Amid an increasingly tight labour market, companies are grappling to find the staff they need to grow. Persisting vacancies and escalating wage pressures spotlight an often-unaddressed opportunity—tackling the underlying inefficiencies in our business practices.
Rather than following the conventional route of recruiting more people, can we instead unlock productivity through process improvement?
Almost 50 percent of employee activities globally are manual, repetitive tasks that have the potential to be automated.[1] By focusing on process improvement, we can reduce repetitive tasks and free experienced staff to work on higher-value activities that we would otherwise have to recruit for.
Rather than feel limited by the labour market, we could challenge our existing teams to explore how they can collectively work smarter and not harder. This notion is supported by recent projections that between 25 and 46 percent of current work activities in Australia could be automated by 2030, boosting productivity by 50 to 155 percent for those that embrace the opportunity.[2]
Such a paradigm shift necessitates adaption at both the strategy and process levels. A critical strategic decision is how we delegate authority at a process level, empowering staff to modify their processes autonomously. It is worth noting that by reorganising around processes, companies can flatten their structure, reducing complexity. [3]This streamlined approach translates to improved communication and efficiency, enabling businesses to do more with less staff.
Given the transformative potential of process improvement and automation, it’s crucial that we shift our perspective on workforce limitations. Rather than viewing the lack of labour as an impediment, we should seize it as an opportunity, turning it into a catalyst for innovation and process refinement to support business growth.
[1] MGI-A-future-that-works-Executive-summary.ashx (mckinsey.com)
[2] Australia’s Automation Opportunity (mckinsey.com)
[3] Fitter, flatter, faster: How unstructuring your organization can unlock massive value (mckinsey.com)
