less time prioritizing and organizing their required tasks. For instance, implementing a simple set of automated rules automatically adds tasks to an employee’s calendar as other people complete their portion of dependencies.
Ultimately, workflow automation makes businesses more effective because it makes employees more efficient. However, that level of efficiency is directly tied to an employee’s ability to modify a workflow.
If you’ve implemented workflow automation or are considering it, here’s why you need to empower your employees to create and modify their own workflows.
1. Only employees know the nuances of their workflows
While workflow automation is extremely helpful, it generally requires programming knowledge and needs to be set up by an IT team. Relying on IT to create and modify workflows means relying on someone who isn’t familiar with the processes that need to be automated.
Communicating the nuances of a workflow to an IT developer presents a set of challenges that often require extensive back-and-forth while the workflows are in development. In the end, there’s always some detail that isn’t quite right.
A more progressive concept that solves this dilemma is a “no-code” workflow. No-code workflow engines allow all users to create and modify their own workflows without IT support. Box Relay, for example, is a no-code workflow solution created by the cloud content management company Box.
With Box Relay, anyone can create a new workflow without any coding knowledge. The user interface is intuitive and offers pre-designed templates for standard departmental workflows.
Giving teams control over their workflow automation is guaranteed to help them get more done.
2. Employees don’t have time to wait for requested modifications
How long does it take IT to modify a workflow as requested by an employee? Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? For many employees, waiting even a day for changes can put a serious damper on their productivity.
When employees need to change an aspect of their workflow automation, that change needs to happen immediately. Giving employees the ability to make those small changes will directly affect their productivity (and sanity) for the better.
3. Workflow changes will be made correctly
Sometimes employees need to use a workflow engine for a while to see how it can be improved. As they use the workflow engine, they’ll notice plenty of small things that need to change. It’s better for the team when employees can make small changes immediately as they encounter each issue. Otherwise, they’ll need to document the problems, attempt to explain them in detail to IT, and hope the changes turn out right.
4. The entire team will work faster
When an employee can modify their own workflow, they’ll immediately improve their efficiency. When an employee’s efficiency increases, the entire team benefits. It makes sense, then, that enabling employees to modify their own workflows will have an immediate and positive impact on the team.
5. Broken processes will be identified quickly
Under automation, broken processes will become apparent to multiple people — both inside and out of a given department — rather quickly. After all, you can’t automate or streamline a broken process.
When broken workflow processes are identified, they can’t be ignored any further. If those processes have been broken for a long time, it’ll be a wake-up call for those who just want things to work.
6. Side-stepping will be avoided
Sidestepping processes may not be a big deal to some, but it has a huge impact on an organization’s bottom line. For example, say your marketing manager sidesteps the company’s official purchase approval process by emailing you for approval. To keep your records accurate, you’ll need to create a purchase request form of some kind to document the purchase request
Requiring the use of automated processes prevents team members from having to do extra work to make up for someone else’s sidestepping.
Individual efficiency creates organizational efficiency
The most successful businesses enable team members to make a number of decisions without consulting management, including modifying their own workflows. Employees who can modify their workflows without permission automatically speed up work and get more done. And when your teams are more productive, your entire organization benefits.
Photo Credit
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Guest Author Bio
Jamie Lansley
Jamie is a freelance writer who covers trends in business, technology, and health. She loves to go skiing, camping, and rock climbing with her family.
Recent Guest Author Articles:
- Empowered to Advocate: How to Become the Voice for the Silent
- How to Build a Celebration-Ready Wine Cellar
- Wander, Discover, Reflect: My Most Surprising Finds in Las Vegas
- Creating Meaningful Connections: What Ecosystems and Families Teach Us About Belonging
- How Breathwork Creates a Pathway Through Trauma: Beyond Traditional Approaches
Please Share Your Thoughts - Leave A Comment!