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How to ensure that your processes are supporting teams in the new ‘hybrid’ environment

Amidst a year of uncertainty, there was overwhelming evidence to confirm one crucial change- the future of work is hybrid. While many countries and companies maintain that remote working is a necessity for the coming months, it is clear that some element of face-to-face interaction is returning across multiple geographies. According to Microsoft’s Chief People Officer, “The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged all of us to think, live, and work in new ways,”, which is confirmed by Microsoft’s commitment to incorporate hybrid working permanently. What is hybrid working?  The BBC offer a succinct summary, identifying hybrid work as an increase in freedom and flexibility in both working location and working hours. Though this sounds fantastic to many employees, it can cause issues both managerially and in operations. To avoid potential silos, miscommunication, isolation, dropped productivity, and a loss of culture, your business strategy must account for the changed way of working. Moreover, employees are seeking increased clarity regarding expectations and support for hybrid working models. Thus, in order to reap the rewards of hybrid work, your business must be set up to support all employees. Examining and redesigning your processes is crucial to achieve this hybrid model in a structured, transparent, and clear manner.  Read on for the key to reassessing your business processes and supporting your teams.

Understand the skills, competency, and experience levels within your team

Invest time and effort into understanding the skills within your existing team. As a manager, it is your responsibility to ensure that both those who take to hybrid work naturally and individuals which require more assistance are accounted for in your plans. Gather insights about the strengths and weaknesses of your team. If you wanted a more structured approach, teams could work together to all conduct personal SWOT analyses. As a less structured approach, managers can ask for inputs casually about what employees really enjoy doing and their least favourite work. This often maps onto strengths and weaknesses. Rather than waiting for performance reviews, have honest and direct conversations with employees in environments which make them feel heard and supported- make sure that employees understand that their weaknesses won’t be used against them or their performance. Observe how they interact within their teams- listen and observe to learn more about team dynamics.  Consider this as an opportunity to take full stock of all the brilliant skills you have in your arsenal. Catalogue your resources and take time to learn about your people.

Map out your ‘as is’ process

To understand the current achievements and objectives of your business with clarity and transparency, map out your processes. As you learn to work with your new hybrid team, map out your processes as they are today. Understanding your current processes, the sequence of activities you take to create value, will help you realise what work is being managed by your team. Likewise, mapping out your processes will highlight critical stages within the business journey and illustrate where interaction between functions is necessary. Although the temptation to jump ahead to mapping out your processes as you would like them to be is great, make sure you resist making this leap. It is only by understanding the processes as they currently are in your business that allows you to chart our resource allocation and plan the journey from where you are to where your business would like to be in the hybrid future.

 Refine your processes

Having mapped your current processes, you have likely already identified where you would make improvements or changes. Take the time to go through your processes in more depth. Remember to keep in mind the purpose of the process and the start and end. There are many issues you may look out for, including:

  • Have steps been duplicated?
  • How does this split between the office and remote work?
  • Does this achieve the core purpose of the process?
  • Is this a realistic processes in a hybrid environment?
  • Can repetitive tasks or tasks with heavy paper load be automated?
  • Do I have enough people to carry out this process as it is currently?
  • What are the productivity levels I expect from this process?
  • Can I eliminate any unnecessary steps which are not serving this process?
  • Am I making use of cross-functional strategies?

Once processes have been refined and confirmed, you can start to set KPIs and then understand the possibility of digitalisation and automation.

Understand current productivity levels

Once your processes are defined and refined, ensure that you set clear KPIs which realistically reflect your team and their capability.  By using the process mapping to identify the scope of work and the resources to carry out this work, KPIs should be realistically aligned with these figures. Following such a process allows for the maintenance of high productivity levels without compromising on quality. Likewise, your employees are more likely to feel supported and listened to due to their involvement in the process mapping exercise. Set realistic KPIs and measurables in partnership with your team- this shouldn’t feel like an authoritative decree. Rather, employees should feel a sense of clarity and trust in the certainty this exercise provides. Choose a methodology which works for your business- we prefer the Balanced Scorecard- to ensure KPIs align with your strategy.   By identifying productivity levels once processes are optimised, you can also create a solid understanding of what will be needed to scale successfully or automate processes.

Identify if technology or automation can be used to support employees

IT is an enabler of efficient business processes. However, before you rush off to invest in building your digital arsenal, your core high-level processes must be understood. This will allow you to make informed business decisions about the appropriate level of digital investment. Anticipate a necessary level of digital investment for hybrid working, but ensure it works to support your business and your specific processes.

Follow this link to watch our short video on how IT and processes work together- https://bit.ly/34hjvfV

Once the processes have been finalised, it is then easy to identify possible areas to automate the process, this can be in a phased approach as business grows and enables scalability.

In many instances the process remains the same and IT becomes an enabler which helps the process to:

  • become quicker,
  • be more efficient,
  • improve accuracy,
  • drive profitability into the business,
  • improve customer satisfaction.

Reviewing the KPIs and looking at the process will enable you to identify tasks that can be automated and how they best fit into the overall business.

There is always a cost to automation but with a clear understanding of the benefits from a productivity and service perspective, it will become clear when the best time is to make the investment and the commercial benefits that will be realised.

This can be charted by setting milestones which indicate a need to automate. For instance, if the number of documents to be processed moves from 1 a month to 1000 a month, automation can be implemented. This will ensure that the employee can maintain productivity across the board. Likewise, the ‘when’ column can serve as a target date for this automation.

  Task Suggested Automation When
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The future of work can be equally daunting and exciting for your organisation. By implementing clear processes and procedures, you’re well on your way to supporting high-level productivity and ensuring that you create a system which allows the maintenance of your unique corporate culture. Prepare for the future and reap the rewards of a happier, motivated, and encouraged workforce.

For additional reading on hybrid work, why not have a look at ‘Making the Hybrid Workplace Fair’ in the Harvard Business Review.

If you would like any additional support in understanding how processes can be mapped and refined, contact us via action@identifyaction.com