I think small businesses often overlook one of the greatest resources they have: the ever developing world of lightweight, cost-effective, web-based solutions designed to improve upon some of the basic functions that all companies must do like manage work flows, performance reviews and develop standard operating procedures. So, this month’s article is designed to build some awareness about what’s out there and how we can use these applications in our businesses.
Process and Policy Management
If you are hearing statements like this from your staff…
Oops! We forgot we were supposed to do that.
Wait. This way doesn’t work anymore.
But, I was told to do that differently!
…then you may need a better way to manage your processes and policies.
I was lucky in that I had a wonderful friend and coach, Jim Lilkendey, who saw this struggle in my business and provided tools to help. From Jim, I learned some key elements to creating quality standard operating procedures. Here are just a few of the most critical things that I’ve gleaned from Jim and from implementing processes and policies in my own company.
- Test the process. Have someone who didn’t write the process test it. Sometimes, what seems to be an obvious step in a process to the writer is not.
- Log changes to the process. You will find that, especially in rapidly changing small businesses, processes and policies need to be changed frequently. You need some way to capture when the process was changed. Speaking of changes…
- You must schedule periodic reviews of processes. This ensures that your process stays up to date and relevant. But, who in your organization will do this?
- Give each process an owner. This is the person who is responsible for checking the relevancy of each process and updating them as needed.
Handling all of these aspects of process management would be daunting without some level of automation, but thankfully, there are low-cost cloud-based solutions that offer that automation. I believe a wiki-style solution that allows for collaboration is best. I still remain in search of my perfect solution, but here are some solutions I’ve looked at that provide most of the critical functions above. And, like most software applications out there, these companies continue to improve their offerings. Just remember to look for one that allows for versioning and is easy to access, easy to search and easy to read. You want something that your employees will actually use. You also need to ensure that you can assign review periods within the application for each process and that the owner responsible for reviewing is notified. Here are a few examples: SweetProcess, Way We Do, Methodologee and Process Street.
Employee Reviews and Goal Setting
If you are hearing statements like this from your staff…
I’ve been working here six months and I’m still not clear what the objectives of my position are.
I’m not even sure this is in my job description.
…then it may be time to utilize some technologies to improve the human resources side of your organization. For instance, handling employee reviews in a small business is time consuming, cumbersome and often forgotten. This means you may have employees performing with unclear roles and no set objectives or goals. Here are some ways a cloud-based solution can help:
Look for cloud-based solutions that allow for:
- Quickly adding notes about employees on the go
- 360-degree feedback from staff about each other’s performance
- Objective tracking that allows the employee and employer to see progress toward goals easily
- Email reminders that alert you and your staff when it’s time to complete a review
These functions will allow you to:
- Automate the review process more, thus lessening the chance of missed reviews
- Easily track each employee’s performance toward projects and goals and allow them to see the same at a glance
- Efficiently collect feedback from others on the team, which works toward a culture of accountability
Pricing for these solutions vary from a few dollars per month per employee to a few grand a year, but more solutions are popping up every day with more of the above functionality built in. Here are some to explore that are specific to HR: Loopline Systems, Reviewsnap, Trakstar and Small Improvements (free for up to 10 users).
Employee Onboarding
If you are hearing statements from your team like…
I feel like I was just thrown into this role with no real training.
Everyone here was trained differently.
I didn’t know about that HR policy. No one ever told me.
I never got training on that software.
I’ve been here two weeks and no one has ordered me a phone yet.
…then it may be time to look for software to help with your employee onboarding process.
You can also use systems such as those described above to create easy and consistent employee onboarding processes. In some cases, such as Process Street, you can create an employee boarding process and then create a copy of that checklist for each new employee who is hired. You can then assign the tasks of that web-based checklist to other team members to help complete. Suddenly, you have a literal action list that your team can go through to ensure all aspects of the onboarding are completed in full. This can also work for new client boardings and allows you the ability to make select parts of the boarding process visible to your clients — a great way to increase transparency and set expectations about the process.
I hope these ideas get you thinking outside of the box about ways you can improve the efficiency of your business.