by Brandon Ling

Process design is often neglected by businesses. We all have a process for accomplishing our tasks, but we often don’t pay them any attention. Some people will wonder “What process?” because their actions are automatic and they don’t actively think about what they are doing. Process design and process re-engineering are tools that enable us to improve the operations of a business.

Process design for new hires

Businesses commonly throw people into their new jobs and either expect them to hit the ground running or take a while to get the hang of things. There are very few people who can seamlessly integrate themselves into a new position and run with it from the get-go. Alternatively, waiting for a new person to learn the ropes and reach a level where they are doing their job smoothly can be unprofitable and frustrating, but tolerable. There seem to be three common ways of training a person for a position. We can throw them in and let them do things however they see fit, we can babysit them until we’re confident that they’ve grasped it, or we can show them how to do it and hope they take notes.

Having a new person do their job however they want will result in people doing the same job differently. This lack of consistency means that it will be difficult for another person to pick up where the first one left off if they’re forced to take time off. The result is that work slows down, or maybe even stops, until the person returns. In the event that they leave the company, a new person comes in and either does the same job their own way or goes through a time-consuming process of figuring out the first person’s methods. Over time, with the former, there will exist several different ways of accomplishing the same job. For example, organizing important documents will be different depending on who did them. It would be like a library that had one shelf organized by title, another by author, and another by price. It would be insane.

Process design improves training

Babysitting a new person as they learn the job is extremely time-consuming and results in the babysitter’s job not getting done. It’s unprofitable, even though the new person gets trained in doing the job exactly the same way as the first person. However, we often keep how we do our jobs in our heads, and we don’t have a document to describe it. Also, we seldom think about how we do our jobs, which means that training someone else can take time while we try to figure out how we can teach them.

Another common method is to show someone, perhaps a couple times, how to do the job and then leave them to it. They may even take notes in case they forget something. However, it’s a waste to have each new person take notes on doing the same job. It’s like reinventing the wheel and it takes time for someone to have to show each person how to do it. Once the new person starts doing their job, after minimal training, if something should go wrong or if they forget something, the new person will come calling for help, taking us away from our jobs.

A better way through process design

A common problem when a business doesn’t utilize process design or process re-engineering is that the same mistakes or situations keep recurring. We seem to relive the same emergencies until we either become adept at dealing with them — or we don’t, and our business’s reputation suffers.

What if there was a better way? What if there was standardization between everyone who does the same job? Anyone could pick up where another left off without missing a beat. Time and money would be saved because people entering new positions would be easily and effectively trained in their jobs. This is what process design and process re-engineering enable. The wheel will no longer be reinvented. Rather, it will be created and improved over time to run more smoothly and effectively. Looking even bigger, process design can be used to create a replicable model that can be rolled out for expansion. Process design and process re-engineering, quite simply, make life easier for everyone involved.

Efficiency through process design

If your business is in need of process design or process re-engineering, please contact us for a free assessment. You can also learn more about our products and services to better understand how we can serve you. We look forward to hearing from you.