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How to Improve Employee Productivity through Business Process Automation

Doing dishes is almost a daily activity.

It’s also a repetitive task.

You soak, rinse, scrub with a cleaning agent and dry!

The steps involved are repetitive and can be easily automated.

The automated version of this process is called a ‘dishwasher.’ You simply set it up, switch it on, and voila! You’ve got clean dishes and more time on your hands.

Similarly, a business process is just a bunch of repeatable steps that leads to achieving a specific goal.

A process is not a one-time thing.

For example, taking inventory at a retail store is a business process.

Transforming raw materials into finished goods at a manufacturing unit is a business process.

Managing food delivery starting from taking the order, to food prep to transporting it, is a business process.

The common theme in all these processes is repeatability of tasks.

They are all also being managed by frontline workers – employees that don’t operate from behind a desk.

A business process has a fixed number of steps that are repeatable. This makes it easy to automate, or does it?

What is Business Process Automation

The process lifecycle in a manufacturing unit goes through a lot of changes.

The production process is initially very generic.

It usually includes R&D, testing and manufacturing.

At the manufacturing unit, the raw material goes through many modifications leading to the final product.

This process evolves through the use of automation.

The steps involved in automobile manufacturing are pretty much standard and repetitive.

A lot of these steps can be automated using production management software or robotic tools.

This is just one example of business process automation in an industry with deskless workers.

BPA is nothing but the automation of repetitive workflows.

This helps businesses improve employee productivity and save costs.

How Business Process Automation Boosts Productivity

Recruitment is an example of a tedious yet necessary business process.

Hiring new workers is crucial for any business.

Automation in the hiring process has helped speed up the applicant review process for HR folks.

According to CareerBuilder, 71% of businesses stated that automated candidate tracing software facilitated a better applicant experience to a large extent.

Automation in recruitment involves tools that use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to reduce time invested and thus, improves the hiring process.

When workers don’t need to learn routine tasks, they can channelize their time and energy elsewhere.

Employees can now focus on more complex tasks.

This improves productivity since the drudgery of doing repetitive tasks eases the overall workload.

It also frees up the mind leading to better creativity and end results.

Strategies to improve performance of employees? How to improve productivity? How to motivate employees?

These are questions that businesses are constantly grappling with. Here are a few ways in which BPA helps improve productivity:

1. Employees go through Business Processes more Efficiently

There is a biased perception that automation will push workers out of jobs.

Nothing can be farther from the truth.

It’s true that digital tools and machines are better than humans at mundane, repetitive tasks.

However, humans bring a lot more to the table that businesses are in need of.

In frontline industries like retail and hospitality, the human factor is much needed for good customer service.

People react better to good customer service executives than a machine that merely takes orders and gives recorded outputs.

However, business process automation tools do make workers more productive.

A study found that employees walk through an automated process more easily and willingly as compared to a non-automated process.

The time taken to complete all the steps in an automated process is much less.

For example, automating inventory checks in a retail outlet leads to faster execution and completion of this activity.

Manual inventory checks are long-winded and subject to error.

They can hamper the productivity of the deskless worker conducting these checks.

2. Automating Boring Tasks

Let’s cut to the chase.

Certain tasks like form filling or document processing can be rather mundane.

They may not require much effort in terms of creativity, but they do consume time and energy.

Doing away with having to perform these tasks frees up time to do more productive work.

Aside from time, the tedium involved in performing these tasks can be a drain on one’s enthusiasm.

This could also hamper employee motivation.

The greatest value that BPA brings to the table is the ability to automate routine, time-consuming tasks.

Automated form filling and data entry is a great way to decrease the burden of routine tasks on the employee.

This leads to better energy, productivity and focus on work that really matters.

3. Reduce Human Error

An automated business process results in negligible error.

Manual processes are subject to a certain degree of human error.

This quality of automation also leads to compliance and increased security.

The right automation roadmap helps mitigate error by a large margin, indirectly leading to better productivity.

Employees usually intend to complete tasks in the best possible way.

But they may bypass a step or try to speed up a process due to time constraints.

This puts the project or business in jeopardy.

Taking processes out of human hands means no step is overlooked and accuracy is maintained at every stage.

There is a consistency that is maintained through automating rote tasks like documentation and form filling.

In manufacturing, AI technology that automates tasks assists operations and prevents human error on the frontlines of a unit.

Business Process Automation Software for Frontline Workers

Frontline workers or deskless workers are everywhere.

From manufacturing line workers, to nurses, retail workers, solar technicians and construction workers, deskless workers form the crux of many industries.

Historically, the relative investment in software for frontline workers has been low.

This is because of the absence of technology that enabled adoption of the software.

However, today, most deskless workers have smartphones.

Vendors are therefore creating mobile-first versions of software to cater to their needs.

BPA software is also being given a mobile-first form.

This technology has evolved over time to serve deskless workers.

Real estate, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and so on have technologies that cater to specific workflows and processes.

On the other hand, timesheet software, calendars, task managers, document tools and collaboration products are more generic and not really industry specific.

Deskless work requires complex workflows.

Generic solutions do not cater to specific needs, and software needs to have the potential for customization.

BPA software needs to be able to pull data from platforms like CRMs or ERPs.

Scalability is another important feature lacking in many platforms.

The most important feature, though, is a software that was specifically created for deskless workers.

Groupe.io as a BPA Tool for Deskless Workers

For starters, Groupe is built for mobile participation and specifically for deskless workers.

Using Groupe.io, you can create customized, multi-step workflows.

Automate routine tasks to free up time for more strategic work.

Groupe lets you go paperless through digital approvals for leave, travel and more.

Moreover, it helps with process compliance by allowing for digital tracking of work status.

Groupe lets you integrate with existing platforms like Zapier, Salesforce, Zendesk
and more.

Groupe.io is free for the first 100 users and rolls out in 24 hours!

For more information write to us at [email protected] or sign up for a free demo today!

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