Every year, Transformation Marketing sets individual, department, and company goals. Two years ago, our theme was “The Year of the Process.” During that year, we made it a priority to establish and document processes for all aspects of our business. Needless to say, I’m glad we made it a year long goal. It’s taken considerable time to really lay our processes out, make changes to them, be precise, and record them in a useable fashion.
Over the last two years, several things have become apparent about creating processes.
It has made training much easier.
I have to admit, training is not my favorite activity. For me, taking the time to slow down and explain does not play to my personality. However, now that we have defined processes that I know work, it is much easier for team members to pull our written processes and then walk new employees through each step. Training is much more thorough and takes substantially less time than it has in the past.
It has created more streamlined work.
I know this might seem like a no-brainer, but it is amazing how much working through our processes has improved organization. Not only have we improved workflow, we’ve found we can change loose processes into clear methodology as well as better distribute work across team members.
It has helped us identify where and when we need to grow our teams.
Utilizing our teams and defining each step in a project allows us to better understand how long projects should take. In managing a sales team, we can more clearly see how many projects each department can handle at a time and the work hours needed for each additional client or project. We can anticipate the change ahead of a bottleneck and then hire/train accordingly.
It allows better client experience.
As I mentioned, our staff is able to receive more comprehensive training when processes are clearly defined. We are more efficient in completing work and we can hire and train in a timely fashion. These are key elements in serving our clients the best we can. When clients call or we begin a project, it isn’t a “new” experience for our team members every time. They know the first steps in a website design project, how to begin with a new social client, etc. We utilize less of our team to start the projects because it is now clear who is doing what piece of the work. The client knows exactly who they are working with and our team is able to communicate what is needed at each step. That creates a comfort for our clients. No one likes not knowing what to expect.
It made us more profitable.
Finally, defining company processes assists any business’s bottom line: profitability. On average, it costs 6 to 9 months salary to replace and train an employee. By decreasing training time and allowing new employees the resources they need to understand their role within the company, we save money. By defining our processes, we found we had areas that needed improvement in work distribution. We were then able to address these issues, delaying the need to hire and saving us money on payroll. When we did have to hire, we were able to specifically determine what kind of position we needed and the role the employee would have within our defined processes.
I have also talked about servicing our clients more readily when team members know the entire process. This has been invaluable. After defining processes, we have seen three of our departments grow by over 60%!
Here are my last words of encouragement: You can do this! Set aside time each week or month and tackle one process at each setting. Then open it up to your team to help. After all, who better knows the hurdles your team faces than the team itself? My team has been instrumental in reaching process goals over the past couple years.
Here’s to a productive and profitable 2017.
-Shannon