Life without automated workflows: Why Dal's first day is dire (but Tasha's is terrific)

For those who use digitalised workflows to do their job on a daily basis, life is good.

The administrative and support processes that used to require handholding and manual management are converted into streamlined, low-fuss, and efficient tasks. Your people spend less time ‘doing’ and more time getting things done.

Let’s have a look at a with-and-without scenario to see the difference between an organisation that uses a service management platform to seamlessly manage requests and information for HR processes, workplace services, and IT – and one that doesn’t.

Dal is thirty-two, plays sports at the weekend and loves fishing and family time. He’s just joined a service provider organisation – and it’s his first management role, so he’s keen to prove that he’s smart and efficient. However, his new employers don’t use a service management platform, so Dal’s desire to impress is about to be dashed.

On Day One, his first challenge is to onboard Mike, a third-party contractor who he’s recruited to temporarily bridge a skills gap in his team. To do this, Dal needs to organise for Mike to have systems access to the tools he’ll need - like email and Teams.

As it’s one of Dal’s first tasks for his new employer, he immediately dives into the intranet to find out what he needs to do. His search turns up a bunch of Excel, Word, and PowerPoint documents on various topics – but after trawling through them, he finds no instructions or policies that are of any help to him.

So Dal decides the smart thing to do is to log an IT case to generate action or answers. He does this, but the very next day, the case gets closed, and he’s referred to HR.

However, HR doesn’t have any method for taking requests. He searches (to no avail) for the right HR person’s email and eventually decides to bite the bullet and ask some of his new colleagues who he should contact. They suggest trying either Andrew or Rhonda, so Dal promptly emails both of them. Andrew and Rhonda each refer him to Jane, an HR Specialist, so he reaches out to her by email.

Jane responds to Dal’s email with a list of questions about the contracting engagement and, after some back-and-forth, eventually directs the issue back to IT. The IT team takes on Jane’s requests and sets up Dal’s contractor.

After a lot of uncertainty and chasing multiple people, several days have passed, and a range of systems have been navigated. But it is ‘mission accomplished’ for Dal, although it’s not one he wants to repeat in a hurry. He’s not impressed with his own performance or his employer’s lack of service management capacity.

Tasha is also thirty-two. She is a weekend warrior on the sports field and a serious gamer. She’s also excited about her new management job, especially as she knows her employers use ServiceNow to digitise, optimise, and automate workflows.

Like Dal, one of Tasha’s first tasks is to organise system access for a third-party contractor. She’s keen to get Michelle up and running as soon as possible, so she opens Microsoft Teams and sends a message to “Debbie” (a ServiceNow Virtual Agent) asking, “How do I set up system accesses for a 3rd party contractor?”

After a few moments, Debbie comes back to Tasha with a link to the relevant process, policy, and work instructions, and lets her know that she can help Tasha raise the appropriate request.

Tasha clicks ‘yes’ on Debbie’s request to log a new case. Debbie then guides her through gathering all the information needed to facilitate the fulfilment of the access request. Once Debbie’s done collecting, the case number is sent from ServiceNow to Tasha via Teams and email.

Now, the workflow starts. The case moves seamlessly between the HR and IT teams without Tasha even needing to lift a finger. Within 24 hours, her request is complete, and Michelle is up and running with all the system access she needs. All in one day, on one system, and without having to track down or chase anyone.

Tasha’s mission is accomplished, and everyone comes out of the process, having had a great employee experience, looking good and feeling great.

When you’re trying to do your job well, we suspect you’d rather be more like Tasha than Dal, right? Dal’s a great guy and highly motivated, but his employer hasn’t made it easy for him to do his job better (or to feel good about his own performance). He has to go through multiple touchpoints, engage with several systems, and participate in a couple of water cooler conversations just to facilitate a straightforward onboarding requirement.

By comparison, Tasha is happy in her new role and how much she can achieve. She feels her forward-thinking employer ticks all the boxes.

By choosing ServiceNow, a market-leading Enterprise Service Management platform, Tasha’s employer can seamlessly digitise, and automate, their employee (and customer-facing) workflows across a wide range of channels. They can also leverage AI in all areas of their operations so employees like Tasha can get more done - without doing more.

If you’d like to find out more about how ServiceNow could transform the way your people work and raise the bar on job satisfaction, chat with a ServiceNow expert at Fusion5 today.