'Business Process Management is being increasingly recognized as a critical component for cultural change in organizations. It's becoming more realized as a strategic differentiator for organizations to deliver on their promises.' - Matthew Morgan (Savills)

Business Process Management has been integral in ensuring that business processes are functioning as smoothly and efficiently as possible. Matthew Morgan, the current Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Savills N.A., describes BPM as a 'holistic approach to management,' incorporating all aspects of the business under one collaborative function. The positive effects of BPM don't stop at simply enabling an organization to work collaboratively; the function allows businesses to significantly improve their adeptness, versatility and their customer satisfaction achievements.

A study by Gartner has shown that effectively integrating BPM into the wider organization can boost the success rate of any business project by 70%. In order to make the most of BPM, businesses need to take the time to fully understand how the function works, how best they can tailor it's abilities to the needs of the organization and most importantly, how spending the time time to find the right people to work under the function can attain better results.

1. Fully Understand the Talent Life-Cycle

Organizations across the globe need to take the time to fully understand the talent life-cycle in order for them to make internal changes that would help with both recruitment and retention. There are various models of the talent life-cycle, but the main areas to focus on include:

• The Recruitment Process: This is the time to make sure that you are attracting the right style of message. It's a time to recognize the goals of potential employees as well as their long-term aspirations. This will help you to select the correct people for the role.
• On-boarding: ensuring that a new-hire has a good initial experience of working at the organization means the talented individual is more likely to work hard and be more productive. If this is not done, disillusion may set in and cause either long-term or short-term problems.
• Performance Management: Performance should be managed but many companies are supported in managing their own performance - set expectations and help the individual to stay focused.
• Development: Personal development and the opportunity to learn and grow in a career is something all potential employees look for. Organizations should spend more time of creating individualized, custom-made approaches in which the individuals control what they learn.
• Retention: All the above areas of the talent life-cycle, if developed correctly, can help talent retention issues. When it comes to retention, more time can be spent encouraging employees as well as seeking alignment through open conversations.

The end goal of talent recruitment should always be focused on finding the people who can best contribute to your overall Business Process Management goals. Fully aligning the people with your function is the best way to ensure that the function is working as successfully as possible - it will increase productivity, enthusiasm and just an overall understanding. This step in finding the right people should not be overlooked, understanding the basic foundations of how talent functions helps you get ahead of the game.

2. Develop Inspiring Goals for Talent Retention

According to Matthew, the main area to focus on when trying to increase talent retention is to spend more time developing inspiring goals with a sense of mission and purpose. Inspiring goals can help individuals to move forward, both personally and professionally.

'By understanding your organization's goals, you can identify the right talent to help you meet your goals.'
- Matthew Morgan (Savills)

Aside from this, value propositions need to be made. These should include compensations and non-compensations. Also, organizations should focus more on on-boarding their new employees so they're able to feel empowered while also developing a sense of connection to the organization and its goals. A lot can be done by organizations to improve talent retention and to ensure that they are recruiting the right people for the role. These include:

• Make sure employees understand expectations.
• Provide a platform for employees to discuss openly.
• Put an emphasis on talent and development.

• Provide quality management or supervision.

3. Ensure you are Recruiting the Right People

Ensuring you have found the right people for your ideal BPM organization is an integral aspect of aligning the talent with the plans and goals of the function. According to Matthew, finding the right talent to take charge of your Business Process Management function varies from organization to organization.

'Imagine if you have an organization that's very chaotic and needs more simplicity. There's a large employee turnover, maybe there's a lot of technological change or government regulatory change. In which case, you need somebody that's able to expose and make the organization transparent and visible. In the BPM world, the person you may be looking for will be a Process Modeler or a Business Architect; somebody who is able to map out the business so other can see and understand it,' Matthew explains. 'But if, on the other hand, you have an organization that is rapidly changing and trying to drive innovation and improvement, perhaps you need more o a change agent or a process improvement professional like a Lean Six Sigma Practitioner.' 

Fully understanding all aspects of your organization and what you want to achieve with the BPM function is the foundational step in ensuring your process management is successful. From planning to people, all aspects of enabling a successful function start with understanding and aligning the goals of your organization.

Conclusion

Across his experiences with BPM, Matthew Morgan has placed a significant emphasis on the importance of planning for the right people in the organization. A business function relies on the work of the people involved, it’s vital to have people on the team that not only understand the function and have the abilities to help it become successful but also have the enthusiasm and productivity to make it better. Are you thinking about how BPM functions within your organization? This time, make sure to consider the importance of the people involved, of job roles and specific skill-sets in order to make the most of your Business Process Management.