An efficient and productive workforce is made up of hardworking employees who share similar values and a strong work ethic. Unfortunately, many people mistake habits such as staying late, skipping lunch, and taking calls on the weekend as signs of commitment. They often also tend to mistakenly believe that more time working results in more work produced.
In many cases, these misconceptions lead to something else entirely — exhaustion, resentment, and low morale.
Do your employees work too much?
It can be difficult to know if your employees are working too much, particularly if you don’t work closely with them every day. Managers are often unaware of the stress their team members are under — and the resulting problems this can cause.
The rise of cloud, multi-application, and digital technology in the workplace has made people more connected, which in turn increases flexibility and adaptability. However, this also means it is more difficult than ever for employees to properly switch off and recharge.
This tendency to work too much leads to a host of unintended consequences.
Tired employees lead to less productivity
While the occasional overtime crunch session may be required to meet a deadline, excessive employee overtime can reflect poor organization.
Over time, a business will suffer if its employees consistently work excessive hours. As employees become increasingly tired, the output becomes increasingly inefficient. Basic tasks take longer, while the overall workforce becomes less efficient and productive. One study found that a 10% increase in overtime reduces productivity by 2.4%.
Disengaged workforce
As well as decreased productivity, regular overworking also leads to disengagement. When this occurs, workers can become unproductive, resentful, and unhappy on the job. Not only are disengaged employees likely to spread negativity among coworkers, Forbes predicts that a single disengaged employee, earning an average salary, will cost a business around $16,000 a year.
Human error
Tired or overworked employees are more susceptible to human error. Mistakes are more likely to occur if a team is uninspired and burnt out. Overworked employees are also likely to become frustrated, which can lead to low morale and an unhappy workplace.
A disengaged, overworked, or unhappy workforce inevitably leads to a reduction in overall productivity — a scenario any business wants to avoid. But how do you maintain a productive and satisfied workforce and keep productivity high? By understanding why your employees are overworked, then taking steps to avoid unnecessary overtime.
Reducing overtime hours: What successful businesses can teach us
Every good automation, time-cutting, and money-saving initiative starts with understanding what your people do, and the steps that they take to get their jobs done. And this is where your automation journey should start, after all, how do you know what to automate unless you know know the processes in the first place?
Assess employee workloads
One of the first things to do is figure out how much work each employee has on a day-to-day basis. Mapping out your employee’s processes with a tool like Nintex’s Process Manager will allow you to understand their workloads and identify areas for improvement and potential automation opportunities. Understanding the level of work your employees face is key to making sure it remains manageable. This information is especially important when considering whether and how much of any given employee’s workflow can be automated.
Remove manual tasks
Once you have mapped out your process and now understand full workloads, you can begin to identify key tasks that can best be automated.
A great example of this is Standard Bank & Trust Co., a Chicago-based financial institution with 37 branches throughout the Midwest. As their customer base grew, Standard Bank realized that they needed a way to automate tedious manual tasks — like closing dormant credit cards and identifying customer account portfolios — so their employees could spend more time focusing on higher-value tasks, including customer satisfaction.
Standard Bank turned to the team at Nintex for a solution. Using our Nintex RPA technology, Standard Bank was able to make certain processes more efficient. In automating their workflows, Standard Bank improved productivity, efficiency, service, and profitability. The team was able to reduce the amount of time spent on repetitive or tedious tasks — particularly those that did not make the best use of employee skills. This freed up Standard Bank employees to dedicate more time to customers, without being or feeling overworked.
This is a great example of how automated workflows solve several business problems at once. When menial tasks are taken care of with automation, your employees have more free time to focus on other responsibilities. Not only does this lead to a less frustrated workforce, but it also results in greater productivity and overall efficiency. Happy, productive employees make for a better working environment — and better results for your business.
Optimize business processes
Businesses use hundreds of processes every day to get work done. From storing contracts to onboarding new staff to destroying sensitive data — the list goes on.
Optimizing these business processes leads to many benefits including heightened productivity within your team and more effective working practices. But how and where do you start?
Digital transformation begins by mapping out your existing processes. Nintex Promapp®, featuring an easy-to-use, no-code interface, lets you build a picture of how information gets processed and how tasks are distributed. You can quickly and easily map your current workflows, allowing you to easily spot pain points that need improvement. You can then build comprehensive workflows that minimize these pain points by automatically sending information and tasks to the right people.
Work smarter, not harder
Our smart workflow technology ensures that every task in your workflow advances to the next stage of the process — maximizing efficiency in your business. We provide best-in-class enterprise workflow automation software to maximize return on your digital transformation investment. What’s more, our drag-and-drop visual design tools make it easy to visualize and automate even the most sophisticated processes, allowing you to go from concept to deployment in days.
If you want to leverage powerful and easy-to-use workflow automation software to streamline processes in your business, click here to learn more about what Nintex can do for you.
