Process Design: Five Critical Steps to Unlock Productivity

Organisations rarely fail due to lack of talent or effort. They struggle due to lack of work flow. Task duplication, fragmented information and slow decision pathways reduce effective capacity, increase cost and constrain scalability. For CEOs, these issues have direct commercial implications: they erode margins, slow time-to-market, weaken customer experience, elevate operational risk and force headcount expansion rather than productivity gains. All of that leads to organisational loss of agility, speed and therefore ability to compete.

A major European productivity study found that employees lose an average of 15 hours (nearly 40%) per week due to inefficient processes (Ricoh Europe, 2019). The same study reported that 60% of decision makers and 44% of office workers experienced errors due to outdated or fragmented information. In the UK context, organisational complexity tied to inefficient processes, disconnected systems and tool sprawl has been estimated to cost enterprises up to £32 billion per year in lost productivity, rework and employee fatigue, with productivity drag estimated at around 7% of annual revenue (Freshworks/ITPro, 2025).

Decision bottlenecks further compound the issue. McKinsey’s State of Organisations research (2023) highlights that decision latency is a top barrier to scalability in knowledge-intensive firms, noting that companies with faster decision-making are more likely to achieve above-peer performance across financial and operational metrics.

Considering the above, process design becomes strategic infrastructure. CEOs who ignore organisational friction eventually pay for it, both financially and by losing to competition.

Why HR Should Care

Process redesign is often assigned to transformation, operations or IT functions. However, processes are human systems first: they are executed by people, shaped by culture, enabled by capability and governed through decision rights. Duplication and bottlenecks frequently originate in unclear roles, misaligned rewards and incentives, low trust and psychological safety around decision-making, insufficient training, weak knowledge-sharing infrastructure, poor governance and lack of alignment. From this angle, process design becomes a matter of organisational structure and capability, trust and empowerment, leadership behaviours, governance and accountability. It places HR at the heart of process design.

Planning board filled with strategic notes and diagrams, highlighting key aspects of production and marketing processes.

Key Steps for Effective Process Design

There are five critical steps to redesigning processes in a way that eliminates duplication, accelerates decisions and improves productivity.

Step 1: Define the Strategic Purpose

Processes must serve a clear business purpose. Whether to improve speed, reduce risk, ensure compliance, enhance customer experience or lower cost-to-serve - process design should have clear goals to prevent over-engineering and misalignment.

Step 2: Diagnose the Current State

Redesign should begin with evidence. This means understanding how work actually flows by mapping workflows, handovers, decision points, examining escalation and approval points, identifying duplication, rework, parallel tasks, surfacing shadow processes; identify any capability gaps. Established techniques such as Value Stream Mapping (Lean Enterprise Institute) and SIPOC analysis (ASQ Six Sigma Body of Knowledge) help with this exercise.

Step 3: Clarify Roles, Ownership and Decision Rights

Governance failures (not capability failures) create most bottlenecks. Tools such as the RACI model (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) clarify who owns outcomes, who decides and who needs visibility. McKinsey has found that clarity over decision rights strongly correlates with organisational speed and execution effectiveness. Pushing decisions to the lowest competent level increases velocity, reduces escalations and improves autonomy. Sometimes it means reshuffling organisational design to remove task duplication and streamlining roles. This has to be done with future capabilities and critical roles in mind.

Step 4: Design for Simplicity and Scalability

Good design removes friction before automation is introduced. Academic studies have shown that process complexity is correlated with slower output times, with structural complexity explaining a significant share of performance delay variability (Vidgof, Wurm & Mendling, 2023). Simplifying tasks, standardising templates and data fields and defining paths create consistency and reduce duplication. Make sure there people in the roles are selected and trained in line with the skills required for the role. Knowledge assets such as playbooks, templates, scripts, checklists enable scaling without reinventing work. Engage key stakeholders to test the design, create engagement and come up with the best solution.

Step 5: Enable Execution Through People and Systems

Once design is complete, execution depends on capability, tools and culture. Workflow platforms, integrated knowledge systems and AI-enabled triage increase output, but only when paired with training, decision clarity and leadership reinforcement. This includes:

• Aligning technology and automation with simplified workflows;

• Building capability through structured training and onboarding;

• Reinforcing trust-based decision making norms;

• Providing channels for clarification and continuous feedback;

• Measuring impact.

How to Measure Impact

Measurement should capture both internal productivity and external value creation.

Internal indicators include reductions in cycle times, approval delays, rework, error rates, dependency on escalations and duplication of effort. Improvements in autonomy, reduction in cost and headcount, revenue and productivity per FTE, time to productivity for new hires are meaningful internal signals.

External indicators include faster delivery cycles, improved SLA adherence, higher customer satisfaction, fewer complaints, reduced cost, improved margin. Boards recognise these as tangible commercial outcomes.

Conclusion

Process design determines how efficiently an organisation converts effort into output. When duplication, frequent rework and bottlenecks are removed, organisations gain capacity, decision velocity, become faster, more resilient and more scalable without adding headcount. For CEOs, the link to EBITDA, customer experience and competitive advantage is direct. For HR and transformation leaders, process design represents a practical lever that connects people, culture and organisational design to measurable performance.

References

Ricoh Europe (2019), “The Economy of People Study”.

Freshworks/ITPro (2025), “Software Complexity & UK Business Productivity”.

McKinsey & Company (2023), “The State of Organisations 2023”.