Why sustainability is about more than just survival

Ever since the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic in early-2020, organizations have been adjusting to new ways of working. The end result is that businesses have to adapt to constant states of change.

Change is the word of the workplace, while flexibility and adaptability are the watchwords, as organizations try to maintain their business momentum while preparing for the next challenge likely to appear on the horizon.

Recent events have led many businesses to face new ways of operating, along with the associated complications. Remote work, health and safety guidelines, increased wellness programs and vacant premises have all become part of the standard of doing business in a post-pandemic world.

Unfortunately, many of these changes were thrust upon us with little warning or time to prepare. As a result, businesses have had to adapt on-the-fly, implementing procedures and practices that solve the immediate issue.

These strategies, however, have not been created with sustainability in mind. Stop-gap solutions have saved many organizations, but now threaten to hinder ongoing productivity and the business’ long-term results. Rather than waiting for a ‘post-Covid’ world to emerge, organizations need to develop robust ways of doing business to thrive in the fluid and uncertain environment that the world is navigating.

Make the way forward clear

One of the greatest hindrances to effective business success is the uncertainty that many staff and managers are feeling. With businesses downsizing their offices and decentralizing their administrative operations, all the familiar methods for accomplishing tasks have become less certain than before.

What could once be accomplished by walking to a colleague’s desk or office now has to be routed through a system or platform that may not be as comfortable or familiar.

Now is the time to examine practices and processes that may have evolved and make them robust. Consider the factors at play in your teams, and the variety of contexts they are working in and build processes that are relevant.

If ad-hoc procedures that emerged from the sudden scattering of the workforce prove to be effective, clarify them and make them available to everyone. Ensure that business teams across the board know how to complete their designated tasks and, when those tasks are shared responsibilities, can execute them consistently and to the same standard.

Clear, effective processes will remove uncertainty and increase sustainability by providing standardized guidance for the entire organization.

Put the right tools in place

Catalog the systems your teams are working with. Accurate processes can capture much of this information, and the right process platform will give you visibility over the systems that impact your core activities.

Make a point of reviewing the tools that are in place and where redundancies or duplications may occur. If different divisions, teams or projects are using various systems to achieve the same goals, there is potential for miscommunication, breakdowns and delays.

Some systems will not be designed for the load they are carrying and others may have greater potential than they are being used for. Standardize what you can and ensure everyone has access to the technology they need to work effectively in the long run.

Accelerate the execution

With reliable processes flowing through effective systems, you will have a clear lens through which to examine the way your teams are empowered to work. The newly evolved workflows of remote teams and ‘hot-desk’ offices will highlight new opportunities to introduce process automation tools.

This is one of the benefits afforded by the changes we have experienced since 2020. Working remotely requires more digital signoffs and handovers than a traditional environment and intelligent process automation tools excel at taking over those data handling tasks.

The burden of emailing confirmations, transferring data files or acknowledging completion of core tasks can all be removed from staff, freeing them to add value where their skills are better employed. With less routine check-box tasks on their mind, teams can be more energized and focused, replacing the fatigue of remote work with more sustainable workflows.

Evolve with the environment

Ultimately these strategies need to be part of the ongoing pursuit of excellence. While the value of continuous improvement at the operational level is more obvious, it is easy to forget that it applies organizationally too.

With the ongoing changes we face through a rapidly shifting world, we need to regularly examine what we do, the tools we employ and the opportunities that will present themselves.

As we deliberately refine our processes and systems, we can do more than just survive. We can make our workplaces thrive by empowering our people to put processes at the heart of business to ensure they love where they work, and customers reap the rewards of this collective ‘process mind-set’ with modern, digital experiences.