Process Improvement and ROI

The business process – a dynamic collection of automated and manual work steps – is a series of events specific to an organization that can either facilitate productivity or create bottlenecks to achievement for each stakeholder and participant. Inefficient business processes can wreak havoc on financial modeling, staffing predictions, and work delivery schedules. This not only frustrates internal staff, but vendors and business partners as well.

As you build a strategy to achieve HR best practice, consider the following:

• Business processes are interrelated, so expect some anxiety
• Existing company culture can hinder or help with user acceptability
• While best practice adoption can be difficult, the payoffs can be tremendous
• If HR is truly a strategic business partner, buy-in will be easier
• Implementation steps can be “phased in”, allowing the organization to adapt

Instituting HR best practices requires an empowered, focused team that can differentiate between strategic and tactical processes and how they should be administered. It might be strategic for an organization to outsource a large part of its HR operations in order to leverage key resources for other critical business objectives. Conversely, a business concerned with worker productivity may wish to install onsite software to closely monitor employee performance against expected job competencies and goals.

Reaching best practice for a particular business process begins with an analysis of how the organization manages workflow and performance – at every level. Best practice, for example, does not necessarily mean printing paychecks faster, it could lead to outsourcing the entire function.

A meaningful analysis of each business process should identify:

• Process initiator (who or what causes the work)
• Process step owner (detailed breakdown of workflow)
• Financial investment (cost of each process step)
• Current relevance (based upon tradition or need?)
• Impact on existing stakeholders (critical business integration)

WorkStrategy approaches business process improvement in a two-fold way — diagramming & documenting the existing flow or transaction and providing recommendations for leveraging HR technology to streamline the action or task.
Our HR practitioners work with your HR, HRIS, and IT staff to incorporate your organizational culture and corporate branding — developing a project roadmap and instituting new procedures.

To request more information about our Process Improvement Services, click here.