Many managers are lost when a paperless system is automated. Their days of tracking pieces of paper around their office is gone, and they are left with a new paradigm. This change can be very hard for some, but it doesn’t have to be. Watching and studying the process before it is automated will give you valuable insight into how and what workers were doing with the paper forms prior to automation. We generally tackle this in a number of ways, depending on the process and location of the workers.
Staff in One Area
When all of the workers are in the same building or department, then visual tools are a great approach. With the use of video boards, jobs can be viewed in real-time by process step, enabling the staff to quickly see what they should be working on and in what order. The manager can also quickly call a staff meeting to review the most critical items to be worked on.
All Remote Staff
For areas like field service, a manager can still use a video board at their location, but the remote staff also needs to know what’s happening at a department level. By using similar technology to the video boards, field service and remote personnel can also see all the details they need in real-time. The manager could use the same technology at their location.
Takeaways
Many companies love spending money on paper. Reports that give the same information as real-time dashboards should be printed for those “executive” meetings, so everyone can review stale information. (We’re kidding, of course.)
This is one of the hardest steps in a paperless automation system. Your workers will buy in 100 percent, but be sure to engage the managers so you can fully automate their processes as well. The manager who wastes time moving paper around trying to figure out what’s happening with their workers will not benefit the company.