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Saving time and sparing developers from bureaucracy: how business process automation changes company life

How automating business processes and IT systems helps companies cut costs, speed up processes, and improve performance

  • About process automation at kt.team
  • Business process automation in HR
  • Vacation, sick leave, time off
  • Salary increase

About process automation at kt.team

"The smaller the company, the easier it is to work there

And in large organizations you have to approve every step with a form, request, or certificate" - this is a common opinion we do not agree with.

At what number of employees do you think bureaucracy starts in a company? HR Director

Panferova explains how kt.team prevents this phenomenon with 96 employees on staff.

Anna, HR Director: "Over the past year and a half, the kt.team team has grown strongly in both quality and size. We have three offices: in Tolyatti, Moscow and Krasnodar.

Without solid business processes, it is hard to grow the team, develop distributed offices and maintain the required level of quality.

What automation gives us: first, we save a huge amount of time - no need to fill out paper documents, collect signatures, or walk around the office to find the person responsible; almost everything is resolved in 1-2 clicks; interchangeability - you can go on vacation or take sick leave without worry, and in that case the manager can quickly add a backup person to your business processes; a competitive advantage - we can scale easily; reliable continuity

and consistency of information - nothing gets lost, there are no situations where someone forgot to pass an important document to someone else, and all correspondence and evidence are always at hand; automation of all procedures and routine/repetitive operations - employees focus on truly important work without getting distracted by minor tasks; in addition, it is no longer possible to "forget" important recurring tasks that used to fall through the cracks without much reminder; convenient

access to the right information for company employees and partners; transparency and up-to-date data at all times - the approval status of important tasks and documents is visible, and no one has to run around asking "how is my request going?"; accumulation of archived data for analytics".

Let's look at how much automation simplifies life for developers and everyone else on the team.

Business process automation in HR

In startups or small companies, almost everything can be settled over a cup of coffee:

  • for vacation approval
  • for example
  • the two employees just need to agree
  • that can replace one another

The bigger the company, the harder it is to account for everyone's interests. It's exactly at such moments that bureaucracy arises.

We found a way to avoid it while keeping control and consistency across all actions: we implemented a BPM system.

We currently have almost 100 employees

In the HR department's work, 18 core business processes are automated: developers and other employees no longer waste time running around with paper applications for vacation or time off, and they approve sick leave in one click. It has also become easier for us to focus on their development and career growth. Let's compare what working is like in a company without automation and in one with it.

Vacation, sick leave, time off

  1. In a company without business process automation To take a vacation, you have to print out a form and fill it in (usually with mistakes), then go through the long and painful process of agreeing the dates with the team lead, the project manager and the director (over messengers, by email, by phone, in person). Then you submit the application to accounting, where they find a mistake, and you repeat the whole cycle.

  2. In a company with business process automation, one click in the CRM system should open the "Vacation approval" process

  3. , fill in the dates, choose the team lead and project lead. That is all!

  4. The application is generated automatically and sent to everyone who must approve it.

  5. The employee sees who has viewed the application, who has already approved it and what status it is in ("Approved" or "Pending approval").

  6. Sick leave or a day off is arranged just as easily.

Salary increase

  1. In a company without business process automation

  2. The development team lead makes a deliberate decision on who gets a raise and when.

  3. A raise has to be approved with the director, which means finding a convenient time and then passing the information to accounting (actually, also to HR and personnel records, but not everyone remembers that, and not always). In the end, after a month of approvals, the manager will more than once regret deciding to start all this. In a company with business process automation

  4. A raise can be initiated by the employee's direct manager, one of the company's executives or the HR team.

  5. The initiator starts the process in CRM, enters the amount and reason for the raise (for example, excellent probation results or simply work performance) and describes what to aim for to earn the next raise.

  6. The process must be approved by the HR director, and the next stage requires at least 2 of the company's 6 partners (using kt.team as an example).

  7. Then the process "flies off" to the HR administration specialist, so she can update the personnel records, and to the accountant.

  8. Meanwhile, the employee receives an email notifying them of the promotion along with details of their further development plan.

  9. The HR specialist invites them to sign the order and the supplementary agreement, so the employee will still have to make a few trips around the office after all.

  10. But up to that point everything happens online.

Performance review

In a company without business process automation, team leads and other managers often do not think it is worth spending time on promising employees because they supposedly do not need much attention or guidance ("if it works, leave it alone").

Then all that is left is to shrug and say, "We do not know why he is leaving, everything was fine!"

And the employee was not doing well either; he felt left to fate ("if he makes it, good; if not, it was not meant to be"

), did not feel needed, and saw no prospects

For many managers, giving feedback is one of the least pleasant parts of the job, especially when it is negative.

But even if a person is doing fine and everything is generally OK, no one is eager to talk to employees either ("it does not seem important"

). In a company with business process automation, now

Performance review

This is a complex process involving a large number of participants.

It is used to evaluate performance and set the employee's development goals.

Its purpose is to make sure all employees know how well they are doing and can become even better.

Automation killed two birds with one stone: it reduced bureaucracy (no need to fill out paper forms with employee assessments, as in some Soviet-era institution) and introduced regularity. With an automated business process, a manager has no chance to avoid talking to an employee, and an employee cannot be overlooked. As a result, every developer, designer, marketer, and any other team member knows what they need to study, learn, and master, by what date, and what salary increase they will receive if they succeed.

People better understand their strengths and weaknesses and assess themselves more objectively. By the way, negative feedback is useful too, because problems snowball if they are kept silent.

Assess where AI can deliver impact in your process

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Business processes in daily work

Developers, designers, the marketing department, the HR department, project managers and accounting each have their own business processes. Let's look at examples of some of them.

Development team business processes

Standup. Every team member gets a reminder about the daily meeting, and afterward the manager records the meeting's outcomes.

Project quality audit. Every closed deal automatically triggers a quality audit business process. It is run by quality mentors (usually at the end of the month). Developers' bonuses depend on the evaluation results, so it is essential to keep the process transparent.

Issue on a project. It exists to record every issue and never let it slip out of sight.

Marketing department business processes

1 Events Here you can book tickets and a hotel, invite partners or colleagues to attend, discuss the cost estimate and sign off on it with management and accounting. 2 Advertising payments In a couple of clicks you can approve the budget and pay for the services you need, topping up ad account budgets by card or bank transfer.

Business processes shared by everyone

Office routine: the "Purchase" business process. Sometimes a squeaky chair needs replacing.

A mouse or keyboard breaks. The folks living in the corporate apartment need to buy a microwave.

Or work urgently requires a book that is not yet in our office library.

Continuous improvement: the "New idea" business process

Every employee can propose any improvements to the company.

To do this you describe the idea, and management reviews it together with you and your colleagues.

For successful ideas the employee gets a bonus.

Conclusion

In our experience, it is easier and faster to automate processes while the company is still small. If you do not do it, scaling will make it hard to grow the team, develop distributed offices, and maintain the required quality level. And there is no bureaucracy. Today kt.team has almost 100 people, and every employee can feel that automation makes life much easier.

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