COVID-19: Are Your People Really Equipped to Work at Home?

Summary: Daily operations of many companies run on business processes that have evolved over many years and have, almost inadvertently, relied on social interaction in an office environment. As office workers now attempt to work from home, and without the convenient social interaction of the office environment, processes are breaking down and companies are realizing their process weaknesses. Fortunately, the more responsive and ingenious leaders have the tools to fill process gaps that have resulted from social distancing. Those companies will emerge on the other side of this pandemic with improved processes and better performance.

Many Business Processes Rely Heavily on Social Interaction

How much do your current business processes rely on human interaction? Do your people rely on verbal, face-to-face human interaction to manage every-day tasks? Do your office workers rely on casual conversation with colleagues to understand every-day business issues or business opportunities, and depend on word-of-mouth collaboration to determine how to best manage these issues and opportunities?

Our current work-from-home environment for office workers is revealing business process weaknesses that are jeopardizing company performance at this very delicate time. Many businesses are struggling under today’s reality, but some are experiencing more pain than others. To be blunt, companies with business processes that rely heavily on face-to-face human interaction and collaboration to manage day-to-day operational tasks are finding today’s environment of social distancing to be extremely challenging.

A newfound reality is that many businesses are not equipped to enable people to work effectively from home. An issue that is surfacing is that many day-to-day business processes depend on casual face-to-face human interaction.

Our New Reality

It has been a month since the US and most of the world were besieged with the reality of a world-wide pandemic. Millions of people are essentially confined to their homes, and businesses everywhere have either shut down or dramatically changed the way they do business in order to slow the spread of the potentially fatal virus.

Some of us, including myself, are fortunate enough to regularly work from home. Adjusting to our “new normal” is not so difficult. Of course, we all wonder what our new normal will look like as the virus slows and people go back to work. What will “work” look like? Will it be exactly like it was a couple of months ago? Or will there be changes based upon our recent experiences amid the realities of a world threatened by an unseen enemy.

We Have the Technology – So What’s the Problem?

The reality for many companies is that existing systems, processes, procedures, and work habits evolved in an office environment where people worked in close proximity and openly shared knowledge of events and circumstances that pertain to operations. People talked about that new large customer order that was just received, the production machine that just broke down on the plant floor, the cycle count transaction that just wiped out a day’s supply of inventory. And so on.

These informal and unstructured daily communications of important operational information are crucial for running many businesses. Sure, people at home can connect to their company systems and view reports and perform some routine tasks. But how does someone find out about a significant issue or opportunity that requires attention? How do they gather information that previously required a quick trip to the receiving dock? How do they get advice from the more senior person or mentor who was in the next cubicle?

What happens when “office” people begin to work alone in their homes and these casual communication lines break down or cease to exist? Odds are that everything goes well on day 1, things begin to fall through the cracks on day 2, and by day 3, people begin to feel blind and uninformed in regard to what is really happening as well as what is not happening. Process failures begin. Customer service issues arise. Expediting of inbound and outbound materials becomes more prevalent. Last minute schedule changes result in unscheduled changeovers and employee overtime. The due date for an important customer quote request passes without being responded to. It seems the processes used by the company for years are now failing.

An Opportunity to Improve Business Processes

Our current reality of working-from-home is exposing flaws in the way companies run on a day-to-day basis. Or put another way, our new reality is offering opportunities to improve information flows within companies without depending on word-of-mouth methods. In a completely digital environment, one should not need to rely on word-of-mouth, casual conversation, or being able to see the shop floor or warehouse. An office worker in 2020 should not rely on a post-it note from a colleague to let them know an issue needs to be resolved. We are social creatures, so verbal communication will always exist, but we should not rely on it for managing daily operations especially for mission critical performance areas.

So what can be done about this? How do companies re-engineer processes to be more reliable, consistent, and more efficient for the office employee working from home? The following are some ideas for reducing the reliance on word-of-mouth information in business processes:

• A Real Real-Time Environment – Yeah, I know. We have all been talking about real-time data and information for years. But the reality is that many companies still run in batch mode or with periodic updates of inventory transactions. This is especially typical for production postings and supplier receipts. The point is that if system users suspect that transactions are not entered and processed as they actually happen, then they cannot really trust system data as complete and/or accurate. A quick walk out to the receiving dock to check inventory is not convenient when at home. Making informed decisions and acting confidently depends on having high-quality, trusted data. The power of today’s systems makes it possible to maintain a “digital twin” of your operations.
• Flexible Notifications and System Interaction – People need proactive applications that notify them when something needs to be addressed or when circumstances and events have varied from planned activities. The user experience (or user interface, as we used to say), needs to alert people of specific issues that threaten company performance or offer a business opportunity. These processes cannot rely solely on human interaction. Fortunately, the power of today’s hardware and software is capable of supporting real-time transaction processing (see above) and also triggering alert notifications as things actually happen.
• Guided Standard Procedures – Standardization of business processes and reduction of process variation continues to be objectives for process-oriented companies. Business Process Management (BPM) software not only facilitates identifying and enforcing standard processes but is also useful for guiding users through those company-defined standard processes. This is especially beneficial for newer employees who may have previously relied on a nearby, more senior colleague for advice. In the post-virus world to come, adding this structure to the management and performance of standard business processes will continue to pay dividends.
• Standardized Technology-Enabled Collaboration – Collaboration with colleagues and business partners is essential in a business environment for resolving issues and making decisions that impact multiple parts of the business. Standard business processes should be expanded to include collaborative processes. And as with Guided Standard Procedures (see above), many collaboration processes can be prescribed and automated. For example, a material analyst may get a “parts shortage” alert in their user cockpit along with a detailed stock status form. The prescribed (and required) procedure could be to fill out a text box at the bottom of the form along with a reason for the shortage. A simple click of a button could then send the information to the appropriate supplier with a request for additional stock. Not only has this made the material analysts job easier and less time consuming, but this approach also provides a digital thread of what happened, what the root cause was, and how was it resolved.

Conclusion

No one can be sure how the COVID-19 situation will turn out. However, just as lowering the proverbial water level reveals where the inventory rocks are located, our “new reality” is providing us with opportunities to see flaws in our current business processes, and re-engineer our digital processes to make them more reliable and consistent. In the end, the processes will be better and people will be able to work virtually anywhere with the same level of performance, confidence, and safety.

At this time of health risks and great uncertainty, if that isn’t finding a silver lining, I don’t know what is! 

Chet Harter is a member of SAP's Business Technology Platform team and can be reached at [email protected].