Lessons Learned from Corporate Workflow Improvements

Hello there, remember me?

It’s been a minute since I last posted, as I working on a long-form essay for print. I can’t go into detail, but this is my third attempt at being published, and the topic deals with being more specific on how we educate Coast Guard members on their broader Naval Service role. I’ll be sure to update readers this summer.

A few more updates while I’m at it:

My oldest continues to do life his way and was ranked 30th in the world at Rocket League for 24 hours. He started making money, but none has yet to go toward tuition.
My 18-year-old will join Penn State Behrend’s wrestling team and ROTC unit this Fall. His stories will be epic.
My 15-year-old got his learners permit and though he fully understands the gas pedal, is working on braking.
My youngest had a 174% growth in academic performance through lots of hard work and extra practice. She’s also looking forward to my spot in bed half the week.
My wife ended her full-time position but now has more hours and flexibility through multiple part-time gigs. She’s considering her own small business connecting local families to her network of nannies.
I start a new job this Friday, where I can wallow in aviation and industrial workflow again. I’m super excited but also a bit sad as I’ll be commuting four days weekly.

Speaking of workflow, this Wall Street Journal article caught my attention last month.

I’ve written before about how shifting necessary but not value-added tasks from subject matter experts to all employees carries an opportunity cost. This article used data from major public companies to quantify just how much these “raindrops” add up:

AT&T’s parties cost them 28,500 hours per year in tracking attendees
Shopify freed up 322,000 hours by deleting low-value meetings
AT&T implemented automation to fractionally return a total of two workdays to each of it’s 160,000 employees

One mundane process may feel like a single raindrop, but when you have a multitude of that within the employee ecosystem, it creates a flood of extra work,
Elizabeth Veazey, AT&T

I think there are three lessons one can take from the author:

Go tactical: It feels better to will a major strategic change to fruition, but smaller process improvements are easier to complete, will garner more employee support, and then aggregate over time.
Crowdsource ideas: Front-line employees already know where their time is being wasted. Listen to them with an open mind and be able to justify why a frustrating process exists if it must.
Be ok with not getting 100% of the ROI: The increase in remote knowledge work shifted us from easily managing work hours to the harder task of defining and measuring productivity. Each organization measures that differently, and gains will be harder to quantify as they may look like thinking while not logged in.

One response to “Lessons Learned from Corporate Workflow Improvements”

Plankey

2023.05.30

Pat, Is it really “go Tactical”? We both spent a career watching “Go Tactical” at the senior levels fail, and fail miserably without accountability. Isn’t it more so “Move 1000 bricks instead of 1 building”? In the end, the 1000 bricks will building something better, while attempting to move a building will either fail or create havoc in the process and not function as intended.

I am interested in your long form paper! The service struggles to know its role in defense! There is a significant probability that one of those under-gunned NSCs will fall victim to a Chinese militia fishing fleet swarm attack (claimed incidental or accidental, I am sure). The service doesn’t even have that on the radar. In fact they published a forward looking study today that doesn’t have commerce or conflict with China on the study.

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Patience and Humility