Our client is one of the top British digital agencies. The end Client offers assessment services to businesses and job opportunities for people with disabilities. In this case study, we can share some of the features we helped the company to develop. So the Client is the company that works to provide the services of the workplace assessment to businesses. As soon as the job is a good fit for people with special needs, the Client needs specially adjusted software so that the assessors can work freely and conveniently. Thus, the company helps people with special needs to live to the fullest and use all their potential on the job and at home. The part that the AWG team did for the Client was facilitating assessment flow automation by improving an automating the next processes:
- assessment booking
- assessor diary management
- assessment task flow
- report generation
Problem
The Company wanted to automate the routine tasks of performing the assessment of the workplace. These tasks include but are not limited to booking the assessment, managing the assessor’s diary, managing task flow, and generating reports about accessibility compliance. To assist the assessor with reports and everything, the application to work with is designed according to the requirements of the AAA accessibility level, which means that people with special needs will use the app easily. As a result, the workflow is fully accessible and easy for all people regardless of their physical and mental specialties. Without the app, assessors were spending too much time to fill in the reports.
When the AWG team was solving the problem, we identified several specific issues.
Booking
All assessment requests were made via phone, and all info was stored in separate Google spreadsheets, which were filled manually. The manager had to accept the request, filled in all info, and needed to book a time slot for an assessor in the resource planning spreadsheet. As a result, the process was really time-consuming.
Manual report creation
All assessment processes were made offline. Therefore, after the assessments were done, the inspector had to create reports manually, which took many working hours. Moreover, if the assessment scenario was not planned well, the assessor had to arrange more meetings/calls with the employer and the employee to find out the missing info.
Recommendations on improvements
After assessing and creating a report, the assessor needed to spend significant amounts of time on creating recommendations for improving working conditions and budgeting. It was a long manual process, as well.
Solutions
To solve the problem described above, the AWG team developed a solution that allowed to automate the processes described above.
More specifically, the approach is described below:
- For booking, we transferred assessment requests online.
No longer a manager needs to accept the orders for assessment services as soon as the booking is implemented online via The Company’s website. This move reduced the manager’s manual work and reduced request processing delays. Applicants can check the assessors’ calendar and book the time slot that fits best.
- For reporting, Alpha Web Group enabled the assessor to use a tablet to fill the report during the assessment.
The use of the tablet saves the assessor’s time and ensures the necessary information is added. The scenario of assessments was planned in detail, and the assessor just had to follow it. What’s important here is that the assessor needed a special design of the app to fit his or her possible special needs of using a screen reader.
- For creating recommendations on the improvement of conditions and budgeting, the assessor has got a list of possible improvements.
This part has also involved applying a special design for the app so that the assessor could click the necessary points in the report. After all, it was nice to have the budget for improvements created automatically. This added more competitive advantage to the services offered by the assessor on the market.
Results
For this project with The Company that is one of the top digital agencies in Great Britain, we had to be very careful and innovative in the approach while improving their assessment workflow. Also, we needed to keep in mind that the applications and the hardware used by the assessors needed to be ready for use with screen readers and other appliances that help people with special needs to work with digital documents.
So, we automated the workflow while maintaining it simple, and thus increased the effectiveness and ease of the job duties of the assessors. Within the project, we used such services as analytics and web development, and we used Drupal as the main technology to rely on.
In the end, we successfully fulfilled the project's goal to automate workplace assessment workflow tasks as well as the processes of assessment, reporting, and creating recommendations for the customer who ordered the assessment services. Thanks to this automation, the monitoring process became more flexible and effective, and the booking and the data management got quicker and easier. As a result, The Company saves time for the assessor and maintains an automated workflow that is highly effective for the company and the employees. As a result, The Company reduced the workload for its employees, thus increasing work effectiveness and reducing the costs.
If you want to improve your business workflows' effectiveness and reduce your costs by minimizing the routine for employees, we are here to help with automation and the rest. Just contact us for the individual solution for your business.