If you do the same stuff over and over, eat the same food every single day, watch the same stale shows day in and day out, sooner rather than later, you’ll be running around screaming bloody murder.
Depending on whom you’re asking, monotony is a sin, a dream crusher, a blood sucker, an insult to the creativity of the human mind. One thing is clear though, repetitive or boring tasks contribute a great deal to incidences of human error, most especially in the workplace.
The solution? Reduce the number of tasks your employees would otherwise do manually so they can work on more value-adding non-repetitive tasks through workflow management or BPM software implementation.
The benefits of workflow management
In today’s modern business landscape where data accuracy, planning and timely execution are the fundamentals to success, effective workflow management is critical, particularly for team-based tasks requiring collaboration. With the right software, management and administration of daily routines becomes a whole lot simpler.
Workflow management benefits to your organization can include the following:
- Increased efficiency
If your company is still manually tracking and distributing tasks via email or instant messaging, you’re probably not doing well on the efficiency front. While these forms of communication have their merits, emailed tasks can be lost or sent to the wrong personnel.
Even instant messaging cannot be too instant (pun intended) if the recipient is unavailable when the task is sent out. Besides, forwarding every single task to every single personnel already requires a considerable number of manned hours, especially for midsized or large corporations.
Automating task administration can result in more staff available to do more important tasks.
- Data accuracy
Because constantly updated files and documents are important when working with teams to ensure data accuracy at all workflow levels, automating your workflows also means keeping a single repository of all the information and documentation pertinent to each task.
This way, you know that the file you’re accessing is the most recent version, as opposed to scouring through several different emails and spreadsheets to find every bit of data you need.
- Real-time visibility
Status meetings, progress reports, project briefings that are oftentimes not that brief – for most managers, especially those unfamiliar with process automation, chances are these and other forms of meetings are the very things that make up their day.
Implementing a workflow management software means you have a peek into the status of every task under your supervision just by looking at a centralized dashboard. Your team members, depending on the authorization rights assigned to them, can experience the same level of visibility, reducing, if not totally eradicating, the need for constant follow-ups just so everything is crystal clear.
Graphs, charts and other reporting tools that are normally embedded in the software help with on-the-fly decision-making, like when a task is flagged as overdue or needing a major redo, reinforcements can be brought in to still meet deadlines and other targets.
- Team collaboration
When working with teams, collaboration is a must. Through threaded discussions, file and document sharing, and push notifications to stay on top of updates and status changes, collaboration becomes second nature to members of your team or department.
- Cost-effectiveness
We probably can all agree, repetitive tasks result in boredom, hence, errors. Rebuilding erroneous work from the ground up can undermine the progress of a workflow or project, and worse, can result in penalties and/or project cancellations.
You can even lose top-notch talent, which would then require you to onboard and train new hires to bridge the staffing gap. Trainees, depending on their level of expertise, can’t always be productive at the get-go.
Conclusion
If repetitive tasks constitute the bloodline of your business, workflow management through customizable BPM solutions can save you a lot of grief.
