Much of the employees time at work is wasted on minor frustrations caused by IT issues and complex programs. IT departments are flooded with helpdesk requests, often due to inefficient processes. These issues, though small, add up over time, hindering both productivity and growth. By addressing these inefficiencies, businesses can streamline operations, boost employee satisfaction, and ultimately drive innovation and success. Let’s find out how you can make IT work!
Business process management at a glance
Although we spend about 8 hours at work each day, a significant amount of time is lost to frustrations, such as printer malfunctions, network failures, and tedious manual tasks. Ambitious and professional individuals actually spend less time on their core assignments and rather have to work as a project manager, IT-technician and cleaning staff.
Meanwhile, IT departments are overwhelmed due to a high volume of helpdesk tickets.
Since these minor issues are often dismissed, upper management remains unaware, believing everything is running smoothly. Slow and inefficient IT processes are the silent killer of joy and innovation. And when business growth slows down, it becomes difficult to link it to workflow. An external factor or a particular employee might take the blame for it.
Small streams make great rivers - and when minor issues are resolved, employees can become happier and more productive at work.
Why is it important to streamline business processes?
Increased efficiency
Efficiency is key to streamlining processes. It reduces the time employees spend on tasks, helping the company achieve their goals quicker. Streamlined processes also provide clearer expectations and purpose, keeping employees engaged and productive. With many remote workers.
Cost reduction
Streamlining often involves digitizing and automating tasks, reducing manual efforts. By eliminating redundancies, bottlenecks, and silos, businesses save time and resources, leading to significant cost savings on a larger scale.
Improved employee satisfaction
Streamlined processes enhance employee satisfaction by minimizing frustrations, fostering a more transparent work environment, and encouraging collaboration. It removes productivity barriers, enabling employees to work independently and advance more quickly in their careers.
Enhanced customer satisfaction
Efficiency from streamlined processes allows companies to deliver services faster with greater quality and consistency, leading to cost savings for customers. Additionally, it enhances customer service by improving communication and boosting the responsiveness of service teams.
How can you improve IT work processes?
The first step is to take an inventory. What systems are you using in the entire organization - everything from time tracking to data entry?
Then try to rank them in terms of efficiency, user-friendliness and the level of importance for your business.
Also, do consider the following:
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):Regularly review your KPIs to identify which processes directly or indirectly impact them. If adjusting a specific process can make a significant difference to a crucial KPI, it should be a priority.
- Feedback loop. Leverage insights from stakeholders and employees. Their feedback often highlights processes that, when optimized, can result in immediate and noticeable improvements in daily operations.
- Cost-benefit analysis. Make cost-benefit analysis a core part of your decision-making. Evaluate the impact of each pain point, such as delays or customer dissatisfaction, and compare it to the cost of fixing it, in terms of resources or time. This helps prioritize which processes should be streamlined first.
Besides analyzing the situation holistically and financially, you can also rely on data which reveals in depth information about the entire organization.
Being aware of the complexity of space- and office management, is the very foundation for launching FlowAnalytics. It can be used to monitor and analyze recurring issues, helping IT teams to identify and address underlying problems proactively.
By using data-driven insights, IT departments can anticipate potential issues before they turn it to tedious helpdesk tickets.
Map out the steps
Firstly, map out a journey from A to B that explains the necessity of the IT program and details each step. Preferably as a flow chart. It will help you to determine if the program is a must-have or nice to have. It also shows if there are other stakeholders involved or third party applications or suppliers.
A lot of cloud-based programs use these kinds of plug-ins, for example the time management tool Asana, which can integrate the time-tracking system Everhour.
Another automation tool that has gained plenty of traction is AI - which is everything from producing texts with ChatGPT to making Excel-spreadsheets. With the power to boost business processes, AI has turned out to be a cost-efficient choice which removes manual and tiresome work.
AI can master a wide array of different work tasks, such as:
Analyze data
AI can quickly analyze large amounts of data, providing valuable insights for process optimization that may go unnoticed by humans.
Predict outcomes
AI doesn’t just analyze data—it predicts. From forecasting sales and inventory to identifying potential bottlenecks, AI helps businesses stay proactive and prepared.
Task automation
While traditional automation handles repetitive tasks, AI goes further by managing more complex tasks and making data-driven decisions.
Continuous learning
AI adapts and learns over time. As your business evolves, AI evolves with it, ensuring your processes stay optimized and efficient.
Integration with other tools
Many business improvement tools now feature built-in AI capabilities, making it easier than ever to integrate AI into your workflow.
Ask for feedback
Feedback is helpful when it comes to identifying possible bumps in the road. Here are some questions to ask:
- What aspects of the current process do you find most frustrating?
- Which parts of the workflow take up more time or resources than they should?
- If you could change anything about how this workflow operates, what would it be?
When you have finished troubleshooting and analyzing the work processes, it’s time to make new decisions. First and foremost, do you keep the system and the general workflow connected to it? If yes, are there some steps that can be reworked?
The endgame would be automation, which means that no manual work is needed. Usually, some kind of automation software is needed, which makes sure that processes run smoothly. Some of them can be tailored to suit your organization’s needs, whereas others have more basic features.
Training and onboarding
Now it’s time to implement the new workflow! Don’t expect everyone to be enthusiastic, as most people resist change. Over time, we get comfortable with our old ways and turn down training to work in a new program.
The key here would be to highlight the efficiency and user-friendliness of the new workflow, and point out that it saves time and energy. Of course, it takes time to learn a new system, but in the long run, it’s better for everyone. Also make sure to give everyone proper training and let them get in touch with the help desk easily if needed.
Follow up and evaluate
Was the new workflow successful? Don’t forget to follow up after a while and measure results, both in terms of productivity and long term goals.
Take the opportunity to follow up with the employees, are they happy with the new workflow? Always encourage constructive feedback, which gives you the opportunity to make adjustments along the way.
Other areas of improvement for work processes
In addition to improving existing programs, there are other ways to enhance company efficiency. Have you heard about the lean principles - such as Kaizen? Kaizen is a business philosophy that focuses on efficient work environments. The core principle of Kaizen is that those who perform tasks and activities understand them best. Empowering these individuals to drive change is the most effective strategy for achieving improvement
The Kaizen philosophy includes quality control, just-in-time delivery, standardized work processes and efficient equipment usage.
The main aim of Kaizen is to drive continuous improvement through small, incremental changes over time. These adjustments don’t necessarily happen slowly, but Kaizen recognizes that even minor improvements today can lead to significant results in the future.
Improvements can come from any employee, at any time. The philosophy emphasizes that every individual has a role in the company’s success, and everyone should constantly seek ways to enhance the business model.
Many companies have adopted Kaizen, with Toyota being one of the most notable examples. Kaizen is a core value within Toyota, where all employees are encouraged and empowered to identify areas for improvement and propose effective solutions to enhance the production system.
Another common framework is agile, a project management approach that divides projects into smaller, manageable phases called sprints. After each sprint, teams assess their performance and adjust strategies as needed, fostering ongoing improvement and process refinement. This frequent feedback cycle allows for continuous optimization.
In the Agile framework, teams foster an environment that emphasizes collaboration, both within the team and with customers, as well as prioritizing effective outcomes. Agile values adaptability and flexibility, placing these above traditional, more rigid business methods, which enables teams to respond more effectively to change and deliver better results.
Let the employees make a contribution
To succeed with optimization of the business processes, it's crucial to involve the employees. Let them contribute to a more comfortable and streamlined work environment, in accordance with the Kaizen method.
Flowscape’s Fault Reporting System streamlines the process of reporting and managing technical issues. Employees can quickly and easily report faults directly from the mobile app or desktop, which are then automatically routed to the relevant IT support team.
This reduces the burden on the helpdesk by ensuring issues are correctly categorized and handled efficiently.
Improved business processes drive growth
Streamlining processes, automating tasks, and improving IT workflows can significantly enhance efficiency and employee satisfaction.
By addressing these pain points, businesses can empower their teams, reduce costs, and create a more productive and innovative work environment, ultimately benefiting both employees and customers.
Want guidance on how to set up your hybrid office for success?
Feel free to schedule a meeting with one of our product experts to learn more about our solutions and how technology can help you streamline your office processes without interfering with employees' day-to-day work.