The importance of process improvement in change management

The turn of the year is often a time for reflection and transformation – but businesses must be careful not to forget the basics when launching their ‘new year, new me’ initiatives. Entec Si CEO Eman Al-Hillawi explores how businesses can improve their processes to help ensure they successfully deliver their change programmes.

Lacking the time to plan a programme of change that carefully considers steps from ideation through to granular level process requirements, is one of the greatest barriers for senior leaders looking to make business improvements. Much like living organisms, businesses must adapt to survive, yet many companies do not have the internal resource or skills available to allow for a holistic and focused approach to change, meaning that often their attempts at improvement are built on an unstable foundation.

One of the most overlooked steps by business leaders is considering the role of process change within their proposed strategies. Process change, or process improvement, is where businesses reflect on their current ways of working and make incremental changes to increase the speed, efficiency, and reliability of existing processes.

While many decision makers are focused on the desired outcome and method of delivery, they often forget to drill into the ‘nuts and bolts’ of how procedures and ways of working can support the change process. This is a significant risk, regardless of the sector or industry, as process improvement is critical to ensure consistency, clarity and compliance.

It’s particularly important when considering the need to encourage employee buy-in when change programmes are implemented. Usually, the success of a change programme is greatly increased when decision makers have taken steps towards ensuring existing members of staff are comfortable and confident with new ways of working, making the journey as painless as possible, and crucially ensuring it makes sense to them.

The best way to encourage employee advocacy of change programmes is through carefully considering communication techniques. This means being clear of who the key members of staff are that will supportnew ways of working and the integration of new systems. It’s important to remember that these specific stakeholders may be required to be trained ahead of the rest of the team, and by keeping communication open from the beginning it will be much easier to implement changes across a wider spectrum of people.

When managed carefully, process improvement delivers successful long-term benefits for both businesses and employees alike. On top of improving the efficiency of established ways of working, successfully updating processes are likely to boost productivity and introduce cost-effective systems that help to improve functions across an organisation. When delivered through a thoughtfully communicated plan of action, new processes can also result in better staff performance and higher employee morale, and in turn increase staff retention rates.

It’s important for businesses to remember that the change journey doesn’t stop at the point where staff members have adopted new ways of working. Continuous improvement should be embedded into the culture of every businesses to help respond to several internal or external stimuli such as the need to reach new strategic goals, reduce costs, support compliance and regulation or even support a merger or acquisition. This means that companies should continually review their processes in order to ensure that they are as efficient and effective as possible.

To remain competitive, businesses must be responsive to their market environments. By following a change management process, businesses can positively bring employees along on the journey. It’s therefore key that businesses communicate with key stakeholders transparently to ensure that workforces can adapt to the ‘new normal’. By carefully managing resources business leaders should be able to achieve the granular level of oversight required to successfully improve processes.   

Eman Al-Hillawai is the chief executive officer of business change consultancy Entec Si.