Workflow Management: What is It and Why You Need It

Project management has become an integral part of operations for most businesses, especially during the pandemic. With COVID-19 still affecting billions of people worldwide, the necessity for remote work has only sped up the process of adopting technology to make tasks easier. However, while tools like Asana can be very helpful, they aren’t ideal for all situations. When you need to optimize core business processes that are repeated quite often, using a workflow management solution is a much better choice.
Whether it’s contract lifecycle management, onboarding, or even progress review, various tasks can benefit from a clearly-defined framework that employees can fall back on every time. But what is workflow management software? And how exactly can it benefit your business?
Let’s explore below.

What is Workflow Management?

Workflow management is the optimization of various tasks that go into completing a specific business process or achieving a goal. For instance, whenever an employee needs to onboard a customer, having a set of steps they can follow is crucial because otherwise, each employee would have to figure everything out on their own, which would lead to inconsistent results.
The term workflow refers to a clearly-defined set of steps that have been developed and refined over time, which make the process of completing the task as simple and consistent as possible. With the help of workflow management software, all of the steps can be listed, with specific assignments automatically given to people who are best suited to handle them.
So, when you need to prepare a contract or onboard a client with the help of multiple staff members, a workflow would be set up in a way that each employee would know precisely when their part of the job is necessary and how to do it. The software can also be set up to react to different conditions, setting off workflows depending on the circumstances of the situation.

Benefits of Using Workflow Management Software

Now that we’ve looked at what workflow management is and how it works, let’s explore some of the biggest benefits it can offer your business. And with the solutions becoming better each year, the number of ways it can help make daily tasks easier is growing at a rapid pace as well.

Increase Efficiency

Whether your team is working with clients or taking care of other business operations, efficiency will always be a top priority. And if you aren’t putting your employees in a position to succeed, they will not only perform worse but will end up being unhappy as well. Employees can become as much as 68% less productive if they feel overwhelmed about work and feel like they don’t have enough hours to complete their tasks.
But with the help of workflow management, you can eliminate a lot of the repetitive and mundane tasks that they can get stuck with, streamlining processes and ensuring that they spend as little time as possible. That way, your employees can focus all of their attention and mental effort into providing better experiences for clients, innovating your services or products, and improving themselves so that they can take on more responsibility in the future.

Make Your Clients Happy

If you want your business to succeed, you must provide a good experience for your customers. But even if your product is excellent, that doesn’t guarantee that customers will be happy, especially if the onboarding process is tricky and confusing. Different clients have different needs, but you should still strive to develop a consistent onboarding experience that helps break down the steps and clarify the entire process and make it easier for both the client and your team.
For example, by using workflow management software, you can provide access to parts of the project, keeping the client in the loop and allowing them to have an immediate say in the decisions you make. This way, you can ensure that you’re delivering a result that they’ll be happy with while simultaneously alleviating any fears about the timeline that the client might have.

Keep Your Team In The Loop

Status meetings are something that few people look forward to. But before workflow management software became available, they were an unavoidable reality that most companies had to endure.
Luckily, that’s something that can now be almost completely eliminated. Since workflow management lays out the clear steps of any given task, each member knows exactly when they need to perform their role and don’t have to worry about anything until they are automatically notified.
What’s more, performance reports can be generated automatically as well, so employees won’t have to spend hours inputting and preparing data that others can view. Finally, whenever something becomes overdue, the person can be notified automatically, or the task can be assigned to someone else if the original team member is not available.

Employees Know What to Do Next

One of the best things about workflow management software is its ability to provide your employees with peace of mind. Instead of having to figure out which tasks are the most urgent, they can use a centralized system that shows progress on a variety of tasks and also tells them what to do next.
You can set up the system to juggle multiple projects at once, notifying the people involved about which specific task needs to be completed and prioritizing those that are more urgent according to the parameters you put in. Each workflow is kept separate, so employees can quickly switch back and forth between them according to where they are needed, postponing or delegating tasks without anything falling through the cracks.

Final Words

Workflow management software is quickly gaining ground as one of the most effective ways to boost workplace efficiency and productivity. The benefits mentioned above just barely scratch the surface of what’s possible. If you take advantage of the possibilities and versatility of various workflow management solutions that are available, you can integrate it into virtually any part of your day-to-day operations.