5 Tips to improve workflow for your enterprise

Workflow management is one of the most overlooked strategies when companies are busy with so much on their plate. A well-oiled system is the key to productivity and minimising errors. Workflow management could ensure a frictionless process when tasks are being assigned and followed up.

To have a great workflow management system, there must be a clear workflow design, and this is when workflow management soft wares could help by using automation to smoothen out and fasten the workflow process. Below are some tips on how to maintain a good workflow design:

• Have a systematic workflow which lays out clear steps one after another
• Ensure that the entire enterprise is part of it and everyone can identify their roles easily in the workflow
• Make it accessible to the entire enterprise to view and refer when they need to
• Automate redundant and mundane day-to-day tasks that take up a lot of time
• Promote accountability by ensuring everyone knows their roles and tasks
  Have an open communication for any queries

Apart from workflow design, there are also some tips below for creating a better overall workflow for your enterprise:

Give Employees Autonomy

Your employees would appreciate it when they have clear tasks ahead of them, which upon performing those tasks, could see that they have played a part in the betterment of the company. When you allow for this to happen with an appropriate workflow system, employees could take out the guesswork from what tasks they are involved in and could even be more motivated to go the extra mile to finish them early and put in their best efforts. This is because they could feel that they are contributing to the company and clearly see their role in the entire workflow system. With a workflow system software like Automate-Lah, dedicating tasks to respective employees would be at the click of a button and it can also allow you to monitor the progress of their tasks. Reminders could also be set near to a dateline and bump your employees automatically. Automate-Lah would give your employees the sense of responsibility they need and also bring in accountability so that communication is clear and there would not be any finger-pointing.

Split tasks into smaller parts

Some tasks may be more complex than others and it may overwhelm your employees. It is best to split them up into smaller, more manageable parts and once again make them see the big picture of how the small parts could lead up to and ultimately contribute to a final goal. Then, insert these small parts into your workflow management system or software, and start dedicating them to the appropriate teams. This practice could also help streamline certain tasks because when you break a big task into smaller parts, you can play the best to your employee’s abilities and dedicate the right task to the best person for the job. With Automate-Lah, priorities could be set and dedicated clearly to the respective teams which are best suited for the tasks.

Document your workflow for feedback

While tasks are being run, document the entire workflow process and also allow your employees to leave comments about anything they feel could be improved. This allows you to backtrack to the problems areas, should there be an error or poor outcome. This also saves you the time and effort in going back to find and locate the cause of problems through the entire work chain. At the same time, this leaves employees with a platform to voice out and give constructive feedback on day-to-day operations.

Make full use of Cloud technology

Gone are the days whereby everything needs to be stored in a physical hard drive. To improve your workflow, it is best to make use of the cloud to store your files and processes. A distinct advantage of this is the easy accessibility of the files from anywhere and anytime. This is especially relevant as we move forward into a time where working remotely or from home would be more common. This way, it improves communication between work teams and also allows them to have a safe backup of their work on the Cloud system.

Don’t hesitate to automate

A lot of companies are still hesitant to automate their processes simply out of fear that their employees may feel that their jobs are taken away, or simply fearing change. You could go about this by educating and communicating to employees about how automation could help ease processes and they could now spend more of their time on creative and mindful work instead of mundane and repetitive ones. Automation would also increase the productivity of your enterprise tremendously and cut out human errors which could lead to costs saved.

If you need help with building a proper workflow design, we would love to speak with you and tailor-make one to suit your enterprise. We also offer Automate-Lah, a customisable workflow management software, which could provide you with the features specific to your enterprise and save up on the features you don’t need in a standard workflow management software.