Navigating the complexity of hybrid working through enhanced operational management decisions

Stuart Pugh, Chief Customer Officer at ActiveOps, discusses saving valuable time and increasing the efficiency in business operations through automation.

Businesses are continuing to emerge from the latest pandemic wave. They are waking up to a new world of work replacing the traditional on-site, in-branch operations of the past. We’re witnessing a continued exodus away from the office, occasionally even seeing whole teams relocate to virtual environments. While the effects of COVID-19 can seem unpredictable, hybrid work is undoubtedly here to stay.

Overall, employers have been clear in their preference for their workforce to be on-site four or five days per week. But for many employees, hybrid work provides welcomed flexibility, wedging managers between the demands of their bosses and their direct reports. Failure to address this divide will mean potentially losing employees seeing less productivity and morale waning among remaining workers.

Adjusting to this new reality won’t happen overnight. But improving access to the data and information that managers use to make decisions is the most critical component for doing so successfully. Institutions can make this possible by embracing management process automation (MPA), which enables them to collect valuable workforce performance data to support managers in navigating the divide.

 

Supporting operational management decision making

In times of disruption, companies need MPA to support managers with systems, processes, and data that raise performance and, in turn, reduce the stress and pressure on managers themselves.

Businesses that access these insights will provide consistency across language, deliverables, tools, and processes, empowering their managers to see ahead confidently. And with tools that automate data collection, managers can improve their forecasting and make better decisions, removing the uncertainty from their planning process.

For example, when managers have tools that give them the data, they need to control production effectively, they can collaborate and borrow resources without fearing it will put them in a bad position.

 

Stuart Pugh

Consistency across the business

Organisations will often leave it to managers to develop their skills and manage in a way that they think is best. Using their own methodologies can hinder collaboration. The resulting performance variability and additional friction waste 16% to 22% of the time paid.

Consistency in performance is especially critical as managers contribute remotely and across different teams or departments. The modern enterprise must also exploit and leverage capabilities, capacity, and technologies across broader supply chains. Institutions must upgrade the systems that managers use to organise and orchestrate their work and resources.

Armed with technology, leaders can implement a digital solution that ensures the process is automated where it can be, is efficient where it cannot be automated, and most importantly, is followed by all. Formalising development and training in professional operations management gives managers the framework and tools to navigate new situations that come up during periods of disruption.

 

Promoting the skills needed for optimisation 

Managers are not only responsible for delivering against cost, quality, and service, but they have customer outcomes and staff to manage. Treating their role as a formal business process, one that they document and standardise across all departments, removes the pressure on the individual to do it all themselves.

Managers also play a crucial role in engaging employees and preventing voluntary turnover. To be most effective, they must build a baseline relationship and sense of connection with their staff and support them in meaningful ways. For example, a Culture Amp survey evaluated nearly 150,000 managers with over 2.5 million employee ratings across 2,700 companies and found three key factors that would make a direct report more likely to talk with their manager if they were considering whether to leave the company:

  • Showing a genuine interest in their career.
  • Genuinely caring about their well-being.
  • Providing regular feedback on how they were performing.

Deploying the right technology requires managers to commit to promoting it and that the organisation’s culture embraces sharing skills and resources. In turn, managers in organisations who are supported with the necessary coaching and development opportunities to achieve their full potential as influential, inspirational leaders can access the support of accreditation and benchmarks against which they can measure their growth and potential.

 

Managerial empowerment

Institutions are working hard to continue to deliver positive outcomes for customers, including seamless digital experiences and high-quality customer service resolutions. The more insight organisations can have into how and where the work is being done, the better it will be for managers, employees, executives, and customers alike.

Events in recent years have supplied the ultimate push of digital transformation for the new world of work, which has allowed order to come out of the chaos. Those resilient managers can look forward to supporting a more robust workforce, driving deeper employee engagement and attachment to the institution. The result is a more agile and productive workforce in a world where uncertainty still looms.

That said, the digital transformation journey is not just about the data you collect. It’s about the confidence you have in the information you collect. A true insight into operational data means the end of uncertainty for your managers and your organisation and a brighter, better future for your business, no matter what is around the next corner.

 

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