Don’t let silos hurt Your organisation: How to improve workflows

Today’s change management strategy calls for breaking down silos and strengthening a culture of collaboration in the workforce. With an engaging employee experience, an engaging and impactful customer experience becomes inevitable.

More often than not, growing companies tend to break into silos as different departments emerge to lead expanded business operations. Inevitably, multiple teams are in play, developing their own goals and metrics and outlining their unique priorities. But silo mentality and structure can often create challenges for businesses in two key areas. Firstly, separating key decision-makers and information which creates gaps in growth opportunities, collaboration and efficiency. And secondly, by having a direct negative impact on customer and end-user experience.

As the workplace becomes increasingly digitised, collaboration across functions and geographies becomes critical. Leaders today need to actively zero in on breaking silos within their organisation and foster a culture of trust, engagement and collaboration wherein every employee is aligned to the brand vision and mission. Change management becomes the key strategy to achieve this, backed by intelligent solutions to streamline workflows and the overall employee experience.

To get started on this HR transformation journey to break silos and streamline workflows, here are some key focus areas that can help HR professionals get started:

Drive innovation by designing an engaging end-user experience

As we emphasise how digital solutions are critical to streamline workflows and foster stronger collaboration, leaders cannot overlook the end-user experience. Systems that allow the inclusion of new voices and opinions backed by robust feedback mechanisms will empower organisations to be a leader in innovation. By reworking and redesigning workflows to meet diverse employee needs, organisations also unlock new ways of breaking organisational silos and renewing that larger workforce vision and engagement.

Intelligent data management by breaking down data silos

Data silos can kill productivity, waste time and stall cross-departmental processes. As a result, it also negatively impacts the employee experience and trickles down to the customer experience. For example, an IDC study found that employees can spend 30% of their workdays searching for corporate information and 20% duplicating data-related work. This creates very taxing workflows with a high incidence of miscommunication. Intelligent data management solutions will save valuable time and storage, smartly reorganising complex enterprise data and making it more accessible to all departments.

Use the OKR methodology to tie back departmental initiatives to organisational goals

Breaking silos also demands ensuring that your people see how their project is influential in achieving larger business goals. By implementing the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) methodology in the change management strategy, each member of the workforce can not only build this association but can also create a level of transparency that makes goal-driven communications an integral part of the day-to-day functioning of the company. This inevitably results in greater collaboration and engagement.

There are several benefits of breaking down silos with a change management strategy designed to foster collaboration. It will build a stronger work culture with teams more aligned to the organisational mission rather than personal projects. It will also open up spaces for faster decision-making, increased productivity and innovation. This HR transformation journey will be incomplete without the necessary investments in digital solutions. With the power of HR tech, businesses today can carve their own unique and impactful growth journeys led by a flexible, agile and collaborative workforce.