Over the last decade, the speed of business has increased by leaps and bounds; open jobs are posted and filled within days and contracts are sent and received within seconds. Despite the increasing speed of business, preliminary results from an upcoming survey conducted by DATIS have concluded that 93% of Health and Human Services organizations surveyed are still handling some aspect of their workforce management processes manually. While some stand by the mantra “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” the emergence of ultra-efficient workflow automation software has shown us that not only are manual business processes broken, but also how to easily they can be fixed.
Manual processes decrease efficiency and lead to three main business process failures; wasted time, information silos, and human error.
Wasted Time
Whether it’s the process of filling a vacant position or onboarding a new employee – these three failures can cause an organization to waste valuable time and resources. Many Health and Human Services organizations find themselves with unfilled positions due to high turnover and inefficient recruiting & onboarding cycles that are riddled with manual processes. Hiring Managers are often tasked with sending job descriptions back and forth to the HR Director and tediously prescreening each applicant before forwarding them to a department head for an interview.
Throughout the entire process, time has been wasted on menial tasks that can easily be automated. Workflow automation allows busy organizations to maximize efficiency in the business process.
Information Silos
The time spent performing manual processes also inevitably causes the emergence of information silos, where crucial information is virtually unknown to various departments of the same organization. Though information can now be shared and tracked in real time, information silos continue to cause communication problems and make interdepartmental communication an ongoing battle. For example, while HR is actively searching for the ideal candidate for their nursing team, Finance still may not have approved the salary needed to find this candidate, resulting in a complex situation once an offer letter is sent out or accepted. All the while, Nursing is still scrambling to keep up with the extra workload resulting from the vacancy. Workflow automation can unify the departments during these complex processes and foster transparency and understanding throughout the entire organization.
Human Error
In addition to these two main process failures, one of the greatest threats stemming from manual process is human error – the inevitable extra zero or accidental deletion of an important document. The more individuals involved in a process, the more likely human error will arise. The addition of manual and paper processes only increases this chance even further. With workflow automation, vital documents are protected and redundancies in the process are eliminated and thus ensuring the right person gets the information they need on time.
Workflow automation is no longer the future of the business process; it is changing the way we work right now. Workflow automation provides the structure, efficiency and accuracy needed to keep pace with today’s business environment. Unifying processes throughout various departments can eliminate wasted time, information silos and human error to create a more effective and successful organization.
This DATIS Blog was written by Zaid Dabus, DATIS, on August 10th, 2017 and may not be re-posted without permission.