Several years ago, I worked for a nonprofit that did event-based fundraising. We purchased a new all-in-one software service that ran both the back-end fundraising and participant database, and our front-end event website, where participants could have a profile page and accept online donations. Because it was an all-in-one package, the way you configured each end affected how the other end functioned. Changes to any part of the system caused ripples to other parts. My job was to set up and configure the software, and provide tech support to participants.
The back-end database wasn’t easy to use: overly complicated, nonintuitive workflows. A colleague who worked in the accounting department, and who only interfaced with the back-end database, came to me with a list of things she hoped I could reconfigure to improve the workflow. I looked at the list and realized these changes would alter the participant front-end in ways that would make it much harder for people to use.
So I said no.
My colleague agreed when I showed her what the impact would be. We couldn’t make it harder for participants and donors in order to make our jobs easier. Better we deal with the difficulty than them.
I think about this whenever we look for ways to make our jobs easier. It’s totally fine to want to make our jobs easier, but there are going to be ripples that affect other people, either customers or colleagues. We need to be aware of how our workflows affect someone else’s, especially if we make their job more difficult in order to make ours easier. We need to consider whether that’s really what’s best for customers and the organization, and not just whether it’s best for ourselves.
Sometimes our job is just going to be hard.
Prior to that, I worked in the records department of an organization that provided home health care services. The records department would get paperwork generated by the nursing and therapy departments, and we had a variety of processes we needed to run different types of paperwork through, before passing it on to the billing department. Paperwork would come to us in all kinds of states, and we spent a good portion of our time just rearranging it to get it into a state where we could begin our processes. It was honestly pretty frustrating and it increased the likelihood that we would make errors or mistrack something.
I wondered: Was my department passing on the paperwork to billing in a way that was useful for them? Or were they also spending time rearranging stuff just to be able to get started on their process? Were there ways we could alter our processes to pass on the paperwork in a more useful way?
So I asked them, and it turned out we could make some useful changes. I also checked with colleagues in the nursing and therapy departments to get a better sense of their processes, to see if there were ways they could pass paperwork to my department in a more useful state.
This evolved into an organization-wide paperwork lifecycle assessment. We identified several places where various departments could alter their workflows to make the passage and processing of paperwork more efficient and effective, and reduce errors.
Unfortunately, it meant that one department actually had to increase the complexity and time spent in their workflow. They weren’t happy about it. But adding time and complexity at that point enabled significant time savings for the organization as a whole, and reduced overall processing errors, which translated into measurably better experiences for our patients, including fewer insurance rejections. When everyone saw the benefits to patients and to the organization, even this department supported the change.
It matters that we take time to understand how our workflows impact the experience of our customers, the work of our colleagues, and the organization as a whole. It means that sometimes our job needs to be a bit harder if enables greater benefit for our customers and for the organization.
It’s generally good to simplify, and it’s fine to want to find ways to make your job easier. This often makes it more efficient and reduces errors. But sometimes it’s strategic to add complexity, time, or difficulty to certain tasks, if it results in better outcomes overall.
Sometimes our job is just going to be hard.
John the Librarian 