Digitising Business Processes: Reasons to Embrace the Future.

Digitising business processes today can help future-proof your organisation tomorrow.

In today’s connected, digital age, the importance of harnessing information technology to be competitive should not be ignored. However, for a number of employee-experience systems, it still is. Retaining a competitive position in an industry requires agility and flexibility, not to mention being up to date with technology. Digitisation and its resulting benefits not only support established processes but help build a strong connection between employee and organisation, while helping to reduce costs and improve the bottom line.

But what is digitisation? According to the Gartner Glossary, “digitisation takes an analogue process and changes it to a digital form”.

Digitising Business Processes is Vital for Longevity

Digitising business processes is a must for any business looking to remain relevant in an ever-evolving world. In fact, digitisation enables “faster access to information, better decision making, enhanced information security, increased mobility, automation of critical processes, agility, and disaster recovery.” More importantly, it results in organisational benefits such as:

• Improved engagement
• Higher productivity
• Lower operational costs

Improving Communication and Connection

An easy to access digital tool that opens the channels of communication between employers and their employees goes a long way to building a meaningful connection between workers and the business, creating a sense of belonging and boosting the employee experience.

Using a digital platform for internal communication also helps to eliminate some of the long-standing efficiency issues that out-dated communication methods have. Imagine the time lost to productivity when one has to share a memo in person using tier down methods, in comparison with sending the information directly to your people through digital means, ensuring that the right message gets to the right person at the right time. Furthermore, digital platforms encourage accountability and combat information loss since it is possible to determine that info was shared at specific times with specific colleagues and the message remains constant and not lost in translation.

Digitised communication provides the capacity for real-time replies, allowing for improved responsiveness and a faster, more efficient way to share information and ideas, and to receive feedback across various departments.

Improve Productivity and Efficiency

Paper-based systems that involve manually filling in forms, schedules, reports and logging incidents in hinder productivity. Such antiquated processes can, according to one source, result in “document challenges,” which account for a 21.3% productivity loss. Some of these so-called challenges include documents getting lost, not getting to the right person, and not being delivered timeously. The result can have a significant impact on efficiency and action, which both lead to lower levels of productivity but more importantly almost is employee dissatisfaction.

In addition, activities such as data entry and other processing that relies on manual updates or paper-based feedback benefit greatly from automated digital solutions. Not only does this tedious and repetitive work lead to problems involving human error, but it also results in skilled employees focussing more on the transactional aspects of their job rather than on the high impact needle-moving tasks. As such, digitising these processes allows for resources to be focused on more complex tasks while simultaneously optimising inefficient operations and combating data errors.

Now, imagine a digital solution handling previously manual tasks: resources are freed up and can be focused on improving the business. Moreover, a digital solution that allows the business to redirect resources to other tasks while reducing spend.

For example, in the case of physical documents, the storage prices and logistics involved not only cost businesses a lot of time but increase operational spending by significant amounts. While the initial financial commitment may seem daunting, the benefits of digitisation in the long run deliver more than just a return on the investment.

Improving the Employee Experience by Digitising Business Processes

Currently, only 17% of frontline workers say that they have a good or very good digital employee experience. The ability to communicate with all employees, even those on the frontline, drastically improves the employee experience, and this can be easily and effectively achieved by utilising a digital employee experience tool.

Improving this employee experience can have several benefits:

• reduce absenteeism by 41%
• enhance productivity by 17%
• boost profitability by 21%

A digital platform that reaches ALL employees, including those on the frontline and using the recently adopted hybrid working model, builds a connection between the organisation and its people, as well as between the people within the organisation itself. These build feelings of loyalty, belonging and having a voice, encouraging employees to become invested in the organisation.

The ability to reach all employees, to give them the tools to do their jobs better and more efficiently, and that saves time goes a long way to improving the day to day lives of employees, thus improving their experience

It is, therefore, crucial for businesses to recognise and implement digital solutions that enable remote, hybrid and frontline employees to be more connected, improving their experience and as a result boosting overall productivity levels.

Key Takeaways

In summary, the benefits of digitising business processes help to promote connectivity, employee productivity and collaboration, while encouraging effective communication and assisting in reducing overhead costs related to outmoded practises.

With the continued emergence of the digitalisation, it is important for companies to adapt their positions and provide digital employee engagement solutions that better connect them to their workforces if they want to remain competitive.

To find out how to build a better connection with the employees in your organisation, and digitise business processes, talk to an expert.