As Scoro makes the move to a 4-day work week, we’re spotlighting seven key focus areas in order to optimize our existing processes. In this post, we’re taking a closer look at Automation.
With a shorter workweek reducing our working hours, it’s key that we re-evaluate our workflows, suss out any weak spots, and introduce automation in places that will make the most impact and increase efficiency.
Prioritizing automation for efficiency
The 4 day work week will leave our team with 32 hours to get work done – eight hours less than the traditional five-day work model. And though we’re anticipating a lot of advantages, i.e., greater work-life balance, flexibility, and improved well-being, we’re also mindful of the fact that a shorter workweek will leave us with less time to fit everything in.
By automating workflows, we’ll be able to free up time to focus on what’s most important and activities that deliver the most value. Time that would otherwise be spent on manual and repetitive tasks (invoicing, accounting, billing). As well as cutting back on our team’s workload, automation will also enable us to increase our output and complete projects at a speedier rate.
Outlining our objectives
When asked about automation in the workplace, we received an overwhelmingly positive response from our team – 85% of those surveyed highlighted that they knew how automation could benefit them. This reaffirms our belief in the importance of implementing an ‘automation’ squad to roll out our objectives and get our team involved in the decision-making process. Based on the feedback we received, we will:
- Establish an automation-first mindset in our team
- Increase overall efficiency, productivity, and focus
- Make sure our team is enabled automation resources
Our roadmap to success
To help us achieve our automation objectives, we have set out our roadmap to success. This includes:
- Dispelling myths: Making it clear to employees that automation won’t replace their jobs, but will help them do their job better. Educating them on the importance of automated workflows and that ‘automation’ isn’t a concept reserved for the tech team.
- Leveraging work management tools: Using our very own work management system equipped with pre-set project and email templates, invoice reminders and custom workflow automation to eliminate manual tasks that eat up valuable time.
- Having dedicated automation champions in each team: Working with team members who have an automation-first mindset and want to improve their team’s work processes by finding ways to automate daily activities.
- Automation training: Training teams on automation best practices and how to use specific automated systems to give them more confidence using Scoro’s WMS.
- Creating guidelines for automation: Setting out which tasks can and should be automated and which should be done manually.
Measuring progress
To understand the impact our automation-first approach is having on our team, we need to regularly measure outputs. Automation metrics will include:
- Staff surveys: Gathering regular feedback from staff via surveys on our automation initiatives and how much of an impact they’re having on their work schedule (are they more or less efficient?)
- Time saved: Analyzing how much time employees save with automation. Tracking how long it takes to perform a task manually vs how long it takes to perform that same task with the help of automation.
- Error ratio: Analyzing how many mistakes are made through manual tasks vs mistakes made once automation tools are leveraged.
- New work: Analyzing how much new – and value-driven – work employees are able to take on once they start leveraging automation tools. Tracking how many more hours they can allocate to impactful tasks (by comparing historical data from time-trackers and utilization reports with current data).
Preparing for challenges
As we begin to implement our automation initiatives, we’re aware that we may face a few setbacks initially. It may take some time for employees to get used to the new processes and feel comfortable automating tasks by themselves. However, by equipping them with the appropriate training and tools, we’re confident they’ll be able to adapt to the new frameworks and automate tasks with ease.
We will continue to share updates on the progress of our automation squad as we transition into a 4 day work week. If you’re interested in learning more about how automating your workflow can help you and your team save at least eight hours a week, check out our handy video.