PROJECT CASES
Process Redesign and Developing Client Capabilities
PROCESS OVERLOAD
In a busy property security business, the directors realised that they were facing difficulties with providing staff to support their clients.
This is a 24/7 365day operation and providing suitable staff at all times was crucial to the success of the business. With some of their corporate clients, service delivery was reviewed each month. So having the appropriate staff with relevant skills and accreditations was an important part of the operations.
The business had a good reputation, with customers and employees, their staff turnover was one of the lowest in the sector. Even so, due to the nature of the job staff did move from one company to another and replacing them was a process that could make or break the success of recruiting new employees.
It is a growing business, and successful, but the directors realised that the recruitment process needed to be smooth, effective and more timely. As the business was growing the ‘recruitment load’ was increasing, and they were finding that candidates had already accepted other employment by the time they could offer the job to their successful candidate.
WORKING ON THE PROCESS
Solution
Working with the client we reviewed all of the recruitment process, from ‘we need a new person’ through to ‘Onboarding - Day 1’. This involved Operations managers, HR, HQAdmin and others.
One of the process elements we interrogated was the ‘make the job offer’; firstly, to confirm the actual process ‘As-is’ before trying to understand what was needed. Each task was mapped to ensure we had the right activities, in the right sequence, and to check how well they address the issues in hand.
Here’s a map showing one section (Post Interview) of the overall process. It’s a work-in-progress, of the design process [the To-be] stage. It helps us understand -
where there are issues (pale tab),
and sharing opportunities for effective developments (in green).
OUTCOMES AND CLIENT FEEDBACK
The project went on the re-create the overall process, removing tasks that were no longer necessary, and making the communications throughout the process much more effective, especially with the candidates.
New staff were now recruited more easily. The process would not now grow exponentially as the size of the business increased. Indeed in another operation, the recurring routine for checking staff’s licence validations and accreditations, the administration workload was reduced by some 80%.
Following a successful implementation, the Directors gave the feedback that -
“Taking a business–oriented approach we were able to identify processes which were good, which needed improvements and those that could be removed.
Not only that, through this consultative approach we developed our own capabilities in terms of a 'process perspective' about how we do things. Now we have effective processes to service our customers and clients, helping us continue to grow; and the capabilities to drive our own improvements”.
We were able to adopt a consulatative approach, sharing our expertise and really helped the company grow its own capabilities and prepare themselves for the future. We’re proud to have been part of the process.
