IRRV - Insight June 2009
From managing documents to managing performance...
Introduction
Revenues and Benefits Services led the way in adopting Document Management but, as Catherine Black and Nigel McAvoy explain, to get the most out of Document Management software you have to do more than just install it.
The evolution of Document Management
It is easy to forget how revolutionary document management was. More than just minimising storage costs, enabling backups and reducing the time to access documents, document management, through simply providing the ability to view a document simultaneously from multiple locations, provided massive scope for services to reorganise how work was done.
With advances in telecommunications access to documents can now be provided securely and cheaply at remote offices, employee’s homes and even on the move. Furthermore with the convergence of Document Management with other technologies such as e-forms, workflow and business intelligence the scope for changing how services are delivered has increased even more.
Nigel McAvoy, Managing Director of Destin Solutions explains, “The direct savings Document Management systems make are relatively small and are limited to reduced storage costs and improved retrieval times. The real benefit is in what they enable. Some of our clients have improved productivity by 40% through initiatives such as Home Working or creating a dedicated Front Office which would have been impossible or difficult without Document Management being in place.”
Performance management using workflow
Nowhere is this more evident than at Dumfries and
“Critically information is collected by our Document Management system on every piece of work from initiation to completion. This information is a key input into our approach to managing staff performance and improving our processes”.
How it is done
Nigel explains how the Dumfries and
“However to make this work the design and maintenance of the workflows is critical. Not only are they routing work through your organisation they are now collecting data that you will use to analyse and forecast performance.
Once you have that right it is all about delivering the information to the right people at the right time in the right way. Heads of Service will want summary information on the whole of their Service, Principal Officers will need more detailed information on their areas of responsibility, Supervisors want information on their team members and Assessors will want to see their contribution to the Service.
It’s all about attitude
Getting to this point required a lot of commitment from staff. As Catherine explains “Changing how you work is going to cost you productivity in the short term as you adapt so there is always the temptation to revert back to doing things the old way. The key to our success was always having a clear vision of what we wanted and having the management commitment at every level to achieve it.”
Nigel concludes, “ Dumfries now have a great tool to assist them in managing performance but more important is their willingness, at every level, to constantly strive for improvement. Without this attitude performance management is just an empty exercise”.
Getting to this point required a lot of commitment from staff. As Catherine explains “Changing how you work is going to cost you productivity in the short term as you adapt so there is always the temptation to revert back to doing things the old way. The key to our success was always having a clear vision of what we wanted and having the management commitment at every level to achieve it.”
Nigel concludes, “
