Column by Dr. Friederike Schröder-Pander
(Source: Business Process Magazine 3-2010)

Why would your organisation not be able to implement a Business Process Management (BPM) approach successfully?

Research has shown that a lack of governance, too little employee buy-in, no commonly shared view on BPM, the absence of BPM training, and miscommunication of the capabilities of BPM tools are major reasons for the failure of BPM implementations. On closer inspection, all of these problems have to do with (mis-)communication. However banal it may seem (“But everybody can communicate”), communication clearly has a great impact on the success or failure of BPM initiatives.

Communication is important. At least, that’s what I hear when I talk to process practitioners in companies. They talk about the communication to management, the communication among team members on improvement projects, and general communication towards the entire organisation. But what about the communication to employees who are not involved in the projects but who will ultimately be confronted with the changes the projects bring about? How should we communicate specifically to them?

An e-mail is not enough

In many companies, information regarding larger initiatives – which includes BPM implementations – is simply sent to everyone via an e-mailing. Often, this is the only communication to employees who are not actively involved in the improvement project. When companies want to do more, they sometimes hold an info session in which the goals and broad outlines of the project are explained. And in which, due to the size of the info session gathering, no one dares to ask a question – certainly not about the project’s impact on their own work situation.

The content of these e-mailings is mostly information describing the initiative, what benefits it will bring to the company, and what changes are in store for the company. Employees who are sure that nothing will change for them will easily forget about such an e-mail ... but what impact does it have on those the initiatives will actually affect?

Let’s be honest: if this is the only form of communication, it’s not surprising that the employees who know that their work situation and job content will change are left with an unpleasant feeling. Because the main thing that attracts their attention is ‘what’s in it for me?’ How will BPM change my job? What impact will it have on my job responsibilities? How will I be evaluated?

If these questions are not brought forward and discussed, a number of employees remain insecure. Their ultimate attitude towards the BPM initiative will differ from person to person and is not known in advance. What is known in advance is the fact that, generally speaking, you can expect more resistance from these individuals. When this group of people is too large, or they are able to influence a large number of their colleagues, there’s a good chance that the BPM implementation will fail in the end.

Despite increasing process automation, it’s of course the employees behind the processes, who carry out crucial process activities that cannot be automated, who ensure the good performance of the processes. Whether or not a BPM implementation will succeed depends primarily on their cooperation and support. And because you know this in advance, you can anticipate it as well.

A communication campaign

So, there are very good reasons why communication is an important part of change management. Communication plans are developed that determine exactly what you want to communicate to whom, via which channel, in what way, at which times, and so on. Once you get started, there’s more involved than you realise beforehand, but it’s well worth the effort. The members of our BPMNetwork confirm this, too:Repeated communication and the techniques of change management are the traditional methods of involving everyone. Try to involve employees who are not actively working on a particular improvement project as early as possible as well.

More innovative methods for warming everyone up to the ultimate goal are, for example: contests for the best project with posters, or a process day in which information as well as training is provided.

What initiatives does your company provide to make sure no employees are left out in the cold?