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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
  • We'll send you the materials you need or a commercial proposal
  • Business process automation in HR
  • Vacation, sick leave, time off

About process automation at kt.team

"The smaller the company, the easier it is to work there. In big organizations you have to sign off on every step with a form/application/certificate" — this is a common opinion we disagree 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 in paper documents, collect signatures or wander around the office to find the right person; almost everything is handled in 1–2 clicks; interchangeability — you can take a vacation or sick leave with peace of mind, since the manager quickly adds a stand-in to your business processes; competitive advantage — we can scale easily; reliable continuity

and consistency of information — nothing gets lost, there are no situations where someone forgot to hand an important document to someone else, and all correspondence and evidence is always at hand; automation of all procedures and routine/repetitive operations — employees focus on truly important work without being distracted by trifles; and it is now impossible to "forget" about important, regularly recurring tasks that used to "slip" without a specific reminder; convenient

access to the information they need for the company's employees and partners; transparency and up-to-date data at any moment — the approval status of important tasks and documents is visible, with no need to chase people and ask "how's it going with my application"; and the 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

  1. In startups or small companies almost everything can be settled over a cup of coffee: to approve a vacation, for example, two employees who cover for each other just need to agree.

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

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

  4. Today we have almost 100 people on staff. The HR department has 18 core business processes automated: developers and other employees don't waste time running around with paper applications for vacation or time off, and approve sick leave in one click. It has also become easier for us to focus on their development and career growth. Let's compare working in a company without automation and in one with it.

Vacation, sick leave, time off

  1. In a company without business process automation

  2. To take a vacation, you have to print out a form and fill it in (usually with mistakes), then spend a long, painful time aligning the dates with your team lead, project manager and director (over messengers, by email, by phone, in person).

  3. Then send the application to accounting so they can find the error, and repeat the whole cycle. In a company with business process automation

  4. With one click in the CRM system you open the "Vacation approval" process, fill in the dates and pick a team lead and a project manager. That's it!

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

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

  7. 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. The raise has to be approved with the director, which means finding the right moment, and then passing this information to accounting (actually, also to HR records and the HR department, but not everyone remembers that, and not always). As a result, after a month of approvals the manager more than once regrets starting 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 at the next stage by 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

  1. In a company without business process automation

  2. Team leads and other managers often see no need to spend time on promising employees, on the assumption that they don't really need attention or guidance ("if it works, don't touch it").

  3. Then all that's left is to throw up your hands: "we don't know why they're leaving, everything was fine!" But the employee was not fine — they felt left to their own fate ("sink or swim"), felt unneeded and saw no prospects.

  4. For many managers, the duty of giving feedback is one of the most unpleasant parts of the job, especially when it is negative.

  5. But even when a person works fine and overall everything is OK, no one is especially eager to talk with employees ("it doesn't seem important"). In a company with business process automation

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 goal is to ensure all company employees know how well they are performing and can become even better.

Automation killed two birds with one stone: it cut bureaucracy (no need to fill out paperwork rating employees, like in some Soviet-era institution) and introduced regularity. With an automated business process, a manager has no chance to avoid talking with an employee, and an employee no chance of being 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 pay raise they will get if they succeed.

People better understand their strengths and weaknesses and assess themselves objectively. By the way, negative feedback is useful too, since problems snowball if you keep silent about them.

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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

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

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

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

  4. Continuous improvement: the "New idea" business process

  5. Every employee can propose any improvements to the company.

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

  7. For successful ideas the employee gets a bonus.

Conclusion

In our experience, automating processes is easier and faster while the company is still small. If you don't, scaling makes it hard to grow the team, develop distributed offices and maintain the required level of quality. And no bureaucracy. Today kt.team has almost 100 people, and every employee feels how automation makes their life much easier.

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