Building a SYSTEM that can withstand turnover

If I could make a word cloud of what I say every day I think “SYSTEM” would be at the top. I say it on repeat: “Where is your system for that?”

Oftentimes I get this response: “I told everyone about it”.

Argh. sigh. Deep Breaths. $@(#%^!(^$#%(@&&. Internal eye roll.

“Telling everyone about it” is NOT a system. So what IS a system?
A system is something that can withstand major turnover without a blip in service execution.
Remember all those people that you “told”? Let’s say all those people quit tomorrow with notice. Yes, it can happen. Now what are you going to do? How are you going to make sure that the next group of people you are training know all the things and can execute seamlessly?

At our company we use asana as our system work platform and are obsessed with it. EVERYTHING we do is housed in this system. We joke that our workflows are so tight that unless we have a task to go to the bathroom, we just may forget.
How do we use it?

Everything has a workflow. We have a workflow for everything from “Monitoring online reviews” to “Safety Committee” to “Employee Engagement” to “Maintaining website SEO” to “Employee File Maintenance”.
Within each workflow we build out EVERY task that must be done to complete that workflow effectively. For example, our “Payroll workflow” includes tasks for every employee to submit their time cards per protocol, for every manager to review time cards for accuracy against schedule, for finance to review for OT payments, for HR to review for benefits eligibility, and for Directors to double check the work and review reports.

The tasks are repeating with our pay cycle within our payroll workflow.
The tasks are built out with instructions, google docs and double check bullet points and sub-tasks.
What “Completes” the system? We have tasks for Directors to review the workflow periodically to make sure ALL new and current employees and managers are accurately accounted for in the tasks. We then have someone assigned to review the workflow each pay period to make sure all tasks were done by the deadline and to follow up as needed. We then have another person assigned to review the workflow monthly to make sure that any problems that occurred are now accounted for with new tasks or revised tasks.

BOOM. We do this for EVERYTHING in our company. Note how nothing in this system involved me “telling people”. I simply say “check your asana”.

What happens if someone unexpectedly turns over? We immediately re-assign their tasks. Though there may be sadness about the person turning over, there is no panic about the work. This gives us the opportunity to focus on higher level processes and team engagement vs. worrying about who is going to do what and where the information is. Our SYSTEM doesn’t shut down because someone holds all the info in their head — the info is clearly displayed in an organized and effective way for ALL to see.
Then the fun part of the game is simply managing the processes and engaging people while you go.

Systems + Accountability = Bliss.

#lockitup

See more at: https://medium.com/@carmensample