Processes And Procedures

The organization where I work has been trying hard to put a system in place where in everything will be process driven.You want to apply for a leave.Then what you have to do is log into the leave system.Log in your details.Apply for the leave to your manager.

You have some queries regarding the transportation.Log into the transportation portal.click on the clarification link.Your query will be sent via an e-mail to the concerned authorities.

Though it has been successful to a great extent in making the lives of the employees smoother,what I feel is that it is really loosing the touch of being an organization where in employees felt that they are cared about & listened to.

I remember reading Peter Drucker in one of his books that effective organizations have lot of well built processes embedded to their work culture.But what happens when these processes are followed by people blindly with out having their own discretionary power being used.

Take an example.The other day I was traveling by the office bus to the office.As soon as the bus reached the bus terminal,the bus driver in place of keeping the bus at a place which will be nearer to the departure,took the bus to the position where he was asked to keep the bus every day.The terminal was totally vacant & there was no possibility of a bus coming in for next half an hour as this was the last bus.

The other day one of our partners' personnel who came for being trained with us wanted to avail the office transportation facility as the local transportation was very time consuming.I had to send a mail asking the dept. if some thing can be done about this.15 days passed by with out any reply from the concerned dept..One fine day out of irritation I had to send a reminder to the concerned people asking for the updates.Then only the person entrusted with this activity came back over phone giving me all the details.But it did not serve any purpose as the personnel had to leave after a very small period & he was not willing to fork out that much for a small usage of the transport.

Why to go to other dept.s.Even managers in my unit rarely bother to use their discretionary power(Except the cases where their interest is involved).You have not followed the procedures,your queries & concerns will go unanswered.

Now building a system & a lot of processes are good.But is it always good to be process oriented always.Can't the system & process go wrong???? Doesn't this build bureaucracy to the organization???

The system & processes are made looking at some of the factors which are very dynamic & they don't remain stagnant.But processes remain the same year after year.After how much time & after what duration the processes should be looked into for change is a very debatable question which does not have a clear answer.

Let the organizations have well defined processes.Along with that let the people implementing the processes be educated enough so that they can use the process as well as their discretionary power in an effective way & to the satisfaction of all.