It is obvious to many Paperwise users how digital transformation can improve their work from AP invoice processing, to new employee onboarding to multi-facility maintenance, and beyond. But many companies think about their workflow automation initiatives in silos aimed at particular departments like HR or accounting.
While you may be familiar with point solutions for automation in these areas, there is an important shift to make when you become a Paperwise client. That shift is about going beyond automating individual workflows and bringing automation to your entire organization so that your employees can maximize their time in the highest value and fulfilling areas of their jobs – innovation, decision-making, customer service, and problem-solving.
The benefits of workflow automation can extend to all areas of your company and improve the work of all your employees. That’s a key difference between using Paperwise Symphony to its fullest and simply automating separate parts of your organization. Paperwise Symphony makes workflow automation simple so you can bring its benefits to everyone in your company.
Here are some important considerations in making the most of your Paperwise experience across all departments:
1. Coordinate in the C-suite
As we mentioned above, many companies traditionally think of process automation in particular departmental silos. Certainly, the ROI on AP automation or employee onboarding is immediate so it makes sense to start with the departments who could benefit quickly.
It’s important to maximize your use of Paperwise throughout your organization beyond your initial projects and that requires commitment and coordination in your C-suite. Your executive team needs to fully embrace the power of automation and tie automation goals back to your specific business goals.
Once your executive team sees the power of workflow automation and how easy it is to build new automations inside of Paperwise Symphony, they will start to include automation in their tactical planning for employee satisfaction, customer service, efficiency improvements, cost savings, and profitability initiatives.
By coordinating at the executive level, you can maximize any interdepartmental benefits and workflows and help remove obstacles as you streamline more processes.
2. Nurture an Innovation Team
People are often surprised how quickly innovations can arrive using Paperwise Symphony. They assume automation projects can take months, when in fact, they can a matter of hours for most of the processes in your business. This is due to three main advantages built into every Paperwise Symphony deployment:
- Prebuilt templates based on industry best practices. No two processes are exactly alike, but leveraging our previous development cuts your design and deployment by 90% or more.
- Access to a team of experts. With Paperwise Symphony, there is no reason to put off your automation projects because you lack internal expertise. You get full access to our expert developers, workflow specialists, cybersecurity analysts, integration specialists, network engineers, business process management experts and technical support.
- Simple, low-code tools. For companies that do want to develop unique and internally supported workflow teams, Paperwise has low-code tools for development so you don’t have to have a PhD in computer science to create and connect your software, workflows, and employees.
For most Paperwise users, they will find that their innovation team is composed of their own champions and early adopters and our own experts to help guide them to fast success. These enthusiastic employees are key to quick ROI, identifying new opportunities for automation and driving adoption in the rest of your company.
3. Communicate Clearly and Frequently
The majority of employees believe automation will enable them to be more productive and have a positive impact on their jobs. However, some employees may be resistant to change. They may think that automation is aimed at a younger generation or that automation will take their jobs away.
It’s important to communicate clearly and frequently to your employees when starting new automation projects so they understand that your goal is not to replace or reduce employees but to empower employees to become more efficient and fulfilled in their current roles.
4. Document Your Corporate Governance
Many Paperwise users came to us initially because of their legal compliance and corporate governance requirements. Certain industries and governmental bodies have strict requirements for security, compliance, risk management and employee behavior and workflow automation is the smartest way to ensure governance across your entire organization.
Even if you do not operate in an industry that has strict compliance rules and regulations like law office, health care, or insurance, corporate governance rules benefit your automation projects across every department. If you haven’t considered the dos and don’ts of your company and employee behavior, our team of security and compliance experts can help you start developing and documenting processes to reduce your risk while you increase your efficiency.
5. Train Up
Fortunately, with Paperwise Symphony you don’t need to be an IT expert to enjoy the benefits of automation. But we realize that training is an important aspect of maximizing your efficiency. With Paperwise, you get prerecorded training that is available on-demand when you need it either on-boarding a new employee or if you just need a refresher. In fact, we’ve developed a private learning system call Paperwise Academy for our users where your employees can learn the specific skills they need to for specific workflows, tasks and make them more effective at teaching others.
6. Embed Innovation and Efficiency into Your Culture
Finally, it is important to build innovation and workflow efficiency into your culture. The biggest advantage Paperwise brings to your entire team is that innovation can belong to everyone in your company, not just operations, IT, accounting, or the C-suite.
Give employees incentives for identifying new efficiencies and workflow processes. Make it easy for them to provide suggestions (you could start with our employee suggestion box template) and be sure to listen and reply earnestly to every suggestion. Even if a suggestion doesn’t make sense for immediate deployment, you want to make sure your employees feel appreciated for their creativity.
If you’d like to learn more about how fast and easy it is to improve the workflows inside your company, please contact us for a private consultation and we can get you started right away.
