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Automation – Define the Road, Get Rid of the Rocks
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During a program to improve
delivery effectiveness, line and project managers were surveyed
to establish which activities caused them most problems. The outstanding
problem related to recruitment of project resources at project start-up.
Client contracts required
very fast ramp-up and the recruitment process was bureaucratic.
Line managers also reported how distracting and irritating getting
new employees started could be. Recruitment as such was not the
problem; the issues were in getting permission to recruit, and then
getting the new recruit up-to-speed quickly.
An early discovery was
that a number of executive and personal assistants had their own
new employee task lists on a sheet of paper in their desks, unbeknownst
to the others. They had discovered that this was the only way to
be sure to cover everything that had to be done and that their bosses
were expecting them to make everything ‘happen’, as
if by magic. On the list were tasks like: get building pass; add
to payroll; get PC; allocate desk; get company LAN ID; get intranet
security authorisation; get mobile phone; arrange parking space,
register for new employee seminar, etc.
I ran a workshop for
people who were regularly involved in tasks related to new employees.
The first point of interest was how many people had to be invited.
By this time it was obvious
that there was no process, just a list of unrelated tasks to be
done by different departments, each requiring different approvals
and managed by different people. The new employee manager had to
bring everything together every time.
Using the working group
for input, a dedicated small team defined a workflow for the ‘add
new person’ process. This required give and take amongst the
group as traditional functional lines became blurred as the process
emerged, but there was quick recognition that everyone’s working
lives could be improved.
Once the process was
defined an executive process owner was identified and approached
to be the sponsor in the executive team. The executive was advised
that she would become the manager of the process and would carry
the responsibility for making sure everything was done on time,
regardless whether the delay occurred within her department or elsewhere.
In support my team would implement a web-based workflow system that
would route electronic forms as necessary by email, and would flag
delays automatically.
I then presented a request
to the executive to replace upwards of a dozen authorisations with
one front-end executive sign-off that covered all subsequent requirements
to get the new person up to speed. This appealed to the executive
team because it tied in with their headcount and budget control
activities.
To secure the new front-end
approval the hiring manager would have to check off everything a
new person would need on the approval form. This meant that everything
required was identified as soon as possible instead of as late as
possible. Those who had to undertake tasks could get started immediately
instead of finding out the day after they were meant to deliver.
Once the workflow was
defined, before we started the system build, we ran a dummy system
based on manual emails.
What we did not expect
was that the email system immediately took over as the de facto
system, because everyone knew who was doing what and they were collaborating.
The upfront approval meant they only had to wait for each other,
not for managerial approvals and hold-ups that had always been the
major cause of delay.
So we had a semi-automated
system up and running without further effort, and at very low cost.
The system monitoring tools were not there, but everything worked
so much better that those involved could deal with any issues amongst
themselves. The building of the web-based workflow system is another
story!
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